Northridge Man Will Stand Trial in Student’s Slaying : Stabbing: Suspect was arrested after informants told police he had bragged about killing 15-year-old boy.

VAN NUYS — Rejecting a claim that the police “manufactured” the case, a judge on Wednesday ordered a Northridge man to stand trial for murder in the fatal stabbing of a Taft High School student.

The murder of LaMoun Thames, 15, as he waited for a bus across the street from the Woodland Hills campus, was under investigation for nearly two years before informants told police that Lopez had bragged about committing it.

Van Nuys Municipal Judge Gregg Marcus ruled that there was sufficient evidence to try Oscar Andres Lopez, 19, on a single charge of murder. He is being held in lieu of $500,000 bail until his arraignment April 12.

Lopez faces unrelated charges of attempted murder in a spree of robberies in West Hollywood and the San Fernando Valley last year.

Police said that at the time of the robberies, Lopez was living with actress Victoria Sellers, who is now serving a six-month jail sentence for drug possession.

During the preliminary hearing, two witnesses testified that they saw a car with five male teen-agers pull up to where Thames was sitting, and then speak with him. Both witnesses said two youths got out of the car and struck Thames. The two youths then got back into the car and drove off.

Neither witness could positively identify Lopez--who sat in court wearing an orange County Jail jumpsuit and sporting a goatee--as one of the two men.

But Los Angeles Police Detective Joel Price testified that he later spoke with the other passengers in the car and that all pointed to Lopez as the attacker.

Lopez and a 15-year-old were arrested last May. The accomplice was tried as a juvenile and sentenced to a juvenile camp.

Lopez’s attorney, James Barnes, argued unsuccessfully that his client did not match a police composite of the suspect, which depicted a dark-complexioned individual. Lopez is light-skinned. Barnes also argued that witnesses identified Lopez only to collect a $25,000 reward that had been posted and that others lied to keep themselves from being charged.

Marcus, the judge, ruled that Lopez looked enough like the composite, and suggested that the witnesses may have been mistaken about the suspect’s complexion because it was dark when the attack took place.

Outside the courtroom, Barnes said police “manufactured” the case against his client.

“The police told people this was the guy who did it and they went along with it,” Barnes said.