Murder Case Haunts Teens Not Charged

La Crescenta residents say they want answers. After nine months of investigation, five teenagers have been identified as suspects in the bludgeoning murders of two boys on a school playground. So why is 16-year-old Michael Demirdjian the only one who has faced prosecution?

“Everybody always talks about it: ‘How come they haven’t arrested more people?’ ” said Frank Hoogenhuizen, who discovered the bodies last July as he was watering his lawn. “If it’s the Mafia, they know how to get away with crimes. But these are kids here. What is going on?”

The killings of Chris McCulloch, 13, and Blaine Talmo, 14, who were beaten beyond recognition, sent waves of shock and revulsion through a hillside community where violent crime is rare. Then another jolt came during Demirdjian’s trial, when prosecutors began publicly talking about four other suspects who haven’t been charged.

Now, a month later, no new arrests have been made and prosecutors will not comment on why. The four teenagers have told police that they had nothing to do with the murders, and none were called to testify at Demirdjian’s murder trial. Police officials say the investigation is continuing.

“Damian Kim, Joseph Song, Marian Kim and Paul Kim . . . are suspects in this double-homicide,” Deputy Dist. Attys. Steve Barshop and Truc Do wrote a motion in the Demirdjian prosecution, which ended last month in a hung jury. Song is 19 and the three Kims, who are not related, are 18. Demirdjian’s first trial ended in a mistrial when the jury could not agree on a verdict. Prosecutors intend to retry him in June.

The motion also included police statements about evidence obtained using scent-tracking dogs that the prosecutors claimed connected Damian Kim and Joseph Song to the crime scene at Valley View Elementary School. Throughout the trial, Barshop repeatedly referred to the other suspects.

At Crescenta Valley High School, where the victims would have been completing their freshman year and where two of the suspects are still enrolled, classmates said they felt rattled by the mistrial--and the prospect that more suspects may be at large.

“It’s kind of scary,” said 15-year-old Brooke Hines in front of the school.

School administrators said last week they were unaware that Marian Kim and Damian Kim, who are both seniors, had been identified as suspects. They later examined the court file and said they plan to meet with the two students and their parents today, possibly to remove them from the campus.

“We’ve alerted the district and we’re looking into the situation,” said co-principal Gary Talbert. “We’re anxious. We’re going to do all we can to keep our campus safe . . . but there’s also a danger in overreacting.”

Damian Kim said the public association of his name with the murders has been hard on him and his family.

“I go to school and people say bad things about me. Even teachers are looking at me the wrong way,” he said as his father and mother listened in the living room of their La Crescenta home. The parents’ eyes were clouded with worry. “I had nothing to do with the murders. I’ve never seen [Blaine and Chris] in my life. I’ve only seen their pictures in newspapers.”

He said Glendale police, who conducted the investigation, arrested him last year, but he was released when prosecutors declined to file charges. The police also searched his room and seized his computer, which he said still hasn’t been returned.

Damian Kim said he received two subpoenas to appear in court and was willing to testify during Demirdjian’s trial. He said the others named as uncharged suspects are his best friends.

“They seem to just keep suspecting us. But they’re investigating it for so long and by now they should know we had nothing to do with it,” Damian Kim said. “I think they’re incriminating the wrong people.”

When asked about testimony that a police dog connected him to the murder scene, he added: “They can say whatever they want but it’s all not true because I was never there.”

Paul Kim, a freshman at UC Irvine, said he wasn’t even arrested. The police questioned him, and he said he voluntarily provided DNA samples.

“To be honest, I don’t really know what’s going on with this case. I’m studying for my midterms right now,” he said. “About the murder, I know nothing. . . . They told me that right now I’m fine, but that I might have to go to court as a witness.

“Should I get a lawyer? I would really like to know what’s going on.”

Paul Kim said he would have been willing to testify.

He said he spent the night of July 22--the night of the slayings--in Palm Springs with Damian Kim and a few other people and didn’t return to La Crescenta until the next day.

No Reminders at Scene of Crime

At Valley View Elementary School, the blood-smeared playground slides were long ago replaced. A fresh coat of asphalt covers the spot where the victims once lay.

“First I was sad, then I was angry. Now I’m just confused,” said 14-year-old Sebastian Reed, who once played football with Blaine. “A lot of questions are unanswered. I still don’t get what happened. It’s, like, still unsolved.”

Many in the middle-class community said they have been agonizing over the mistrial and what it means.

