Woodbridge toddler's 2003 killer faces sentencing for escaping parole facility
A former Woodbridge resident who made national news as a 10-year-old two decades ago for kidnapping and killing a 3-year-old boy, recently pleaded guilty in Camden County to charges of setting a fire alarm to escape parole supervision in 2018.
Aaron L. Kean, now 31 and a South Carolina resident, pleaded guilty Nov. 29 to setting a false alarm and escaping to abscond parole, both third-degree crimes.
Kean is scheduled to be sentenced in early January by Camden County Superior Court Judge Yolanda Rodriguez, according to the Camden County Prosecutor's Office. His sentence is expected to range from probation to five years in prison.
Kean was arrested in September by the Sheriff's Department in Lexington, South Carolina, on a warrant from New Jersey.
A criminal complaint signed in January 2019 by a New Jersey State Parole Board office indicates that on Dec. 30, 2018, Kean absconded from parole supervision by leaving his approved parole site in Camden without authorization and fleeing to an unknown location to avoid supervision.
The complaint also says Kean activated the warning signal for a fire, knowing the warning was false and likely to cause an evacuation.
Camden County court papers also say that Kean intentionally activated the fire alarm at the Camden facility that released the magnetic security doors on both the interior and exteriors doors.
"This false alarm caused the evacuation of the building and the Camden City Fire Department to respond as an emergency causing a public panic. Once Kean exited the building he ran from the scene and failed to return anytime thereafter," the affidavit says.
The 2018 charges aren't Kean's first encounter with law enforcement.
On March 26, 2003, Kean, then 10, grabbed national headlines when he lured 3-year-old Amir Beeks from the Henry Inman Branch Library in the Colonia section of Woodbridge to his home around the corner on Amherst Avenue, where he bludgeoned the toddler with a baseball bat and left him face down in the creek next to the house.
Amir died the next day at JFK Medical Center in Edison, and the killing drew national attention.
Amir, the adopted son of Rosalyn Singleton, had gone to the library with his sister Krystal Singleton, then 17, and a 19-year-old cousin. He was listening to a story being read while the two teens were nearby working on a computer. After the story ended, Amir was asked to select another book to be read. He walked away to find a book and stopped at a computer terminal where Kean was.
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Kean, who had been expelled from two Woodbridge schools, had been dismissed earlier that day from a tutoring session at the library because he was misbehaving.
The boys did not know each other. Kean gave a statement at his sentencing that he lured the toddler out of the building through a side door, walked past a gas station toward his home where the toddler was beaten and sexually assaulted.
Kean's statement indicated the incident began after the toddler asked to use his scooter.
Amir was found about a half hour after he disappeared face down in a shallow stream alongside Kean's home. He was rushed to the hospital in critical condition and was on life support until the next morning when he was pronounced dead.
Kean pleaded guilty to killing Amir Beeks in Family Court in New Brunswick and was sentenced to 18 years in the custody of the New Jersey Juvenile Justice Commission.
He became one of the youngest detainees in the custody of the juvenile justice commission and was incarcerated for 13 years.
He became a state Department of Corrections inmate on Oct. 6, 2010, after turning 18 and was housed at the Garden State Youth Correctional Facility in Crosswicks.
In 2016 Singleton, received a letter from the Middlesex County Prosecutor's Office that Kean, then 24 years old, was scheduled to be paroled to a community release program.
"I've been having nightmares all these years. It is still bothering me," Singleton said Tuesday, adding she sometimes sees Kean and his family in her dreams. "I don't know if this is telling me something or not."
Singleton said she's concerned for those Kean comes in contact with.
On March 26, 2019, the 16th anniversary of the day Amir was killed, Woodbridge dedicated a pedestrian bridge connecting the library on Inman Avenue to the park and playground on the other side of Pumpkin Patch Brook in Amir's memory.
Email: srussell@gannettnj.com
Suzanne Russell is a breaking news reporter for MyCentralJersey.com covering crime, courts and other mayhem. To get unlimited access, please subscribe or activate your digital account today.
This article originally appeared on MyCentralJersey.com: Woodbridge NJ toddler's killer faces sentencing for escaping parole
