Hilton Head High students pay tribute to slain classmate during graduation ceremony
As the names of Hilton Head High School’s graduating class of 2022 were read aloud at Wednesday’s graduation ceremony, one name stood out from the rest.
Khalil Singleton.
Many will remember Khalil’s name from the news of the tragic shooting that killed him on Hilton Head in 2012, but his family remembers the bookworm who was full of life.
“He was a happy little boy who loved baseball and the outdoors,” said Katrina Dixon, Khalil’s mother. “He was smart, and he loved people.”
On Sept. 1, 2012, Khalil was playing in his grandmother’s front yard when a shooting broke out between three men — Tyrone Robinson, 47; Aaron Scott Young Sr., 46; and his son, Aaron Scott Young Jr., 28 — as part of an ongoing feud, according to previous reporting from The Island Packet and Beaufort Gazette. Khalil was hit in the torso by a stray bullet from the gunfire.
At the time, Khalil was a student at Hilton Head Elementary School.
After nearly three years, all three men were tried and convicted. Young Jr. was convicted in 2014 of Khalil’s murder and the attempted murder of Robinson. He was sentenced to 30 years. Young Jr. tried to appeal his conviction twice, once with the appeals court in 2018 and once with the S.C. Supreme Court in 2020. The convictions were upheld both times, court records show. Robinson, who is believed to have shot the bullet that hit Khalil, was sentenced to life in prison in 2014 without the possibility of parole.
About a year after her son’s murder, Dixon moved to Atlanta, something she said she had always wanted to do.
“Maybe God ... had other plans for me, and I had to leave the island,” she said. “There’s a lot of memories here. Not to say I’m forgetting them, but I had to have a fresh start.”
Despite moving, she said she still keeps in touch with several of Khalil’s childhood friends who graduated this year. When she heard the school her son would have attended planned on putting him on the program and calling out his name alongside his classmates, she was overjoyed.
“I was floored and honored they remembered the story and they were going to honor him that day,” she said. “I’m just happy and joyous. He would’ve been graduating and (been a) young, tall man.”
‘Forever in our hearts’
Dixon and Khalil’s father, Kareem Singleton, gathered with a group of about 20 family members, including Khalil’s siblings, aunt, cousins and uncles, to celebrate his honorary graduation. The family donned T-shirts with Khalil’s face and name on them along with the year to commemorate the occasion.
“You did it in heaven,” the T-shirts read. “Forever in our hearts.”
Keeping Khalil’s memory close is important to Dixon, who said she talks about him all the time.
“People that don’t know the story of what happened, they probably think my son is still here because I talk about him a lot,” Dixon said. “I share so many memories I have of him. I try to keep his memory ... his name alive.”
Dixon remembers Khalil wanting to be a football player. But he was always changing his mind, as 8-year-olds tend to do, she said. He loved reading books that were funny, like Dav Pilkey’s The Adventures of Captain Underpants, and watching wrestling with his dad on TV. He rode his four-wheeler and always wanted to make sure people were taken care of.
One year, while celebrating his mother’s birthday at his grandmother’s house, Khalil asked her if he could share her birthday cake with others who were passing by. If Khalil had something, “he would want someone else to have it too,” according to his mother.
“He had a beautiful smile and personality,” Dixon said. “He was an 8-year-old boy who everybody loved.”