“Our hearts are bleeding. But what can we do?” said Danette Erickson, a member of the Crescenta Valley Town Council. “There may be kids who know more but aren’t telling the police. I personally feel there may be a killer or more walking the streets.”

The wide-ranging and complicated case presented by the prosecution was based on the assertion that five days before the killings, a 19-year-old named Adam Walker took $660 from Demirdjian for a marijuana purchase, but then failed to produce the drugs. Part of the money belonged to Damian Kim, according to testimony. The deal came about after Blaine introduced Demirdjian to Walker, prosecutors said.

Demirdjian, Damian Kim and others then lured Walker into a would-be ambush in hopes of getting the money back, but Walker got away, a witness told the court. Prosecutors alleged that Blaine and Christopher were robbed and killed in what began as another attempt to get Walker.

In a police interview last July, Damian Kim admitted contributing $160 to the drug deal, but said that Walker returned his money a few hours before the slayings, according to court documents.

Joseph Song, Marian Kim and Paul Kim all told police that when they learned of the drug rip-off, they helped Damian Kim chase Walker to get his money back, the documents said. They also said that at the time of the slayings they were en route to Palm Springs, according to the documents.

Demirdjian testified that he stood by while Walker killed the boys. He said the four of them were drinking and smoking marijuana on the school playground when Walker began arguing with Chris. The defendant also alleged that Walker first knocked down Chris with a rock and, when Blaine intervened, killed him too.

Prosecutors said Walker is not a suspect. They argued that Demirdjian’s story is implausible, in part because police believe more than one person must have participated in the extreme violence--using a 16-pound rock, a 2-pound rock and a long bench weighing about 40 pounds--to overcome the two victims.

To show that others took part in the killings, the prosecution presented testimony that a police dog detected Damian Kim’s scent on the 16-pound rock next to Blaine’s head and Joseph Song’s scent on the bench found crushing Chris’ chest. Cellular phone records of a call between Demirdjian and Walker and then one between Demirdjian and Damian Kim before the slayings suggested that the two were trying to “set up” Walker again for another ambush, Barshop said.

Walker did not testify. His lawyer said he would invoke his 5th Amendment right against self-incrimination and remain silent if he is called as a witness, according to prosecutors. Walker was arrested last year but police released him and say he is no longer a suspect.

Now working at a record store, Walker said he has been lied about. “I want to put that behind me. I’m a born-again Christian now,” he added. He declined to discuss the case in detail, citing his attorney’s advice.

In the first trial, eight jurors voted to convict Demirdjian of the murders and four favored acquittal. The jury also split on two robbery counts.

Prosecutors would not say why they had disclosed the suspects’ names and the purported evidence against them without bringing charges. But Laurie Levenson, a criminal law professor at Loyola Law School and a former prosecutor, said the prosecution tactic is “certainly an unorthodox approach.”

“It’s also a dangerous strategy because it allows the defense to distract the jury,” Levenson said. “It sounds to me [as if] they don’t have enough evidence [to prosecute the other suspects]. Maybe they felt they had to give the big picture to the jury . . . to show the scope of their investigation and to disprove the defense theory.”

Demirdjian’s attorney, Charles T. Mathews, called the prosecution’s case “hocus-pocus and baloney.”

Joseph Song declined to comment. Marian Kim could not be reached.

Charles Beatty, the immediate past president of the Crescenta Valley Town Council, said there is “more to this case than meets the eye. [Demirdjian] very well could be innocent.”

“We could have it all wrong,” agreed Regine Ingram, a 13-year-old eighth-grader at Rosemont Middle School in La Crescenta, referring to the theories and rumors swirling around the case.

Adds Jessica MacKintosh, a 14-year-old eighth-grader: “They could have picked on two kids for the fun of it. We still don’t know what happened.”

Police Investigators Appeal for Patience

The Glendale Police Department, in the meantime, asks for the public’s patience.

“We’re continuing our investigation for evidence to bring other people to trial,” said Sgt. Rick Young, a department spokesman. Young noted that the department’s “Angel of Death” investigation, which examined suspicious patient deaths at Glendale Adventist Medical Center, took three years before former respiratory therapist Efrain Saldivar was charged in January with six counts of murder.

“We’re doing our best,” Young said. “This case is very technical, it takes time.”

A few weeks ago, the police went back to the playground with “some sort of measuring device,” said Hoogenhuizen’s wife, Grace.

Damian Kim, however, said the police should look elsewhere for suspects.

“They’ve been working on this case for so long. I don’t know why they’re still linking us to this,” Kim said. “We didn’t do anything.”