NJ, Boy, 10, Charged in Death of 3-Year-Old
Mark Fenster
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/28/nyregion/28ABDU.html
(may require registering with the New York Times)
Boy, 10, Charged in Death of 3-Year-Old
By N. R. KLEINFIELD [New York Times 03/28/2003]
A 10-year-old boy was charged yesterday with enticing a 3-year-old boy
to leave a library in Woodbridge, N.J., and then beating and sexually
assaulting him before leaving him to die in a storm drain.
It was a crime without obvious motive, it involved two young boys who
were strangers and it all unspooled in the space of not more than
about half an hour, the authorities said.
The 3-year-old, Amir Beeks, was apparently battered with a baseball
bat and then dumped in the drain, the authorities said. He was
discovered around 5 p.m. Wednesday and taken to a hospital, where he
remained in critical condition on life support until he died yesterday
morning.
The police refused to identify the suspect, because of his age, but
his neighbors in Woodbridge were quickly aware of who he was. They
described him as a troubled and troublesome loner who lived with his
legally blind father. One neighbor said that she and others had
complained to the authorities in recent months about turmoil in the
home.
Both the suspect and the victim lived in the same part of town, but
the authorities said they did not know each other until their
encounter in the library. Investigators were still trying to
understand what compelled the 10-year-old, as they believe, to act so
savagely.
"This is a shocking case, this is a tragic case," the Middlesex County
prosecutor, Bruce J. Kaplan, said yesterday at a news conference.
Frank G. Pelzman, the mayor of Woodbridge, who was at the hospital on
Wednesday night to console members of Amir's family, said, "Our
concern now is for the families to get through this very difficult
time."
Mr. Kaplan and other authorities offered only the sketchiest of
details of what happened. They said that the two boys chanced upon
each other around 4:25 p.m. Wednesday in the tranquillity of the
town's Colonia library, a beige brick V-shaped building. Both of them
lived in Colonia, one of 10 sections that make up Woodbridge, a
middle-class township of about 97,000 people in central New Jersey,
about 25 miles from Midtown Manhattan.
The 10-year-old somehow lured Amir from the library, the authorities
said. Soon after, the police were contacted and, after scouring the
area, found the 3-year-old lying face down in the drain, a few blocks
away. Paramedics took him to John F. Kennedy Hospital in Edison, where
he was pronounced dead at 11:16 a.m. yesterday.
About 8:30 last night, half a dozen people who said they were family
members of the 3-year-old went to the entrance of the library, lighted
candles and set them up by the front door. Then they locked arms and
began swaying as they sang "You Are My Sunshine."
Neighbors of the suspect and other witnesses offered other details and
conjecture. The prosecutor would say only that Amir was with relatives
at the library. A story making the rounds of Colonia was that Amir
went there with his mother and 5-year-old sister, though the woman
might have been a different relative. She went to the bathroom and
asked her daughter to watch Amir.
It was during that brief interlude, according to this story, that the
10-year-old persuaded Amir to leave the library with him.
The 10-year-old lives a couple of blocks away. There is a Getty gas
station between the library and his house. Gregory Fedorchak, 18, who
pumps gas at the station, said he saw the two boys walking together on
Wednesday around 4:30.
"The little kid was following him up the street," Mr. Fedorchak said.
"We thought everything was like fine. Then 10 minutes later, the
mother came in looking for him."
Neighbors suspect the 10-year-old took the boy to his house, a modest
red-brick Cape Cod. A tree-lined creek runs along the south side of
the yard, patrolled by ducks, and at the edge of the property is an
oval storm drain.
The backyard has a blue plastic sled, a jungle gym and a frayed rope
swing dangling from a tree branch. It had contained a plastic
log-cabin-style playhouse, but neighbors said they saw the police
remove it yesterday morning. The neighbors said Amir was found in the
drain at the border of the property.
Joann Borrelli, who lives two houses away from the 10-year-old, said
she believed he lived alone with his father, though he is thought to
have an older sister. His mother, who was blind, died several years
ago. Neighbors said she had cancer.
His father has attracted some attention as an advocate for the
disabled. After being hit by a car in 1995, and other near misses, he
lobbied local and state officials for enforcement of the "white cane"
law, which gives a blind person with a cane or guide dog the right of
way when crossing a street.
Yet neighbors reported a fractious relationship between the son and
father. On a number of occasions, Ms. Borrelli said, she and other
neighbors have called the state's Division of Youth and Family
Services to complain that the father might be abusing the boy.
The New Jersey Department of Human Services, which oversees Youth and
Family Services, would not discuss its involvement, but did confirm
that the division had a case file on the 10-year-old.
