NEW YEAR'S EVE: deadly acquaintances
DATE 01/17/93
NEWSPAPER THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
SECTION NEWS
EDITION MORNING
PAGE a10
STORY LENGTH 92 INCHES
HEADLINE NEW YEAR'S EVE: deadly acquaintances
BYLINE/CREDIT Dan Froomkin:The Orange County Register
SUBJECT TERMS OC:YOUTH:MURDER
KEYWORD-HIT.
When Stuart Tay left home at 4 p.m. New Year's Eve, he had
everything to live for. And no way to know there was a muddy grave
already dug for him in a Buena Park back yard.
But when the 17-year-old honor student peeled out onto the
streets of Orange in his cherry-red sports car, he was heading
directly for his death.
Police reports of the investigation into Stuart's killing
provide chilling details of that night's events, culled from
interrogations of four of the five accused murderers.
Robert Chien-nan Chan, the Sunny Hills High School senior who
the four other suspects have fingered as the director,
choreographer and star of the "honor-roll murder" _ has not spoken
to police or the media.
But even before all the facts are in, the nature of the
dreadful tale has led many Orange County parents to worry that
their children could be in danger where they least expect it.
Chan, the only suspect who is not a juvenile, is charged with
first-degree murder and could face the death penalty because of the
special circumstances of the killing.
A hearing has been set for Feb. 5 to determine whether the four
younger teens should be tried as adults. If they are, they could
face up to life imprisonment without parole.
All five have pleaded innocent.
HE PLANNED TO GET A GUN
According to police, when Stuart left his house _ saying he was
just running some errands _ he thought he was on his way to pick up
a gun from a group of Sunny Hills High students he had met
recently, and with whom he was allegedly planning the burglary of
an Anaheim computer salesman.
At about 5 o'clock, Stuart arrived at Chan's house, a two-story
home on a cul-de-sac in Fullerton, just a few blocks from the Sunny
Hills campus.
There, he met three of his new acquaintances. One was Chan, 18,
a young man of great intelligence and scholastic success, who also
bragged to students that he was affiliated with the Wah Ching, a
Chinese criminal society.
Also at Chan's house were Kirn Young Kim, 16, and Mun Bong Kang,
17.
Kim, an ardent "Star Trek" fan and _ like Stuart _ something of
a computer whiz, is the son of one of the most prominent families
in Orange County's Korean-American community.
Kang, considerably less academically minded than the other
three, was best known around school for customizing his black 1990
Honda Accord.
Police records show that all four teens piled into Chan's car
and drove to a modest green house in a Buena Park barrio, where
they met the other two members of their little group.
One of them lived in the house: Abraham Acosta, 16, a sophomore
at Sunny Hills best known on campus for wearing flamboyant hats and
talking about the "rave" party scene.
The sixth member was Charles Bae Choe, 17, a good friend of
Chan's and a fellow star student in Sunny Hills' rigorous
International Baccalaureate program.
Police say they believe that Chan had decided to kill Stuart at
least a few days before. They say Chan was upset at the quality of
Stuart's burglary plans. And they say that, having discovered that
Stuart was using a false name, Chan feared betrayal.
When all of them had arrived at Acosta's house, according to
police accounts, this is what transpired:
While Kim waited in front of the house in Chan's car as a
lookout, the others walked to a detached garage behind the house.
Inside the garage, Kang handed Stuart a heavy metal box with
Chinese writing on it wrapped in an excessive amount of tape and
supposedly containing the gun Stuart had come for.
Kang and Choe quickly went into a separate room next door. And
as Stuart started trying to pull the tape off the box, Chan and
Acosta flanked him on either side.
Chan looked at Acosta, and motioned to the two baseball bats he
had earlier placed against the garage wall.
Acosta motioned, Do you want me to hit him with one?
Chan nodded, Yes.
Acosta picked up a bat, and swung at the back of Stuart's head.
He connected.
Stuart turned to Acosta and said: "Hey what the ... ?"
And while Stuart's head was turned, Chan picked up the second
bat and hit him several times in the head and body.
As Stuart fell to the ground, both continued hitting him.
Eventually, Chan dropped his bat and grabbed a red sledgehammer,
and hit Stuart some more.
Acosta told police he hit Stuart at least three times. And he
said Chan hit him at least 10 times.
In the next room, Kang and Choe could hear Stuart scream. They
could hear the thuds as the bats and the hammer made contact. They
told police they hugged each other in fear.
Kang said he never looked, but Choe said he saw Chan hitting
Stuart with the sledgehammer in the head and stomach.
He said he heard Stuart begging for help. He said he heard
Stuart say to Chan: "What did I do to you?"
