The Attacks Begin
According to a Cold Case Files podcast episode about the case, in January 1991, a man was walking along FDR Drive in Manhattan when he stumbled across the body of a young Hispanic girl dumped along the footpath. Detective Gary Dugan told the podcast, “Her jacket was opened, her hands were at her side and we couldn't tell exactly what had killed her at that time.”
She had stab wounds to the chest, as well as a ligature mark around her neck and bruising to her pelvis. She appeared to have been sexually assaulted, likely with a blunt instrument.
The young victim was identified as Paola Illera, 13, and police determined that she’d been killed in another location with her body subsequently dumped along the footpath. It would later be determined that she lived in the same apartment building as Ahron Kee.
Kee raped a 15-year-old girl in an East Harlem housing project three years later, and in September 1997, he attacked a 19-year-old girl named Johalis Castro in a Bronx housing project. Castro’s corpse was found on fire after being doused in gasoline.
“You could see the outline of a body that was burned beyond recognition,” Detective Thomas Lombardo told the Cold Case Files podcast. Unfortunately, water from the fire department’s attempts to douse the flames had washed away evidence; just a few bits of jewelry and clothing identified the victim as a young woman.
Police subsequently pulled phone records for Castro and found numerous phone calls between her and the Kee residence in East Harlem. Cynthia Kee told detectives that her son might have known the young victim, and told investigators her son’s name: Arohn Kee.
The detective found that Kee had spent time in jail upstate for robbery. When interviewed about Castro’s murder, Kee reportedly said, “What a damn shame, look how pretty she was.”
Kee later admitted that he and Castro were friends and said they’d been planning to go shopping together on the day of the murder. He said he’d called her home after failing to hear from her that day.
The Attacks Escalate
Over the course of the following year, Kee attacked multiple girls and young women. He raped and sodomized a 13-year-old girl in April 1998; raped, sodomized and murdered 18-year-old Rasheeda Washington in June of that year; raped and sodomized a 15-year-old in September; and raped and sodomized a 14-year-old in November.
A resident found Washington’s body lying dead in the stairwell of the building both she and Kee lived in. Washington had disappeared the previous night while walking home. Her cause of death was asphyxiation due to compression of the chest and neck; she’d also been sexually assaulted.
A semen sample was taken, but the case began to go cold. The semen sample was eventually linked to another unsolved rape case, and three other unsolved Harlem rapes were soon linked to the new pattern. The victims reportedly all looked like each other.
Keeping Tabs on Arohn Kee
Though police didn’t have enough evidence to arrest Kee, they began surveilling him. He was soon arrested on a charge of petty larceny.
When police brought Kee in for questioning, they attempted to collect a DNA sample by providing him with cigarettes, sodas and tissues in the hopes that he’d use them, but Kee didn’t take the bait.
They eventually obtained a DNA sample from a drinking glass found in his jail cell. They analyzed the DNA and began matching Kee to various rape cases. A warrant was issued for his arrest, but Kee, 25 at the time, fled to Miami with Angelique Stallings, a 16-year-old girl he’d abducted. There was a stakeout in front of Kee’s hotel, and police found him hiding under the bed covers with the missing teen. He was arrested and, during questioning, blurted out a confession to Stallings for the rapes and murders.
After being returned to New York by air, Kee faced multiple criminal charges, including Washington’s murder, the abduction and unlawful confinement of Stallings, and two separate rape cases from 1995 and 1996. Additional DNA analysis later connected him to the previously unsolved killings of Paola Illera and Johalis Castro, along with a 1992 sexual assault that had remained unresolved.
Kee claimed, during his trial, that he’d been framed. To explain away the evidence against him, Kee claimed he had viewed a computer disk detailing a secret plot by the New York City Medical Examiner's office to illegally harvest and sell human organs. He claimed authorities framed him for the murders to cover up the imaginary black market operation. And in a bizarre courtroom moment, Kee asked the judge if he could remove his dress shirt because he had scrawled "notes" about the medical examiner's organ scam on his T-shirt.
Kee was ultimately convicted on 22 counts, including rape, murder (for the deaths of Illera, Castro and Washington), sodomy and robbery.
During Kee’s January 2001 sentencing, grieving family members angrily spoke out, called him a monster, and demanded accountability. Rasheeda Washington’s father, Gregory Washington, confronted Kee directly during the proceedings. He shouted at Kee to turn around and look him in the eye, while the mother of 13-year-old Paola Illera said, ''I hope you experience what it is like to not be able to sleep, to eat, to walk, to breathe, to not have a moment of peace, thinking of my daughter's suffering at the time of her death.''
