Armenians are REALLY making a name for themselves

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Armenians are REALLY making a name for themselves here in Los Angeles, CA. Aside from defrauding California of almost $1 Billion (yes...with a "B"), we're now violent killers. This is the second incident involving young aged people being murdered by Armenians. GOD help us. Teen Charged As Adult in Murders .c The Associated Press >GLENDALE, Calif. (AP) - A 15-year-old boy was charged as an adult Wednesday in the deaths of two younger boys whose beaten bodies were found in a >schoolyard.

>Michael H. Demirdjian was charged with murder and two counts of robbery. Police also were investigating the role of a 19-year-old arrested in the case. If convicted, Demirdjian could face a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole. Because of his age, prosecutors cannot seek the death penalty. >The bodies of Christopher McCulloch, 13, and Blaine Talmo Jr., 14, were found Sunday on a school playground. A neighbor said a concrete bench was atop one victim's throat and a rock was by the other boy's head. Police have declined to discuss a possible motive for the slayings. Earlier, police said the deaths were not gang-related and were not a random attack.

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Charge Reduced for 1 of 2 Suspects in Fatal Beatings

Crime: Adam Walker, 19, first arrested on suspicion of murder in slaying of two

teens, is now being held in an unrelated burglary case.

 

By JEFFREY GETTLEMAN, SOLOMON MOORE, Times Staff Writers

 

 

Glendale police on Thursday painted a picture of an increasingly complex and

wide-ranging investigation into the deaths of the two boys bludgeoned on a schoolyard,

and changed the allegations against one suspect from murder to burglary.

Police said Adam Walker, 19, who had originally been arrested on suspicion of

murder in the case, was being held Thursday on an unrelated charge of attempted

residential burglary in Burbank.

Glendale Police Capt. Mike Post said he couldn't explain, without compromising the

investigation, why the murder allegations against Walker were dropped.

Before taking Walker into custody on Tuesday, police arrested Michael H.

Demirdjian, a 15-year-old from La Crescenta, who remains in jail on murder and

robbery charges.

"Information has been developed each day that keeps changing the focus of this

investigation," Post said. "The complexity of this case, the things leading up to this and

all the players will amaze you, when we can release all the information."

Post said that information may not be made public for at least another month. He

heads a team of 20 investigators who have spent the past five days scouring the area for

clues, with some detectives working 48 hours straight.

The investigative team has questioned more than 60 people, trolled through schools,

peered into storm drains, searched three homes and returned repeatedly to Valley View

Elementary School in La Crescenta, where Blaine Talmo Jr., 14, and Chris McCulloch,

13, were found dead Sunday evening on a blood-soaked playground.

 

'United in Their Grief'

On Thursday afternoon, Blaine's parents, Alana and Blaine Talmo Sr., and Chris'

mother, Aileen Bristow, appeared together at the school. Tears in their eyes, they

viewed the spreads of flowers, rows of candles and notes to the boys arranged on the

school fence and sidewalk.

Hugging each other, the parents stepped slowly away from the memorial as a family

friend asked reporters to let them grieve in private.

"The one thing they want everyone to know is that they are united in their grief," said

the friend, Brad Welker.

Several teenagers who knew Blaine and Chris said the two friends were

skateboarders who had recently shifted toward a tougher group of kids and begun to

use and deal drugs.

Drugs may have played a role in the schoolyard killings, said Glendale Police

spokesman Chahe Keuroghelian.

"It could have involved drugs, it could have involved robbery," Keuroghelian said.

"This investigation is becoming more and more challenging each day, and it's been

difficult for our investigators to pinpoint a concrete motive."

Police have remained tight-lipped about what their investigation has turned up, and

it's not clear how police were led to Walker, a recent graduate of Crescenta Valley

High School who lived in Montrose.

Burbank Sgt. Kelly Frank said Walker was among a group of six or seven young

men that Burbank police officers stopped Tuesday on Glenoaks Boulevard on

suspicion of stealing bikes and stereos from homes.

When Walker was questioned about the burglaries, the names of the two slain boys

kept coming up, Frank said, without elaborating.

"Obviously this guy Walker knew more about what happened at the school than he

was telling us," Frank said.

