Stuart Anthony Tay

The 17 years of Stuart A. Tay's life could not have been more strikingly different than his last day alive. The bespectacled honors student with a renaissance range of talent lay crumpled in a muddy back yard grave in Buena Park on a chilly New Year's Eve, his reputation soon to be tarnished by whispers of a robbery plan gone sour and a love triangle involving his accused killer.

Winning some last measure of justice from the courts, the parents of an honor student slain in one of the county's most shocking murders were awarded more than $1 million Tuesday from four of their son's assailants. Alfred and Linda Tay also reached a $100,000 settlement in their wrongful death lawsuit against a fifth youth convicted of killing Stuart Tay on New Year's Eve, 1992. "Kids like them, they cannot think they can walk away and have a life," Linda Tay said.

Two Orange County teen-agers were found guilty Friday of first-degree murder in the 1992 New Year's Eve killing of a 17-year-old honors student who was bludgeoned and buried in a back-yard grave in a case that gained nationwide attention as a troubling portrait of youth violence. Kirn Kim, 18, and Abraham Acosta, 17, were the last of five youths convicted in the killing of Stuart A. Tay, a high school student from Orange who aspired to be a doctor like his father.

The parents of an honor student slain in a shocking murder case were awarded a total of more than $1 million Tuesday from four of their son's assailants. Alfred and Linda Tay also reached a $100,000 settlement in their wrongful death lawsuit against a fifth youth convicted of killing Stuart Tay on New Year's Eve, 1992. "Kids like them, they cannot think they can walk away and have a life," Linda Tay said. "They really have to pay for what they have done. I don't even think that's enough.

A jury took less than three hours Tuesday to find a teen-ager guilty of first-degree murder for orchestrating the 1992 New Year's Eve ambush slaying of high school honors student Stuart A. Tay. Robert Chan, 19, of Fullerton, a onetime candidate for valedictorian, now faces life in prison without parole for his role in Tay's death. The 17-year-old Orange resident was beaten with baseball bats, forced to swallow rubbing alcohol and then left to die in a shallow grave in a Buena Park back yard.

Robert Chan was one of the brightest students to ever walk the halls at Sunny Hills High School in Fullerton but he was also typical teen: He agonized over acne and clothes and had to work up the nerve to ask out a pretty cheerleader. "I don't date, you know, I don't know any girls," Chan told a Superior Court jury, shrugging shyly and looking boyish in a pale yellow sweater with a white collar peeking over the top.

The parents of teen-age slaying victim Stuart Anthony Tay charged in an unusual civil lawsuit Thursday that the parents of their son's accused killers contributed to the tragedy through lax and careless supervision of their children. Attorneys for Alfred and Linda Tay, whose 17-year-old son was slain last New Year's Eve, demanded unspecified damages from the parents of four juvenile suspects in the case. "Parents should be responsible for bad parenting," Mark E.

Honors student Stuart Anthony Tay, 17, whose body was discovered in a shallow grave three days after his family reported him missing, had been involved in a scheme to steal computer equipment and was slain by his co-conspirators, police said Tuesday. Known to teachers and schoolmates as a computer whiz and an Ivy League hopeful, Tay was bludgeoned to death on New Year's Eve at the Buena Park home of one of five teen-agers with whom he planned the thefts, police said.

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.

Denouncing their crime as senseless and savage, an Orange County judge Friday sentenced two teen-age killers to 25 years to life in prison for the 1992 New Year's Eve killing of a young honors student, while a third defendant was committed to a detention facility for juveniles.

Denouncing their crime as senseless and savage, an Orange County judge sentenced two teen-age killers Friday to 25 years to life in prison for the 1992 New Year's Eve killing of a young honors student, while a third defendant was committed to a detention facility for juveniles. The sentencings brought to a close a case in which five youths who mostly came from loving, well-off families bludgeoned and suffocated a fellow teen-ager and buried him in a shallow grave in a Buena Park back yard.

Denouncing their crime as senseless and savage, an Orange County judge Friday sentenced two teen-age killers to 25 years to life in prison for the 1992 New Year's Eve killing of a young honors student, while a third defendant was committed to a detention facility for juveniles.

A Probation Department report recommends rehabilitation, not prison, for three teen-agers convicted of brutally murdering honors student Stuart A. Tay in 1992, defense attorneys said Wednesday. In a report prepared for Friday's sentencing hearing, the Orange County Probation Department supports sending the convicted teen-age murderers to the California Youth Authority, where they must be released upon turning 25, according to two defense attorneys in the case.

Orange homemaker Linda Tay joined Gov. Pete Wilson at a news conference last week to support his anti-crime package calling for tough treatment of juvenile offenders--such as the teens convicted of killing her 17-year-old son on New Year's Eve, 1992. Tay said she believes there is no stronger force to be reckoned with than a mother or father of a murdered child.

A judge on Friday ordered three teen-agers to undergo diagnostic testing at the California Youth Authority before they are sentenced for their roles in the 1992 New Year's Eve murder of honor student Stuart A. Tay. Orange County Superior Court Judge Kathleen E. O'Leary will use the reports to determine whether the teen-agers should be sentenced as adults--and possibly face life in prison--or as teen-agers, in which case they could be released when they turn 25.

The teen-age mastermind of one of Orange County's most unsettling murders was sentenced Monday to life in prison without the possibility of parole for the slaying of a 17-year-old honors student. Robert Chan, 19, a onetime high school valedictorian candidate, sat impassively as the judge handed down the sentence for the 1992 New Year's Eve killing of Stuart A. Tay of Orange.

Before the sun had risen Monday, Detectives Matt Miller and Jorge Desouza were knocking on Kirn Kim's door. Kim, a junior at Sunny Hills High School, had reportedly told a friend that he knew what happened to Foothill High School honor student Stuart A. Tay, missing since New Year's Eve. Kim, 16, accompanied the detectives to the Orange Police Department. His father, Dr. Yong Ho Kim, waited in the lobby.

One of five teen-agers accused in the brutal New Year's Eve slaying of honor student Stuart A. Tay has been sentenced and will serve eight years in the California Youth Authority. Meanwhile, defense attorneys for three of the accused have either challenged or plan to challenge the Tay murder indictments on the grounds that the Orange County Grand Jury lacks racial diversity.

The teen-age mastermind of one of Orange County's most shocking murders was sentenced Monday to life in prison without the possibility of parole for the slaying of a 17-year-old honors student. Robert Chan, 19, a onetime high school valedictorian candidate, sat impassively as the judge pronounced the sentencing for the 1992 New Year's Eve killing of Stuart A. Tay of Orange.

Two Orange County teen-agers were found guilty Friday of first-degree murder in a 1992 New Year's Eve slaying that gained nationwide attention as a troubling portrait of youth violence. Kirn Kim, 18, and Abraham Acosta, 17, were the last of five youths convicted in the killing of Stuart A. Tay, a 17-year-old high school honor student from Orange who aspired to be a doctor like his father. Kim had acted as lookout while the others lured Tay to the back yard of Acosta's Buena Park home.