Arapahoe County – Children believed Zuri-Kye Latifbay McGhee was one of them – either an elementary school student, a muscular teen who lived with his uncle or just another kid with a bicycle in the neighborhood, according to testimony Thursday by an Aurora police detective.
But the children told Detective Dean Ziegler that slumber parties or afternoon gatherings with McGhee would often turn “weird,” with McGhee showing pornographic videos and demanding that boys as young as 8 years old masturbate in front of him, the detective said at McGhee’s preliminary hearing.
Youngsters, between the ages of 8 and 16, later learned McGhee wasn’t like them at all, Ziegler said.
He is a 31-year-old man who is now being held in Arapahoe County jail on $800,000 bail, accused of assaulting 17 boys and two girls over a five-year period.
Prosecutors have charged him with 72 counts, mostly felonies that include sexual assault on a child and unlawful sexual contact. One boy said he was assaulted as many as 100 times. Another said it was as many as 50 times.
Ziegler said McGhee forced children to masturbate, and would threaten them with violence if they didn’t or if they told. He would perform oral sex on them or have them perform it on him, Ziegler said.
A mentally disabled girl told Zieg ler that McGhee assaulted her in a closet, he said.
He described his two-month investigation into McGhee that began in July after a mother learned her son’s teen friend was really a 31-year-old man. The boy then told his mother he had been abused by McGhee, Ziegler said.
Ziegler learned of more children. Ultimately, he interviewed 16 boys, one 16-year-old girl and a 20-year-old woman who said she had been attacked by McGhee when she was 16. All believed McGhee was a teenager.
One boy told Ziegler he was a school-crossing guard when he met McGhee, who was riding his bike across the playground. Another boy said he met McGhee in his fourth-grade class at Arkansas Elementary School, where he thought McGhee was a student. Ziegler said McGhee had gotten access to the school as a chaperone.
Boys told Ziegler of many incidents at McGhee’s apartment, where he told them he lived with his uncle. But no one had ever seen that man, Zieg ler said.
Incidents would also happen at the children’s homes, Ziegler said.
And in one incident, McGhee allegedly beat a boy with a belt and threatened to do it again if he didn’t masturbate, Ziegler said
Parents later told Ziegler they thought McGhee was 13 to 16 years old.
“Initially, (the children) were all reluctant to speak,” Ziegler said. “They were embarrassed about what had happened. A lot of them said they were embarrassed about being fooled.”
The hearing will continue at 1:30 p.m Nov. 16.
Staff writer Jeremy Meyer can be reached at 303-820-1175 or jpmeyer@denverpost.com.
