Slaying Evidence Burned, Police Say : Crime: Suspects tell of asking a neighbor to dispose of baseball bats, bloody pants and victim’s wallet in statements to investigators.

Police said Friday that they believe the baseball bats used to bludgeon Stuart A. Tay and other evidence were burned in fire pits near Balboa Pier.

Detectives from the Orange Police Department have recovered what appear to be the charred remnants of the bats and a zipper from one suspect’s pants.

Tay, a 17-year-old Foothill High School senior, was beaten and killed on New Year’s Eve, allegedly by five Sunny Hills High School students with whom he was planning to rob an Anaheim computer dealer.

In statements to police, some of the suspects said Robert Chan, the accused ringleader in the slaying, asked a neighbor to dispose of the bats, a pair of bloodied pants, a metal box, a large bag, and Tay’s wallet.

Orange Police Lt. Timm Browne said investigators interviewed the neighbor, then searched the Newport Beach fire pits. The pits had already been cleaned, so detectives rummaged through the trash bin used by cleanup crews.

There they found charred wood the “approximate size” of a baseball bat, along with “a metal object” that may have been the zipper, Browne said.

The neighbor will not be arrested as an accessory or for destroying evidence, police said.

“The individual didn’t know what he was doing,” Browne said, adding that the neighbor burned the bats and other material “on request” of one of the participants.

Police said they believe that Tay was the architect of the computer heist that went awry and may ultimately have led to his death.

Tay first met the Anaheim computer dealer about seven months ago, when the youth bought seven or eight computer components, worth about $1,000, to assemble a system.

The Anaheim dealer, who asked that his name not be used, said Tay and a classmate were running a small computer business from their homes. Since their initial meeting, the Anaheim dealer said he had only seen Tay once but had spoken to him several times on the telephone.

“He was using me more as a consultant than anything else,” the dealer said, explaining that Tay would call with questions about computer systems and he would walk him through the solutions over the phone.

A few days before Tay disappeared, he called the computer dealer for computer advice. “It was a minor problem,” the dealer recalled. “I told him what to do, and he said, ‘OK, now it’s working.”’

The four juvenile suspects, Abraham Acosta, 16, Charles Bae Choe, 17, Mun Bong Kang, 17, and Kirn Young Kim, 17, have all pleaded not guilty. They are scheduled for a hearing Feb. 5 to determine whether they will be tried as adults.

Chan, 18, who could face the death penalty, is scheduled to be arraigned Jan. 22.

Times staff writer Timothy Chou contributed to this article.