Burbank detectives called their counterparts in Glendale, and after interrogating

Walker, Glendale detectives took him into custody, Frank said.

 

Differing Accounts

But a slightly different account was offered by Burbank Police Sgt. Doyle Holm,

who said Walker was first arrested by Glendale police and transferred to Burbank

later.

Glendale investigators were not available Thursday night to comment on the

discrepancy.

Walker was named as a murder suspect Wednesday morning in an official police

news release. But a few hours later, Glendale detectives concluded they didn't have

enough evidence to detain Walker on suspicion of murder and sent him back to jail in

Burbank on burglary allegations, Frank said.

Walker, who used to be a desk attendant at the Verdugo Hills YMCA, was being

held Thursday on $30,000 bail for one count of attempted burglary

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News from Glendale in the Times Community Newspapers

 

Attorney asks police for polygraph

Lawyer for boy accused of beating deaths was awaiting Glendale agency' response

Wednesday afternoon.

 

By AMBER WILLARD

 

 

LA CRESCENTA -- The attorney for Michael Demirdjian, the sole suspect in

custody for the beating deaths of two boys on a playground last week, was still waiting

Wednesday afternoon for a response from Glendale Police to his request for a

polygraph test for his client.

Attorney Charles Mathews said he and the 15-year-old Demirdjian want the 'lie

detector' test because the boy is not the killer and has nothing to hide.

"Michael insists he's innocent," Mathews said. "The Glendale Police are pursuing

smoke when they have the fire right now."

If Glendale police will not agree to perform the test, Mathews said he will appeal to

the L.A. County Sheriff's Department for the service.

Citing their news blackout concerning information about the case, police officials

declined to comment about Mathews' claims as well as the investigation of the slayings.

Demirdjian, who has been in police custody since July 24, is being held at a juvenile

detention center but will be tried as an adult on two murder with special circumstances

charges. The La Crescenta teen lived a block away from Valley View Elementary

School, where the bodies of Christopher McCulloch and Blaine Talmo Jr. were found

as night fell on July 23.

"Everybody wants somebody to be accountable for this crime, but it has to be the

right person," Mathews said.

Mathews said Demirdjian witnessed the boy's murders but had no part in them. The

Pasadena attorney would not say who choked the boys and bludgeoned them to death

about 10 p.m. July 22.

"It was the local neighborhood drug dealer," Mathews said of the adult teen who

Demirdjian claims killed his friends. Demirdjian, who is willing to testify against the

killer, told Mathews that he met the man and Blaine two weeks prior to the slayings and

befriended Chris a few months before.

Demirdjian, whose ancestry is white and African American, was adopted as a child

by an Armenian family, Mathews said.

The boys, who had spent July 22 roaming La Crescenta, called the man to join them

at the school and the group smoked marijuana and drank hard liquor mixed with soda

that the man brought, as well as some wine the boys had, Mathews said.

Blaine, who told friends he had been kicked out of his house and was sleeping on a

blanket at the school, passed out and Chris and the man started fighting, Mathews said

Demirdjian told him. Mathews said he did not know what the two were fighting about

when the man started choking Christopher.

"Chris couldn't utter anything," Mathews said when asked about neighbors who said

they did not hear any cries for help from the schoolyard.

As the man was assaulting Christopher, Blaine woke up and tried to come to his aid,

which enraged the man further and he turned on Blaine, the attorney said.

The fight happened very quickly and Demirdjian, who had sneaked out of his house

to go to the school, did not interfere because he was shocked by what he was seeing

and feared the man would attack him, Mathews explained. After the man had choked

Christopher and was assaulting Blaine, Michael knelt near Christopher, who was 13.

"When he checked on Chris, Michael got blood on him. There was blood

everywhere," Mathews said.

The man looked through Blaine's pockets and threw the 14-year-old's wallet at

Demirdjian, who was in a marijuana- and alcohol-induced stupor, Mathews said.

The gravity of what he had witnessed clicked into place and Demirdjian ran home

from the school, Blaine's wallet still in his hand, Mathews said his client told him.

"He's the only guy they can physically connect to the crime ... but it sounds like

they're fishing," Mathews said of police, who have released six of the seven people

arrested in connection with the slayings.