Ms. Borrelli said the boy was a cantankerous mischief-maker who was
almost always alone. "He had no friends — no friends," she said.
"He was always in the street riding his bike. He had a little mouth on
him."
Margaret Demkow, 14, who lives next door to the boy, said: "He was
kind of an outcast. He didn't have many friends."
She said there was only one other boy she ever saw him with, who she
believed was his cousin. She said the 10-year-old was always getting
in trouble and that she often heard his father yelling at him.
A married couple with a 2-year-old son, who live across the street and
spoke on the condition of anonymity, said that they often heard
arguments raging in the house, and that police cars frequently came by
to calm down tempers.
Last summer, the wife said, she was walking down the street with her
son when the 10-year-old threw a rock at her little boy. "When I asked
him why he did that, he cursed at me," she said.
Some teenagers who live in the neighborhood said that the boy had been
expelled from the local school last year for hurling a chair at a
teacher. They believed he was transferred to another school, but
neighbors said they had seen him loitering around his house all week.
"He's a little wise guy," said Stuart Rudowksy, the owner of the
nearby Getty station. He said he was constantly chasing him from the
premises, because he would ride his bike endlessly around the pumps,
disrupting business. He said he would throw glass bottles on the
basketball courts a few blocks away.
The 10-year-old appeared yesterday before a Family Court judge in New
Brunswick. He was charged with murder, felony murder, kidnapping,
illegal weapons possession (a reference to the baseball bat) and
aggravated sexual assault.
Mr. Kaplan, the Middlesex County prosecutor, would not specify the
nature of the sexual charge. The boy was being held in the Middlesex
County Youth Detention Center in North Brunswick.
The prosecutor said the boy could not be tried as an adult. He could
be sentenced to as much as 20 years on the murder charge alone.
According to Mr. Kaplan, the precise cause of Amir's death has not
been determined, but it appeared that the 3-year-old was beaten with
the baseball bat.
"I think it was largely a fortuitous meeting," Mr. Kaplan said, "and
largely being in the wrong place at the wrong time for this young
child."
tiny dancer
"Mark Fenster" <Fenster_2...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:b5e42449.03032...@posting.google.com...
> Picture of the victim at:
> http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/28/nyregion/28ABDU.html
> (may require registering with the New York Times)
>
> Boy, 10, Charged in Death of 3-Year-Old
> By N. R. KLEINFIELD [New York Times 03/28/2003]
>
>
> A 10-year-old boy was charged yesterday with enticing a 3-year-old boy
> to leave a library in Woodbridge, N.J., and then beating and sexually
> assaulting him before leaving him to die in a storm drain.
What a horrible, sad, disgusting case.............
td
Scorpi...@attnospam.net
<tinyda...@nospamhotmail.com> wrote:
>
>"Mark Fenster" <Fenster_2...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
>news:b5e42449.03032...@posting.google.com...
>> Picture of the victim at:
>> http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/28/nyregion/28ABDU.html
>> (may require registering with the New York Times)
>>
>> Boy, 10, Charged in Death of 3-Year-Old
>> By N. R. KLEINFIELD [New York Times 03/28/2003]
>>
>>
>> A 10-year-old boy was charged yesterday with enticing a 3-year-old
boy
>> to leave a library in Woodbridge, N.J., and then beating and
sexually
>> assaulting him before leaving him to die in a storm drain.
>
>
>What a horrible, sad, disgusting case.............
>
>td
ditto
--
The most momentous thing in human life is
the art of winning the soul to
good or evil. Pythagoras
JC
"Mark Fenster" <Fenster_2...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:b5e42449.03032...@posting.google.com...
Oh man. The blind father, I bet he's legally blind but can still make out
certain forms and objects in his own home. Like, he can still easily
recognize and beat his kid. Man, for what that kid did, he deserves the most
severe punishment possible, but I do feel sorry for the life he has had. Oh
man. Blind mother dying of cancer, a.h. father - who I still suspect
sexually did to his son what his son did to that little boy, or something
similar. What a horrible tragedy all the way around.
JC
tiny dancer
"JC" <jonesi...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:3e84da56$0$16257$afc3...@news.optusnet.com.au...
Hey JC, did you get my email? Just wanted to be sure I sent it right.
td
>
>
JC
> Hey JC, did you get my email? Just wanted to be sure I sent it right.
>
> td
Yep! Will be replying soon.
JC
tiny dancer
No problem, just wanted to make sure it went to the right place........I
wasn't sure in the 'transfer'..... :)
td
>