Slain Teen’s Friends Reflect on Their Loss

The stabbing death of a popular 15-year-old girl a week ago at a party in an upscale Westside neighborhood prompted classmate Tim Livingston to put pen to paper to express his sense of grief--and guilt.

Livingston, also 15, was among a group of five boys who traveled by bus from Santa Monica to Westwood with Deanna Maran to a Nov. 17 party at the home of a friend of a friend. It was there that Maran was stabbed to death, police say, by a 17-year-old girl, who collapsed and died of an apparent drug overdose the next day while being questioned by authorities.

It was Livingston who carried the mortally wounded Maran to a car for a frantic trip from the Thayer Avenue residence to the hospital. The 10th-grader died a short time later.

Wrote Livingston in an anguished poem he titled “Deanna”:

So many times I’ve replayed this horrible night in my head,

Maybe I could’ve done something and you wouldn’t be dead.

On Friday, a group of Maran’s friends gathered at Livingston’s West Los Angeles home to talk about the loss of Maran. And about the loss of their own innocence.

“I keep asking myself: What if we’d missed the bus? What if we’d gone to a movie instead of that party?” said Todd Baynes, also 15, of Santa Monica. “You go to so many high school parties and nothing happens. You don’t expect anything like this to happen.”

No Surprise That Parents Weren’t Home

Classmate Russell Rathner, 15, also on the bus ride to the party, said he wasn’t surprised to discover parents were not at the home of the Milken High School student throwing the party.

“The whole reason for parties is that parents aren’t there,” Rathner said. At times like that, Maran would pitch in to pick up trash, wipe up spills and make certain things didn’t get out of hand.

“Deanna always acted as a supervisor to make certain everything went right,” Rathner said.

Maran was that kind of take-charge person, the teens said.

Energetic, hard-working and thoughtful, she worked as a greeter at the same Venice restaurant--the Firehouse--where her older sisters, Amika, Bianca and Claudia, had once worked.

A straight-A student, she also was a member of Santa Monica High School’s track, water polo and volleyball teams. She would lug a stereo and CDs to practice sessions so teammates would have music to warm up to.

In school, Maran had the ability to shush other talkative teens without provoking an argument or coming across as a teacher’s pet.

“Deanna always stood up for what was right,” said Julian Mehra, 15.

So none of her friends batted an eye when Maran confronted a 15-year-old Brentwood girl who apparently had broken two backyard flower pots and damaged a stairway railing at the Nov. 17 party.

Half-Sister Called to Take Girl Home

The Brentwood girl called her half-sister, Katrina Sarkissian, to come pick her up and take her home. When Sarkissian arrived, a fight ensued between her and Maran, who allegedly was held to the ground by another girl while Sarkissian pummeled her and, police said, then stabbed her with an unknown object.

Sarkissian collapsed Sunday while being questioned by police in West Los Angeles. She died 3 1/2 hours later at UCLA Medical Center.

Although teens have debated whether she gulped a handful of sleeping pills to kill herself or to merely calm herself for the police interview, coroner’s officials said Friday that results of an autopsy are pending and their investigation is continuing. Sarkissian’s family could not be reached for comment.

Of the group that traveled with Maran to the party, Baynes had left in a taxi along with several other teens to return to Santa Monica by the time the stabbing occurred.

“My curfew’s at 12,” he said. “If it had looked like anything serious was going to happen I wouldn’t have left. If it had seemed uneasy I would have stayed.”

There was the typical high school-age razzing and egging-on by some others at the party who watched Maran and Sarkissian fight, the teens said.

When they saw she was bleeding, the teens decided to rush Maran to the hospital themselves instead of calling 911 and waiting for paramedics, they said. In the panic, they drove her to Santa Monica Hospital, which they were familiar with, instead of nearby UCLA Medical Center.

Rathner predicted that Maran’s death will change the way his generation of Westside teens looks at high school parties. Adult supervision--perhaps with security guards--may become the norm, he said.

Need to Talk About Reality of Violence

Anoushka Franke, an English teacher at Santa Monica High who was on hand for the teens’ gathering Friday, said the tragedy is an awful lesson for everyone.

“Hopefully, adults will realize that violence is a potential in any human group and any neighborhood and socioeconomic class,” Franke said.

Children are especially vulnerable because they are almost continuously exposed to sanitized, choreographed mayhem in movies, television and video games, she said.

“We need to talk about the reality of violence, that it’s not entertainment,” Franke said. “We need to discuss how you break up a fight and when you break it up.”

Anti-violence will be a theme of a memorial planned for Maran at 3:45 p.m. Monday at Santa Monica High’s Greek Theater, said Claudia Maran, 19. Parents Ilja and Harriet Maran, sisters Amika, 26, Bianca, 21, and brother Ilja, 10, will join her in spreading Deanna’s ashes Sunday in the ocean at her favorite beach in a private family ceremony.

The parents of Maran’s friends said the killing has shattered their peace of mind. Until now, many parents assumed their children were safe because they were with friends.

“These are intelligent, thinking kids who have had no resource to draw from in a situation like this,” Linda Livingston said.

Through his poem, son Tim Livingston had the final word:

Then I recall when I carried you to the car, your blood covered my arm.

Who in their right mind would ever do you any harm?

Shortly thereafter your blood was absorbed by my skin,

How lucky a person would be to have the blood of Deanna within.