Teen Defendant Cries on Stand at Murder Trial

Teenager Michael Demirdjian took the witness stand Thursday and denied killing his two friends at a La Crescenta playground, saying that another man choked and stoned the victims while he stood and watched.

“I didn’t know what was going on at first,” the 16-year-old boy tearfully told jurors in Pasadena Superior Court. “I was high.”

Demirdjian also admitted Thursday that he repeatedly lied when detectives questioned him about where he was the night of the crime and about incriminating evidence they found at his house.

“You are on the witness stand [now] and you have sworn to tell the truth?” asked Deputy Dist. Atty. Steve Barshop.

“Yes,” Demirdjian replied.

Prosecutors contend that Demirdjian robbed and killed 14-year-old Blaine Talmo Jr. and 13-year-old Christopher McCulloch on the night of July 22 last year because he was angry about losing $660 five days earlier in a drug deal. Blaine had introduced Demirdjian to an alleged marijuana dealer, Adam Walker, a 19-year-old who took Demirdjian’s money without giving him drugs in return, Barshop said.

On Thursday, Demirdjian told jurors that Blaine and Christopher were his friends, and that Walker killed them.

On the afternoon of July 22 last year, he, Blaine and Christopher hung out together, Demirdjian said, playing basketball.

“We decided to smoke some weed, so we called Adam,” Demirdjian said under questioning by his attorney, Charles T. Mathews.

After Walker joined them, the four “jumped the fence” at Valley View Elementary School, Demirdjian said. “We starting drinking and smoking . . . marijuana.”

Blaine then went to sleep, Demirdjian said. Suddenly, Walker “starts grabbing Chris by the throat,” Demirdjian said, and Blaine woke up and intervened. “Then Adam grabbed him by the throat and started choking him.

“Then he got a rock and threw it at [Christopher’s] head.” Demirdjian began to cry. “He threw a rock at Blaine, too.”

Demirdjian said Walker put his ear to the chest of one of the boys to see if he was dead.

Walker then searched the victims’ pockets and tossed Blaine’s wallet to Demirdjian, which he caught, he said. “After that I just ran.”

When he got home, he washed his clothes and shoes, and then threw them away because they were stained with blood, Demirdjian said.

“Do you recall having blood on your hands, the blood of your friends?” Barshop asked.

Demirdjian said yes.

At times, the youth spoke so softly that Pasadena Superior Court Judge Joseph F. De Vanon as well as Demirdjian’s own lawyer asked him to speak up. The boy’s voice was loud and clear, however, in police interview tapes prosecutors played in court.

In one tape, Demirdjian said over and over again that he was never at Valley View Elementary School, where the crime occurred, on the night of the slayings.

Demirdjian also denied that he ever tried to buy $660 worth of marijuana from Walker or that Walker cheated him.

He said he never met two other teenagers--associates of Walker who testified Tuesday under grants of immunity--who identified him in court as the boy whom Walker “ripped off.”

Barshop held up a travel clock that Blaine had carried shortly before he was killed. Police later found the clock in Demirdjian’s kitchen trash.

“Why did you tell the police the clock was yours?” Barshop asked. “At the time, you said, ‘Look, I’m telling you the truth now.’ And you lied to them then.”

As he walked from the courthouse Thursday, Christopher’s stepfather, Scott Bristow, shook his head at the testimony he just heard.

“[Demirdjian’s] lying through his teeth,” Bristow said. “He tries to make up stories as he goes along.”