Final man charged in Khalil Singleton case headed to trial Monday
The final defendant charged in the 2012 murder of an 8-year-old Hilton Head Island boy will stand trial Monday, nearly three years after the boy was shot and killed while playing in his grandmother's yard.
Aaron Young Sr., 39, is the last of three men to be tried for murder in the slaying of Khalil Singleton. Both Tyrone Robinson and Young's son, Aaron Young Jr., were tried and convicted in the past year.
Young Sr. is charged with murder and attempted murder. Singleton was killed by stray gunfire Sept. 1, 2012, on Allen Road, according to the Beaufort County Sheriff's Office.
During a fight earlier that day outside his home on Wild Horse Road, Young Sr. slapped at Robinson's gun. Robinson fired several shots and the men wrestled on the ground, investigators said. No one was hit, and Robinson drove away.
The Youngs then drove to Robinson's home on Allen Road to confront him. Young Jr. fired several shots into Robinson's car from a pickup truck Young Sr. was driving. Robinson, hiding in a different location, fired at Young Sr.'s truck as it sped away from Allen Road.
Robinson, who is believed to have fired the bullet that struck the child in the torso, was convicted of murder in September and sentenced to life without the possibility of parole.
Young Jr. was convicted of Singleton's murder and the attempted murder of Robinson in February and was sentenced to 30 years in prison.
Young Sr. and his family were in attendance when that verdict was read. Several family members had to be removed from the courtroom because of their outbursts. Young Sr.'s father, Benny Young, made an impassioned speech against Robinson and the law enforcement response. That speech earned a harsh rebuke from Circuit Court Judge Thomas Cooper.
The death of Singleton, a third-grader at Hilton Head Island Elementary School, shook the community. Five days after his death, he was mourned at a vigil that also included calls to stop violence in the area. Sheriff P.J. Tanner's announcement at the vigil that two of the men had been charged with murder brought cheers from the crowd of over 100 who had marched down Beach City Road.
Young Sr.'s trial comes nearly 16 months after a joint trial with the other two defendants collapsed because previously unheard recordings of a Sheriff's Office interrogation of Young Sr. surfaced. Young Sr. was released from the Beaufort County Detention Center last June after spending nearly two years in jail.
His attorney, Robert Ferguson of Lady's Island, had contended Young Sr. was coerced into cooperating with authorities. The recording that surfaced before the trial's start in April 2014 -- of a deputy telling Young Sr. he could avoid a murder charge if he cooperated with investigators -- was key in that claim.
The deputy involved in the recording was fired in May 2014 after an internal investigation by the Sheriff's Office, one in which several others were disciplined and reprimanded.
A motion on the coercion claim made before the trial's collapse in April 2014 has not been ruled on, according to court records.
Attempts Thursday to reach Ferguson and 14th Circuit Solicitor Duffie Stone were unsuccessful.
Jury selection will begin Monday. Circuit Court Judge Brooks Goldsmith of Edisto Island will preside.
Follow reporter Matt McNab at twitter.com/IPBG_Matt.
This story was originally published August 8, 2015 at 4:55 PM with the headline "Final man charged in Khalil Singleton case headed to trial Monday."