Judge to Allow Computer Evidence at Murder Trial

The computer of a 15-year-old accused of bludgeoning two other boys on a La Crescenta playground last year contained a violent poem and graphic photos of strangulation that echoed how the victims died, prosecutors said Monday.

Pasadena Superior Court Judge Joseph F. De Vanon ruled, over defense objections, that prosecutors could present the computer evidence at the murder trial.

With jury selection set to begin Wednesday, prosecutors also sought to exclude 17 potential witnesses, some of whom the defense says could be critical to proving Michael Hrayr Demirdjian’s innocence. Four of the witnesses are youths who prosecutors say are suspects in the double homicide.

“How utterly hypocritical can [prosecutors] be in seeking to exclude as witnesses people who they now acknowledge are suspects in this crime,” defense attorney Charles T. Mathews wrote in court papers. “In their zeal to convict an innocent young man it appears they have lost sight of what justice is all about.”

In court papers, prosecutors argued that five of the potential witnesses are expected to invoke their 5th Amendment rights against self-incrimination and refuse to testify, and the others are irrelevant.

Deputy Dist. Attys. Steven Barshop and Truc Do allege that Demirdjian killed 13-year-old Christopher McCullough and 14-year-old Blaine Talmo during a robbery on July 23. The victims’ pants pockets had been turned inside-out.

A police dog tracked a scent collected from the playground crime scene past Demirdjian’s La Crescenta house to an area about a mile away, but the dog later trotted up to the boy’s front door, which had blood on it, according to earlier testimony. Police found more blood on Demirdjian’s bed. A DNA test showed that the blood belonged to Christopher, prosecutors said, and police also found Blaine’s wallet in a kitchen trash bag.

Demirdjian, who is being tried as an adult and faces a maximum of life in prison without possibility of parole, has denied killing the boys. The youth was present but was only a witness, Mathews said.

Glendale police arrested a youth whom Demirdjian said was the killer, but he was released without being charged. Mathews said he plans to call that youth as a witness even though the youth has indicated he would invoke his 5th Amendment right against self-incrimination.

On Monday, prosecutors said they would allow Mathews to call the youth as a witness as long as the youth invokes his right outside the presence of the jury. But they objected to other witnesses the defense may call, including a La Crescenta teenager who allegedly told a friend that he “knew everything about the murders” and that it was gang-related, according to a police report.

Also Monday, prosecutors unsealed evidence collected from Demirdjian’s computer hard drive that they contend shows the youth’s mental state and intent to commit the murders. One poem, which someone using Demirdjian’s online identification downloaded from the Internet last February, said in part: “I’ll get a [big] rock, and I’ll drop it on your head, and you’ll be shaking with dread.”

A month later, Demirdjian downloaded three photographs of a man choking a gagging boy, testified Officer Bob Zahreddine, an investigator in the Glendale Police Department’s computer forensics unit. Computer time records show that Demirdjian downloaded the same three choking photos again on July 23--the day the bodies of the two boys were found on the elementary school playground.

Both of the victims had been choked and were bludgeoned with rocks, prosecutors said.

In Monday’s hearing, Mathews unsuccessfully argued that the information could have attached itself to Demirdjian’s hard drive as a “cookie file” without the boy’s knowledge, and that someone else could have been been using the boy’s online ID.

“This information was all recovered from a computer found in the defendant’s bedroom,” said De Vanon, adding that it could be used to show Demirdjian’s state of mind.