BEATING WAS TAKING TOO LONG
After about 20 minutes, Stuart was still moving. Apparently
frustrated at the amount of time it was taking, Chan picked up a
bottle of rubbing alcohol and poured the contents down Stuart's
throat. Then he picked up a roll of silver duct tape, and taped
Stuart's mouth and nose shut.
Within minutes, Stuart was dead, from choking on his own vomit.
When all the noise had stopped, Acosta went into his house to
fetch two sheets to wrap around Stuart's body.
Kang and Choe emerged from their room, and helped the others
carry the body to the grave in the back yard.
At the lip of the shallow grave, Chan flipped the body over,
reached into Stuart's pocket, and took out a wallet and keys.
Then, using three shovels that Chan had brought earlier, the
teens started throwing dirt on the body. Investigators digging up
the remains later would find Stuart's black-rimmed glasses, broken
and lodged between his body and the sheets.
They would find the beeper his mother had given him, so he would
always be in reach, still in his right-front pocket.
Acosta told police that, at that point, he was "freaking out"
about all the blood in his garage. He pulled a garden hose into the
garage and tried to hose everything down. But five days later,
police would still find bloodstains on the garage's walls and
ceiling.
Chan gave Acosta five $20 bills. And while Acosta remained at
home, the rest drove off.
Chan and Kim went to pick up Stuart's 1990 Nissan 300ZX at
Chan's home. The teens formed a convoy to Alondra Boulevard in
Compton. Kim, who had been driving Stuart's car using rubber gloves
Chan gave him, left the key in the ignition and the doors unlocked,
and piled into Choe's two-door Mazda 626.
Even before they left the intersection, someone had driven off
in Stuart's prized possession.
The four drove to Choe's house in Fullerton. There, Chan opened
up Stuart's wallet, which contained $108. Chan gave Choe $20, Kim
$20 and Kang $48, and kept $20 for himself.
Though the reports detailing the murder are chilling, perhaps
even more striking are the allegations of what some of them did
afterward.
According to police, all but Acosta drove around to "various
party locations" in Irvine. Kang was also spotted by his friend,
James Lee, at a house party in Hollywood later that night.
And early New Year's Day, Kim apparently turned on his personal
computer and played video games.
Like Stuart, Kim frequently used his computer to call into
computer bulletin boards. And according to Mike Bernstein, who
operates a bulletin board called Kandy Shack, Kim logged on at 2:20
a.m., and stayed on the system for 27 minutes.
His game options included blackjack, World League Wrestling, and
Russian Roulette.
HIS MOTHER HAD CALLED POLICE
About the same time that Kim was playing video games, Linda Tay
was pouring her heart out to an Orange police officer.
When Stuart failed to show up for dinner at 6 p.m., his mother
started beeping him on his pager. By 9 p.m., she was frantically
calling his friends.
By 2 a.m., she had called the police, filing a missing person
report. Several hours later, she and her husband, Alfred, also
hired Lee Roberts, a Santa Ana private eye, to find their boy.
At about 10 p.m., police recovered the shell of Stuart's car in
a Comptom alley. It was missing its engine, transmission, front
seat, battery, stereo and CD player.
The big break in the case came about 12:30 a.m. Jan. 4. Roberts
pointed Orange Police detectives Jorge Desouza and Matt Miller to a
friend of Kim's, to whom Kim had reportedly talked about the
killing.
At 5 a.m., Miller and Desouza paid a call on the friend, who
lives in a condominium complex in Fullerton. By 6 a.m., they were
at Kim's house. They took Kim to the Orange Police Department, and
while his father waited in the lobby, he opened up.
The detectives went to Sunny Hills High School, where they had
assistant principal Steve Roderick pull Chan, Kang and Acosta out
of their fifth-period classes, and arrested them on murder charges.
Choe was arrested later that night.
And once a search warrant was issued, they began the excavation
of Acosta's back yard.
PRIVATE EYE BROKE THE NEWS
The afternoon of Jan. 4, Roberts told the Tay family about the
grave police had found.
Anguish tinged with hope gave way to despair.
"When I think that my son will never come back, I feel real
bad," Linda Tay said the other day. "I feel pain."
Stuart's little sister Candice, 13, weeps most nights, alone in
her room.
Nearby, Stuart's room has been left untouched. Not even the maid
is allowed in to clean. His Depeche Mode posters still hang on
virtually every flat surface. Ben, the teddy bear he used to put to
bed every night, goes untucked.
Linda Tay said she feels sorry for the families of the five
teens now in jail. "I'm sure they're going through a lot of hard
times," she said. "But I wish all the families involved didn't have
to face this. Especially ourselves."
Stuart's mother knows that parents all over Orange County have
heard what happened to her son. She knows that they want to find
some sort of lesson in what happened to Stuart _ a lesson that will
help them protect their own children.
