From: jpr@lhdsy1.lahabra.chevron.com (John C. Prestridge)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.asian.american
Subject: Re: Orange County Youth Slain
Date: 7 Jan 93 01:45:50 GMT
Organization: Chevron Oil Field Research, La Habra, CA.


****  Posted without comment as an update for non-local readers  ****
 
 
CALIFORNIA, USA
 
(c) Los Angeles Times (Jan. 6, 1992)

Police Say Slain Youth, Killers Planned a Theft

* Crime:  Orange honor student was fatally bludgeoned
          out of mistrust by others in the plot, they say.
 
By ERIC YOUNG and MATT LAIT  Times Staff Writers

ORANGE-
 
  Stuart Anthony Tay, a 17-year-old honors student and Ivy League
hopeful, was bludgeoned to death New Year's Eve by fellow students
with whom he had been planning a computer equipment robbery, police
said.
  The five teen-agers arrested in the murder, including a member of
a Fullerton high school's academic decathlon team, killed Tay in the
garage of one student's Buena Park residence after learning that Tay
had lied to them about his identity and they began to worry that he
might "burn them in some fashion," according to homicide investigators.
  Police said that four of the five arrested youths, all of whom attended
Sunny Hills High School in Fullerton, had confessed to roles in the
killing or in disposing of the dead youth's red Nissan-300ZX, which was
found abandoned in Compton. 
 .... text omitted .... .
  Police said they eventually learned that after leaving his home in
Orange on New Year's Eve, Tay went to meet his would-be fellow robbers
in Buena Park, where he was expecting to take possession of a handgun
he wanted to purchase.
  But his co-conspirators had already made plans to kill him for
falsely introducing himself as "Martin" when they met and began planning
the robbery, police said.
  According to a police affidavit filed Monday in Municipal Court in
Santa Ana, where the search warrant was issued, two of the five suspects
dug a shallow grave behind the garage at the Buena Park house at 6121
Fullerton Ave.  Lt. Timm Browne of the Orange Police Department said 
the grave was ready and waiting when Tay arrived.  A neighbor who happened
by during the digging was told that the grave was being readied for a
dog that had died.
 .... text omitted .... .
  Police said that after the killing, Robert Chiennan Chan, 18, arranged
for one of the other teen-agers to drive Tay's car to Compton and gave the
driver rubber gloves so he would not leave fingerprints in the vehicle.
 .... text omitted .... .
  Of the five teen-agers, police identified only Chan, who is an adult 
under state law.  The names of the others were withheld because they
are juveniles.
  The juveniles were identified only as a 16-year-old from Buena Park,
a 16-year-old from Fullerton and two 17-year-olds from Fullerton.
 .... text omitted .... .
  "We believe all five were present" during the killing, Browne said.
 .... text omitted .... .
  Tay and Chan were were known as bright students, both of whom had
applied to attend Princeton University after graduation.
 .... text omitted .... 
  Some students at Sunny Hills High School portrayed Chan as someone
who boasted of having connections with Asian gangs.  One student,
who requested anonymity, said both Chan and some of his friends claimed
to be affiliated with a Chinese Mafia-like gang whose members were
students at Sunny Hills, Buena Park and Fullerton High Schools.
 .... text omitted .... .
  Homicide investigators are still searching for the weapon, possibly
a blunt instrument like a baseball bat, that was used to kill Tay,
Lt. Browne said.
 .... text omitted .... .
  Juvenile Court Judge Francisco P. Briseno said he did not know if
the four juveniles suspected in the murder would be tried as adults.
He said he expected the four to be arraigned today in Juvenile Court 
in Orange.  They were being held without bail in Juvenile Hall in Orange.
  Chan, who is being held in Orange County Jail in Santa Ana in lieu of
$250,000 bail, was scheduled to be arraigned today in Municipal Court
in Santa Ana.
 .... text omitted .... .
 
  Contributing to this story were Times staff writers Catherine Gewertz,
Mimi Ko, Tom McQueeney, Jodi Wilgoren and Rene Lynch. 
 
 
< end of condensed article from Los Angeles Times Newspaper >
 

Newsgroups: soc.culture.asian.american,alt.discimination