Arhon Kee 01A0856
Attica State Prison
Attica, NY 14011-0149
Death toll 3
The man, Arhon Kee, is suspected of killing a 17-year-old fashion student and raping two girls, 15 and 14, in three housing projects in Harlem last year, said Deputy Inspector Joseph J. Reznick, commander of the Manhattan North Detective Bureau.
Detectives are also investigating whether Mr. Kee was involved in the killings of two other teen-age girls in past years, he said.
Mr. Kee was in police custody as recently as last week, after his arrest on Feb. 8 on charges of attempted petty larceny. He was freed the next day after his arraignment, the police said. Inspector Reznick said that while Mr. Kee was ”among the suspects” in the murder and rapes in Harlem at the time of his arrest, it was not until three days later, on Friday, that detectives had enough information to seek his arrest.
On Friday, the police received the results of a DNA test that linked Mr. Kee to the murder and two rapes, said a law enforcement official who spoke on the condition of anonymity. That gave detectives reason to seek his arrest, the official said. On December 20, 2000, a New York jury convicted Kee the slayings of three girls and the rapes of four others during an eight-year crime spree. Kee, 27, faces life without parole in state prison when he is sentenced January 26. Kee was charged with murdering three Harlem girls between 1991 and 1998. Four other victims, ranging in age from 13 to 15, were raped.
One girl may have been burned alive on a rooftop. Another had her life’s breath squeezed out of her, and a third, only 13, was strangled and stabbed three times in her bare left breast.