Woodbridge toddler's 2003 killer lands back behind bars. Here's why

Aaron Kean, the former Woodbridge resident who made national news as a 10-year-old two decades ago for kidnapping and killing a 3-year-old boy, has been sentenced to probation for more recent crimes of setting a false alarm and escaping to abscond parole.

And while he was released from detention in Camden County following his recent sentencing there, Kean, now 31 and a South Carolina resident, is not a free man.

Kean is being held in the Salem County Jail on 2021 charges pending with the Gloucester County Prosecutor's Office, according to Thomas Gilbert, Gloucester County Prosecutor's Office Chief of Detectives.

Earlier this month Kean was sentenced to five years’ probation on charges related to setting a false alarm and escaping to abscond parole, both third-degree crimes, which he pleaded guilty to last year. As part of the sentence Kean also must undergo a mental health evaluation, comply with treatment recommendations and provide a DNA sample, according to the Camden County Prosecutor's Office.

He was then turned over to Gloucester County which had a detainer for Kean.

Court papers state Kean, a former Turnersville resident, on Nov. 9, 2021, failed to notify the law enforcement agency with which he is registered that he was planning to move to a new address, a third-degree crime. The court papers state he had left Turnersville in Washington Township about a month earlier and moved to Point Pleasant in Ocean County.

"Mr. Aaron Kean is a convicted sex offender and is required to notify his law enforcement agency if he intends to move from his primary residence," court papers state, adding on April 19, 2021, Kean registered with the Washington Township Police Department as a Megan's Law sex offender, and listed his primary address in Turnersville.

On Nov. 9, 2021, a Washington Township detective was contacted by an Ocean County Prosecutor's Office detective sergeant indicating Kean had moved to the Point Pleasant area. The Washington Township detective traveled to Kean's last known address in Turnersville and spoke with a resident who lived with Kean, who indicated Kean had moved to Point Pleasant about a month earlier, and not returned, court paper state.

Kean is scheduled to appear for a post-indictment arraignment before Gloucester County Superior Court Judge Kevin Smith next week, according to court officials.

Kean was arrested in September 2023 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 came 15 years after Kean in March 2003 grabbed national headlines for luring 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. The death of a 3-year-old by a 10-year-old drew national media attention.

Amir had gone to the library with his 17-year-old sister 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 and he walked away to find a book and stopped at a computer terminal where Kean was. The two boys did not know each other.

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.

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, 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.

Kean 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 Kean, then 24, was scheduled to be paroled to a community release program.

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 2003 killer lands back behind bars