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From: Denver
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Joined: Aug 2002
Posts: 1,753
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From: Denver
Ten-Year-Old Faces Murder Charges
Mar 27, 2003 7:22 pm US/Eastern
A 10-year-old boy was charged Thursday with luring a 3-year-old boy from a library, beating him with a baseball bat and sexually assaulting him before dumping him in a drainage ditch.
The charges were filed a day after Amir Beeks was attacked and hours after he died. The 10-year-old, who was not identified by authorities, was charged with murder, felony murder, kidnapping, illegal weapons possession and aggravated sexual assault.
"This is a shocking case, a tragic case," Middlesex County Prosecutor Bruce Kaplan said.
The suspect appeared before a Family Court judge in New Brunswick on Thursday and was being held in the Middlesex County Youth Detention Center.
Kaplan said the suspect cannot be tried as an adult. He faces a sentence of up to 20 years in a juvenile facilty on the murder charge, but could serve a longer term if he were convicted on the other charges and the judge were to impose consecutive sentences.
The prosecutor said the boys were at the Colonia Library in Woodbridge at 4:25 p.m. Wednesday. The older boy did not know Amir, who was at the library with relatives, Kaplan said.
A motive in the attack remains unclear. Kaplan said the cause of death has not been determined, although it appeared the boy was beaten with the baseball bat.
Amir was found face-down in a drainage ditch within walking distance of the library at about 5 p.m. Wednesday. He was rushed to JFK Hospital in Edison but pronounced dead Thursday morning.
Witnesses at the library led police to the suspect, authorities said.
A man who answered the door at the house where neighbors said the suspect lived refused to comment and called police Thursday night.
Supervisors at the library would not speak to reporters Thursday and closed the branch four hours early when camera crews arrived.
Mayor Frank Pelzman spoke with Amir's family Wednesday night at the hospital, describing them as distraught. He also said he was "aware of" the suspect's family, but had not met them before the incident.
If convicted, the suspect could be the state's youngest killer. A 10-year-old was convicted of aggravated manslaughter in the killing and sexual assault of a baby in Essex County in 1998, said Peter Aseltine, a spokesman for the state Attorney General's office.
The victim was a 4-month-old boy, Aljaneer Caraway, who was not related to the 10-year-old. The older child and his mother were visiting, and the 10-year-old had been left to watch the infant while the baby's mother went to a fast-food restaurant.
The birthdates of the 10-year-olds were not immediately available.
Dr. Patricia Saunders, director of the Graham Windham's Manhattan Mental Health Center, one of the nation's oldest child welfare agencies, who has assessed children accused of killing, said most young perpetrators of sex abuse have been sexually abused themselves.
Others have committed crimes after a traumatic event, but a few are psychopaths: "A child, an adult, who has no conscious, who has no feeling for other people, will act on impulse to gratify their own needs."
Mar 27, 2003 7:22 pm US/Eastern
A 10-year-old boy was charged Thursday with luring a 3-year-old boy from a library, beating him with a baseball bat and sexually assaulting him before dumping him in a drainage ditch.
The charges were filed a day after Amir Beeks was attacked and hours after he died. The 10-year-old, who was not identified by authorities, was charged with murder, felony murder, kidnapping, illegal weapons possession and aggravated sexual assault.
"This is a shocking case, a tragic case," Middlesex County Prosecutor Bruce Kaplan said.
The suspect appeared before a Family Court judge in New Brunswick on Thursday and was being held in the Middlesex County Youth Detention Center.
Kaplan said the suspect cannot be tried as an adult. He faces a sentence of up to 20 years in a juvenile facilty on the murder charge, but could serve a longer term if he were convicted on the other charges and the judge were to impose consecutive sentences.
The prosecutor said the boys were at the Colonia Library in Woodbridge at 4:25 p.m. Wednesday. The older boy did not know Amir, who was at the library with relatives, Kaplan said.
A motive in the attack remains unclear. Kaplan said the cause of death has not been determined, although it appeared the boy was beaten with the baseball bat.
Amir was found face-down in a drainage ditch within walking distance of the library at about 5 p.m. Wednesday. He was rushed to JFK Hospital in Edison but pronounced dead Thursday morning.
Witnesses at the library led police to the suspect, authorities said.
A man who answered the door at the house where neighbors said the suspect lived refused to comment and called police Thursday night.
Supervisors at the library would not speak to reporters Thursday and closed the branch four hours early when camera crews arrived.
Mayor Frank Pelzman spoke with Amir's family Wednesday night at the hospital, describing them as distraught. He also said he was "aware of" the suspect's family, but had not met them before the incident.
If convicted, the suspect could be the state's youngest killer. A 10-year-old was convicted of aggravated manslaughter in the killing and sexual assault of a baby in Essex County in 1998, said Peter Aseltine, a spokesman for the state Attorney General's office.
The victim was a 4-month-old boy, Aljaneer Caraway, who was not related to the 10-year-old. The older child and his mother were visiting, and the 10-year-old had been left to watch the infant while the baby's mother went to a fast-food restaurant.
The birthdates of the 10-year-olds were not immediately available.
Dr. Patricia Saunders, director of the Graham Windham's Manhattan Mental Health Center, one of the nation's oldest child welfare agencies, who has assessed children accused of killing, said most young perpetrators of sex abuse have been sexually abused themselves.
Others have committed crimes after a traumatic event, but a few are psychopaths: "A child, an adult, who has no conscious, who has no feeling for other people, will act on impulse to gratify their own needs."
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