Demirdjian did not tell anyone about the attack for fear he would become a victim

and now fears for the safety of his family, his attorney said.

"He told his dad to get a gun," Mathews said.

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Teen's Lawyer Offers Account of 2 Killings

Crime: Attorney says his client saw man kill the boys after alcohol and drugs had left

the pair incapacitated.

 

By SOLOMON MOORE, Times Staff Writer

 

 

In the most detailed account yet of the events leading up to the deaths of two La

Crescenta boys in a schoolyard playground, the defense attorney for the sole suspect in

the murder case said the tragedy followed a long round of drinking and drug use.

Charles T. Mathews, counsel for 15-year-old Michael Demirdjian, proclaimed his

client's innocence but said the boy had witnessed the killings, which the teen claimed

were committed by an adult male acquaintance.

"It happened very quickly," Mathews said in an interview at his Pasadena law office.

 

The bodies of the two victims, Blaine Talmo Jr., 14, and Christopher McCulloch,

13, were found July 23 on a secluded playground at Valley View Elementary School.

Mathews said the victims were attacked after consuming hard liquor and smoking

marijuana, which had made them drowsy.

"Strangulation was the incapacitating factor; the instrument of death was something

else," Mathews said. "My client says they were choked out and then clubbed with a

rock."

Demirdjian, his senses dulled by marijuana and alcohol, was confounded and

paralyzed by the brutality of the attack, Mathews said. Mathews did not identify the

alleged killer by name.

"He feared to do anything for fear the guy would do the same thing to him,"

Mathews said.

Mathews conceded that police may have physical evidence linking his client to the

scene, including a bloody shoe. He said Demirdjian checked one of the boys bleeding

on the ground thinking he might be alive, and then fled to his home a few hundred feet

down the street.

The Glendale Police Department has imposed a news blackout on the case, citing

the continuing investigation, and department spokesmen did not return calls for

comment on Mathews' remarks.

In addition to Demirdjian, Glendale police have arrested six people in connection

with the case, according to the district attorney's office. But prosecutors have declined

to file charges related to the deaths against any of the others.

* * *

None of those arrested remain in custody except for one man who has been

charged with burglary in an unrelated case.

Demirdjian pleaded not guilty Tuesday to charges of murder with special

circumstances and robbery in the deaths of Blaine and Christopher.

Mathews faxed a letter to Glendale police Wednesday requesting that Demirdjian

undergo a polygraph test to prove his innocence. Police had not responded by

Wednesday night, Mathews said.

Mathews said Demirdjian, the two victims and the adult acquaintance were the only

people at the Valley View school playground at the time of the attack.

The lawyer described Demirdjian as a somewhat troubled only child who was

adopted by his Armenian parents as an infant and struggled with his ethnic identity.

He is of mixed white and African American ancestry, and speaks fluent Armenian,

Mathews said.

Demirdjian lives in a racially mixed neighborhood where his neighbors are mostly

white, Armenian or Korean.

"He experienced some difficulty in that neighborhood," Mathews said. "He doesn't

appear to be black or white, and sometimes had trouble fitting in."

Mathews said Demirdjian was a student at Voyager Charter School for at-risk

students, where he played youth football and was named rookie of the year for his

league.

Mathews also acknowledged that Demirdjian sometimes used drugs.

In the hours preceding their deaths July 23, Blaine and Christopher walked with

Demirdjian from New York Park in La Crescenta to Foothill Boulevard, where they

went to a Subway restaurant, Mathews said.

After stopping at a Vons supermarket, they returned to New York Park to meet a

friend, who Mathews said did not show up. As night fell, they walked to the playground

in back of Valley View Elementary.

"On the way, they acquired alcohol," said Mathews, although he would not say how.

 

* * *

The adult acquaintance joined them sometime later and brought hard liquor.

Mathews said he did not know who supplied the marijuana that all four of them

smoked.

When Blaine fell asleep and Demirdjian fell into a drug-induced stupor, Mathews

said, an argument broke out between Christopher and the adult.

"The perpetrator choked Chris out and as Chris was incapacitated, Blaine woke up

and attempted to intervene," Mathews said.

He said the man dropped a concrete bench on Christopher, and struck him with a

rock. "Then, he finished off Blaine," Mathews said.