He Didn’t Kill 2 Boys, Teenager Testifies

A teenager accused of murdering two friends at a La Crescenta playground testified Thursday a man choked and stoned the boys while he stood and watched.

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

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 because he was angry about losing $660 five days earlier in a drug deal. Talmo had introduced Demirdjian to Adam Walker, a 19-year-old who took Demirdjian’s money without giving him drugs in return, prosecutors said.

On Thursday, Demirdjian told jurors that Talmo and McCulloch were his friends, and that Walker killed the boys. Demirdjian’s attorney has said the attack was prompted by a sudden argument between Walker and McCulloch.

On the afternoon of the killing, he, Talmo and McCulloch had played basketball together, Demirdjian said.

“We decided to smoke some weed, so we called Adam,” Demirdjian said.

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

Talmo then fell asleep, Demirdjian said. Suddenly, Walker “starts grabbing Chris by the throat,” Demirdjian said, and Talmo woke up and intervened. “Then Adam grabbed him by the throat and started choking him.”

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

He put his head on the chest of one of the boys, he said, to see if he was dead.

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

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

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

In one tape, Demirdjian said repeatedly that he was never at Valley View Elementary that night.

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 the two teenage witnesses who had identified him in court Tuesday as the boy whom Walker had “ripped off.”

Deputy Dist. Atty. Steve Barshop held up a travel clock that Talmo carried shortly before he was killed. Police found it in Demirdjian’s kitchen trash after the murders.

“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 away from the courthouse Thursday, McCulloch’s stepfather, Scott Bristow, said that Demirdjian was “lying through his teeth. He tries to make up stories as he goes along.”