But Linda Tay doesn't think there is a lesson. "How could you
prepare your son for something like that?" she asked.
"You could say drive carefully, you could say don't use drugs,
you could say lock your car, but how do you anticipate something
like this?
"You don't prepare your son by saying, `Hey, there's going to be
someone laying in wait to kill you.' "
The murder has spawned dozens of interpretations.
Did it happen because a bunch of kids, some of them with too
much money, were simple bored and seeking thrills?
Was there some link to the Wah Ching, the Chinese gang Chan told
many people he was affiliated with?
Was it a crime of passion, spawned by Chan's discovery that
Stuart was dating Jeniffer Lin?
Many theories have been discounted by police. "There's
absolutely no evidence that would show that Robert Chan or anybody
was a member of Wah Ching. Those were just rumors," Miller said.
Police also say Chan didn't even know that Stuart was dating Lin
until after he was dead, when he found Lin's picture in Stuart's
wallet.
Of course, not everyone thinks the police are right about
everything.
Stuart's parents say they don't believe that Stuart was planning
a crime.
The lawyers for the four younger suspects say Chan is to blame.
Chan's friends say they simply don't think he is capable of
doing what police say he did.
And neither Chan nor Chan's family has been heard from yet, save
one quick comment from Chan's father.
"Everything was going perfect," Chih-Tung "Tony" Chan told the
Register a week ago. "He's a pretty good boy, and I don't
understand."
PROFILES OF ACCUSED MURDERERS
NAME: Robert Chien-nan Chan
AGE: 18
RESIDENCE: Fullerton
PARENTS: Father, Chih-Tung "Tony" Chan, is an engineer; mother is a
homemaker.
BACKGROUND: Born in Taiwan. Neighbors describe his family as nice
but private.
INTERESTS: An Academic Decathlete enrolled in the International
Baccalaureate program at Sunny Hills High, he was member of the
Junior Statesman club and hoped to attend Princeton University. He
played football, lifted weights at a local gym, and his art teacher
hung his paintings on the wall.
DEFENSE: Lawyer C. Thomas McDonald said the accusations are
"totally out of character" with Chan's history.
NAME: Abraham Acosta
AGE: 16
RESIDENCE: Buena Park
PARENTS: Mother is Bernicia Acosta. His father is deceased.
BACKGROUND: Born in Mexicali, Baja California; lived with siblings
and mother in rented one-story home.
INTERESTS: Acosta was well-known around campus for wearing large,
flamboyant hats, baggy vintage clothing and oversized shoes, all
popular in the "rave" scene.
DEFENSE: Deputy Public Defender Denise Gragg said Acosta was not a
friend of Chan's or of the other suspects, but seems to have been
recruited specifically for this job.
NAME: Kirn Young Kim
AGE: 16
RESIDENCE: Fullerton
PARENTS: Father is Yong Ho Kim, a family physician. Mother is
Sookgi Kim.
BACKGROUND: Korean-American, born in Euclid, Ohio.
INTERESTS: Classmates described Kim as studious and interested in
computers and computer games. Kim also practiced tae kwan do, a
form of martial arts, and started a tae kwan do club at school.
DEFENSE: Defense attorney Tom Avdeef said Kim did not take part in
any of the violence and possibly did not know beforehand what Chan
allegedly planned to do.
NAME: Mun Bong Kang
AGE: 17
RESIDENCE: Fullerton
PARENTS: His father, Yong Su Kang, and mother, Yong Ro Kang, own a
dry-cleaning business in Fullerton and moved from South Korea to
the United States 11 years ago.
BACKGROUND: Born in Korea.
INTERESTS: Kang was described by students as easygoing and more
interested in souping up his black 1990 Honda Accord than in
studying.
DEFENSE: Defense lawyer Michael Hannon declined to comment.
NAME: Charles Bae Choe
AGE: 17
RESIDENCE: Fullerton
PARENTS: Father is Dong Kven Choe; mother is Chan Hee Choe.
BACKGROUND: Born in Korea.
INTERESTS: Choe was planning for college and a career. When his
mother visited him at Juvenile Hall, she quoted him as saying, "
`Mama, I can't go to college, I can't have a job, my life is messed
up.' "
DEFENSE: Defense attorney Mark Beck said Choe did not take part in
any of the violence and possibly did not know beforehand what Chan
allegedly planned to do. Choe's mother quoted him as saying: "Mama,
I didn't do nothing."
Dan Froomkin is a Register education reporter. Register staff
writers Jeff Brody, Robert Chow, Jeff Collins, Donna Davis, Tony
Saavedra and Melissa Balmain Weiner contributed to this series.