The juvenile court judge has ruled, and the now 21-year-old man who is believed to have killed 18-year-old Max Maltzman in an abandoned Hunters Point warehouse three years ago will be tried in adult court, pending an appeal by his attorney.

The 21-year-old suspect, whom we'll continue to refer to by his graffiti tag Ebok because he was 17 at the time of the crime, was in court Tuesday along with his parents, as the Chronicle reports, along with Maltzman's parents, Reed Maltzman and Jennifer Gosselin, and his younger sister.

Superior Court Judge Anne Costin reportedly took over an hour to explain her reasoning for transferring the case to adult court, and said it was based on five factors. As the Chronicle explains, those included the gravity of the crime and the sophistication with which it was carried out, in addition to the defendant's history of drug use and other crimes, and the chances for full rehabilitation within the limits of the juvenile justice system.

Costin reportedly spoke of the defendant's mother's own admission that her son could be an especially "good liar," and she cited multiple actions that showed both sophistication and an apparent lack of remorse for the crime. These included concealing the body to the point that police who responded to Maltzman's 911 call at the warehouse that day in 2023 did not see any evidence of a crime or a body, and Maltzman's remains wouldn't be found until weeks later. And, Ebok was seen attending Maltzman's funeral, and a girlfriend testified that he had worn a t-shirt in public that Maltzman had purchased in the Haight on the day he was killed, almost as a kind of trophy.

As Costin described it, per the Chronicle, Ebok lured a "neurodivergent high schooler he barely knew" to a remote warehouse and bludgeoned him to death, all because he believed he was a "bad person."

Ebok's defense attorney Adam Gasner had argued that the boy's under-developed brain, with development likely stunted by adolescent drug use, had acted impulsively out of a belief that Maltzman had assaulted or wanted to assault his girlfriend and other girls they went to school with at Raoul Wallenberg High School.

The two teens had reportedly met up in the Upper Haight on the afternoon of January 6, 2023, where Maltzman bought a t-shirt, and where Ebok allegedly suggested that they both go to party that was happening at a warehouse in Hunters Point that is well known to taggers. They took the 19 bus almost to its last stop, and walked to the warehouse, where Ebok and an as-yet-unidentified second suspect allegedly bludgeoned Maltzman to death — but not before he was able to quickly call 911 and scream for help.

Per the Chronicle, Maltzman's parents heard the recording of the 911 call for the first time in court.

Maltzman's body was found at the bottom of an elevator shaft three weeks later, partly submerged in water and partly covered by a metal plate. Above the body, on the wall of the building, was the spraypainted tag "EBOK" with an arrow pointing down — a seeming act of pride in the killing that Judge Costin also reportedly cited in her decision.

"While nothing will bring Max back, we are grateful to Judge Costin for carefully considering the evidence before her,” said Maltzman's parents in a statement. "And we are grateful to Assistant District Attorney Mitchell and [SFPD] Sgt. [Tom] McWilliams for their steadfast work on Max’s behalf."

This is the first case to be transferred from juvenile to adult court in San Francisco in a decade, as the Chronicle notes. Ebok's attorney, Gasner, moved to have him held in juvenile detention pending the outcome of his appeal of Judge Costin's decision, and the judge agreed.

Previously: Teen Classmate Carrying Out Some Version of Vigilante Justice May Be Tried as Adult In 2023 SF Warehouse Killing