A man seeking to overturn his conviction in the so-called “honor role murder” more than three decades ago testified Monday, March 2, that he didn’t believe the slaying was actually going to happen, describing the deadly plan his friend crafted as “unbelievable.”
The fatal beating of 17-year-old honors student Stuart Tay at a Buena Park home did indeed become a reality on New Year’s Eve in 1992 — drawing international attention when a group of academically gifted teens from mostly stable, well-off families were identified as the culprits.
Kirn Young Kim, then 16, wasn’t in the garage where his friends beat Tay to death with baseball bats and a sledgehammer. He was sitting in a car parked a short distance away.
While prosecutors identified him as a lookout, state law at the time allowed them to charge and convict him alongside the actual killers. But that state law has changed.
And after more than a half-decade working to get that conviction overturned, Kim returned to a Santa Ana courtroom on Monday morning, March 2, to continue testifying on his own behalf.
Kim spent more than a decade behind bars before his release — winning this court fight would wipe out the murder conviction from his record.
Robert Chan — at the time a valedictorian candidate at Sunny Hills High School in Fullerton — was the architect of Tay’s killing. He was apparently worried that Tay — who also went by “Martin” — was going to tell authorities about his plot to rob a computer salesman.
Chan allegedly laid out his plan to kill Tay to four other teens involved in the killing, including Abraham Acosta, and showed them a shallow grave he had dug in Acosta’s backyard for Tay and walked them through a rehearsal of the killing, authorities have said.
Then, Chan persuaded Tay to meet up with him and drove Tay to the home where the attack was to take place. Chan and Acosta beat Tay for more than seven minutes while Tay cried and begged for help and then forced Tay to drink rubbing alcohol and sealed his mouth with duct tape, authorities have said. Tay choked on his own vomit.
Kim, during his testimony on Monday, said he was present when Chan allegedly laid out his plan and held the rehearsal, but denied hearing most of what was said since he was playing video games on a Game Boy with earphones in. He did acknowledge hearing Chan say he was going to kill Tay, though he testified he didn’t take the threat seriously.
“Did you believe him?” asked Ray Chen, Kim’s attorney.
“No,” Kim answered.
“Why not?” Chen asked.
“Everything was unbelievable,” Kim said. “Robert always threatened people. It was a thing he constantly did.”
Months before the killing, Kim said, Chan told him at the start of a school day that he had killed a classmate, even as Kim could see that classmate sitting nearby on campus. On another occasion, Kim said, Chan asked if Kim would help him get rid of a body that Kim didn’t believe actually existed.
The day of the killing, Kim — on Chan’s order, Kim testified — followed the others and drove to near the Buena Park garage where the fatal beating took place; Kim said he fell asleep in his car parked down the street.
Kim said he woke up to Chan handing him Tay’s car keys and a pair of gloves: Chan ordered Kim to pick up Tay’s car at Chan’s home, where Tay had left it.
“I asked where Martin was,” Kim said in court. “He said, ‘What do you mean? Martin is dead, what did you think happened?’ I took the keys and did what he said. At that point, I was afraid Robert was going to kill me.”
Kim said he followed his friends to Compton, where he left the vehicle.
On the ride back to Orange County, Kim said he again asked Chan, “What did you do?”
“Don’t ask any questions,” Chan answered, according to Kim.
Another person in the car who had taken part in the fatal beating interjected, Kim added, “Just be thankful you weren’t there.”
During Kim’s time on the stand on Monday, a prosecutor repeatedly challenged his recollection of the rehearsal of the killing. Kim repeatedly said he didn’t hear most of what others said because he was focused on his video game, but he did recall Chan saying he wanted Tay standing in a particular place so they could attack him, and that the plan was to “get him from behind.”
Kim acknowledged that Chan had spoken of killing Tay and that Chan may have referred to a hole they dug near the garage as a “grave.”
Despite Kim’s age, he was tried as an adult and sentenced to prison. A model prisoner, he was granted parole in 2012.
The law at the time of Kim’s conviction allowed prosecutors to argue that anyone involved in the plot that led to Tay’s death could face the same charges as those who actually beat Tay to death. The law now requires that a defendant has to be aware of the killer’s intent, or that there be some other evidence of their direct involvement in the killing.
The Orange County District Attorney’s Office has opposed Kim’s effort to vacate his murder conviction. According to court papers, the prosecution is expected to argue that Kim had full knowledge about what was going to happen and helped the actual killers.
Kim is scheduled to return to court on Tuesday, March 3, when the attorneys are expected to present their arguments to an Orange County Superior Court judge about whether the murder sentence should be vacated.