STORY OF BOYS' DEATHS SHIFTS

PASADENA -- Confronted with a barrage of questions from prosecutors, a
16-year-old boy charged with murdering two acquaintances on an elementary
school playground contradicted his own testimony Friday and claimed long
memory lapses as he tried to explain the events preceding the slayings.

Michael Demirdjian also said several witnesses lied when they testified in
Pasadena Superior Court that he had been the victim of a drug deal rip-off
and was trying to get his money back.

The La Crescenta teen is charged with the first-degree murder, torture and
robbery of Christopher McCulloch, 13, and Blaine Talmo Jr., 14, whose
bludgeoned bodies were found July 23 at Valley View Elementary School in
Glendale.

Demirdjian has pleaded not guilty to the charges, insisting that he
witnessed a Glendale drug dealer kill the boys with a large rock after the
foursome had smoked marijuana and drank wine together.

While Demirdjian initially testified that Adam Walker, 19, killed the boys
several hours after selling him a $40 bag of marijuana, on Friday he gave
two different versions of the drug sale.

He testified that Walker had, in fact, sold Talmo a $20 bag of marijuana on
the night of the killings. Later, while trying to explain a series of phone
calls to a friend named Damian Kim, Demirdjian changed his story again by
saying Walker had not sold them any marijuana at all that night.

"I called Damian because I wanted to see if I could get some marijuana
because Adam didn't have any," he said.

Walker was among several teens arrested after the murders but was
ultimately released for lack of evidence.

Demirdjian also testified that he didn't remember why he phoned Kim 47
times in the two weeks preceding the murders, and admitted that he lied to
investigators when he said Walker was not with the three boys on the night
of the murders.

Under cross-examination by Deputy District Attorney Steve Barshop,
Demirdjian described removing his blood-stained clothes and shoes when he
returned home on the night of the killings. He said he rinsed them out in
the sink, put them in the trash can in his bedroom, threw them in the
washing machine the following day, and finally tossed them into a trash can
in front of his house -- along with Talmo's wallet and alarm clock.

"I just threw them away. I don't know what I was thinking," Demirdjian
said. "I was scared."

Displaying images of choking techniques, Barshop asked Demirdjian why
records stored in his computer showed he had downloaded those images from
the Internet on the day after the killings.

"I had them on my computer a long time ago," he said. "It said when you
smoke marijuana and it's in your lungs, it said you could get higher or
something when you're choking."

Two friends of Demirdjian also contradicted testimony offered by the defendant.

Alex Djagharbekian, 16, testified that Demirdjian said someone had cheated
him out of $500 to $600 in a marijuana deal and that he was trying to get
his money back.

"He said he chased him in his car, but he couldn't catch up to him,"
Djagharbekian said. "And he said that the guy better watch his back because
the 18th Street Gang is after him."

And while Demirdjian testified that several calls made from his cell phone
to a number in Las Vegas were to Djagharbekian, who was on vacation with
his family, Djagharbekian testified that he was not in Las Vegas that week.

"He asked me how to get to Las Vegas on a Greyhound bus because he was
planning to go," Djagharbekian said.

The defense is expected to conclude its case Monday, and final arguments
are expected to begin.