Three teens charged in hammer killing

This photo supplied by the Tacoma (Wash.) public schools shows Cyril Walrond. Walrond, 17, and two others are charged as adults and pleaded not guilty to assault, robbery and murder in connection with the beating death of Dien Huynh, 55. (AP Photo/TacomaPublic Schools via The News Tribune) Photo Advisory By Gene JohnsonAP Legal Affairs Writer TACOMA (AP) – As a 17-year-old kid from a low income neighborhood, Cyril Walrond was a star: a class senator, a popular athlete, the recipient of a college scholarship paid for by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Late last month, he spoke at a panel discussion on the educational disparity between white and minority students, saying, “In the community I live in, not many people will make it,” and adding that he aspired to be “a light in the darkness.” Now, friends, relatives and classmates at Mount Tahoma High School are trying to reconcile the promising boy they know with the one Pierce County prosecutors describe in first-degree murder charges. Ten days before he served on the education panel, they say, Walrond swung a sheet-rock hammer as he and two friends beat and robbed a 55-year-old man, leaving him to die outside his home, his pants pockets turned inside-out. “It appears to the prosecutor’s office that this was a thrill for them, to do this,” said Chief Criminal Deputy Prosecutor Gerald Costello. “They have no criminal histories. They’re well thought of in the school setting. The police described them as bright, fairly well spoken. It’s surprising to me, I say that as a prosecutor, a citizen and a parent.” Charging documents filed Wednesday in Pierce County Superior Court say that shortly after midnight on April 20, Walrond, 18-year-old Daniel Harris and 16-year-old Jarrell Marshall first confronted a couple who had been strolling on a pier on Tacoma’s waterfront: Walrond hit the man in the head with the hammer, injuring him, and then the boys took their wallets and rifled through their car. They took compact discs, a cell phone and the man’s camouflage hat. Investigators, who said all three boys confessed, later wrote that they found the hat hanging on the wall of Walrond’s room, “like a souvenir.” Less than an hour after the first attack, prosecutors say, the young men drove around, stopping when they saw Dien Huynh standing next to his car. Huynh had just come home from work. The three surrounded him, and when Huynh tried to run, Harris tried to put him in a headlock, Costello wrote in an affidavit for probable cause. The man broke free, and Walrond ran him down and struck him on the head at least four times, investigators said. The boys allegedly grabbed his wallet and car keys and took off. Huynh crawled onto his front porch, where a family member found him. He died two days later. It isn’t clear what led police to Walrond, Harris and Marshall, all of whom are charged as adults and have pleaded not guilty to assault, robbery and murder. Costello said schoolyard gossip had indicated students were involved. Besides the camouflage hat, detectives said they found newspaper clippings about the killing in Walrond’s room. There were also clippings about a fatal beating in 2005, for which someone else has been convicted. “He was real sweet. He talked to everybody and never was mean to anybody,” said Mount Tahoma sophomore Raven Hicks, who has been friends with Walrond since last year. “That’s why I couldn’t believe it when I heard. I’ve never seen him skip a class, I’ve never seen him smoking, never seen him drinking. He was always a good kid.” At Mount Tahoma, where about half of the 1,850 students qualify for free or reduced-price lunches, Walrond and Harris were among a few dozen students awarded Achievers scholarships, worth about $20,000 each, from the Gates Foundation. The scholarships are for “talented, low-income students who have overcome difficult circumstances.” According to news reports, Walrond planned to enroll in pre-med and psychology courses at the University of Washington. Walrond, who is the son of a youth track coach, runs track himself and is on the varsity football team, was also recently elected prince of the school district-wide African American Pageant. Phone numbers and addresses for relatives of Harris and Marshall could not be located, and it was not clear if those two had obtained lawyers. Someone who answered the phone at Walrond’s home, in a neighborhood of one-story ramblers near the school, declined to comment. A lawyer retained by his family, Jay Berneburg, would not discuss the specifics of the case. “This is a kid who’s never been in trouble before,” Berneburg said. “Now all of a sudden he finds himself charged with the most serious crime you can be charged with. He’s very scared. “Everybody is just like, what happened? It’s bad enough if you know your kid’s been running around with gangs or smoking dope. But this kid’s been a parent’s dream.” Gene Johnson has covered courts and legal affairs for the AP since 2000.