MOTIVE IN KILLINGS REMAINS MYSTERY.

Byline: BRENT HOPKINS and SUSAN ABRAM Staff Writers

NORTHRIDGE -- Brandon Menard liked to bowl, enjoyed a good laugh, wrote prolifically and looked out for his friends.

Those who partied or worked with him said they could find no cracks in his personality that would reveal a killer. To them, the 21-year-old -- accused of the brutal stabbing deaths of his parents and 16-year-old sister -- is an outgoing, likeable guy.

He enjoys listening to The Who, watching gory horror movies, writing short stories and reading comic books. He earned good grades, sported a trench coat, made cute holiday-craft gifts for his friends and enjoyed the outdoors. He was a Boy Scout.

His friends never knew of trouble at home, never knew him as anything but an average young man.

``This is very unexpected. No one who knew him could even think of this,'' said Michael D'Angona, who hung out with Menard at Granada Hills High School and considers himself a close friend. ``Everyone has problems with their parents, but he was always the kind to talk it out.''

Three days after his parents, David and Toni, and sister, Ashley, were found slain in their Stare Street home, police said nothing about a possible motive.

And those who have liked Brandon Menard still hope the accusations are untrue.

``He was very outgoing, very friendly. He had an offbeat sense of humor, some of the funniest stuff I've ever heard,'' said one of Menard's former colleagues at the Tuesday Morning gift store on Ventura Boulevard.

The colleague, who wished to remain anonymous, said he does not know why Menard, a clerk at the store, stopped working there about a year ago.

``I thought of him as a friend,'' his former colleague said. ``We hung out together. I went to a party at his house. His room was messy, but like any other bedroom. But he stopped returning my calls a few months ago.''

On his MySpace.com Web page, Menard describes himself as an English/philosophy student at Pierce College who is an assistant manager at the gift store and is associated with two other companies.

However, the community college shows no record of his enrollment, and he does not identify or specifically refer to the two companies.

Menard logged on the day before his father, David, 56, a real estate broker; his mother, Toni, a 55-year-old UCLA Medical Center psychiatric nurse; and his younger sister, Ashley, were killed. From his postings gathered at the Web log CrimeBlog.US, it appears he spent lots of time writing online.

Some of his pieces are philosophical, some are funny, and some have a macabre touch. A few show teenage frustration with his family.

``I have to wonder: How often do we, as we leave childhood, take from it the worst and discard the best?'' Menard wrote in a recent post to one of his various blogs.

``Leave whimsy and clarity, good humor and imagination, and take greed and short-sightedness, arrogance and folly. How often do we simply exchange delightful games for cars and life insurance, trade in our dolls and models for children that we uncaringly attempt to mold into our own image or leave like trophies on the shelf?''

He was fond of autopsy textbooks and had a sword tattooed on his shoulder. In 2003, he wrote ``killed family'' as part of a mundane wrap-up of his daily activities.

``It gives us what we think might be clues, but they could be red herrings,'' said Karen Sternheimer, a University of Southern California sociologist who studies adult misperception of youth culture.

``They color in the story, but whether or not it really means anything, who knows? You could probably find thousands of 21-year-old men who posted similar things, but the only reason we're looking at this is because he's been accused of a violent crime.''

On Monday, a makeshift memorial cluttered the walkway to the Menards' three-bedroom home, where relatives declined to talk to reporters, saying they were too overwhelmed.

Wax from burned-out candles spilled over the porch steps, not far from where Menard and his father spent weekends cleaning up the garden.

``I know you are in heaven, watching over us and our wonderful dancing,'' wrote a member of Ashley's dance team at Granada Hills Charter High School. A framed picture of Ashley, smiling shyly, stood over the note. ``We love you so much. Rest in peace.''

Inside the home, there was no sign of the violence that police said took place there Thursday or Friday. A picture of Brandon and his older brother, Scott, wearing kilts at Scott's wedding, lay at the edge of a pile of boxes in the family's living room.

Upended by remodeling, the living room was in disarray, with carts filled with magazines and planks stripped on the floor.

This is the home where Brandon wrote his long missives, hung out with his friends, spent time with the family. This is where the family died -- with David and Toni killed inside and Ashley found near the koi pond in the backyard, dead from blunt-force trauma and stab wounds.

``He went through the same things a lot of teenagers do growing up,'' said Nick Napolitano, 21, another friend from high school.

``People have problems with their families, but it never leads to things like this. ... I was shocked, and I knew the guy. Bottom line: I never would have imagined seeing this in the paper.''

Staff Writer Rachel Uranga contributed to this report.

brent.hopkins(at)dailynews.com

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6 photos

Photo:

(1 -- 5 -- color) Relatives of Brandon Menard -- in photo at top, arrested on suspicion of killing his parents and sister -- walk past a memorial outside the family home. Photos of the parents, David and Toni, and sister, Ashley, 16, are below.

Gus Ruelas/Staff Photographer

(6) This photo of Brandon Menard, 21, appears on his MySpace page. Friends and former co-workers are still struggling for answers after his arrest on suspicion of killing his parents and 16-year-old sister.