An Adams County District judge has closed a hearing in which she will decide whether to try a teenage boy as an adult in the murder of 10-year-old Kiaya Campbell.
Judge Priscilla Loew ruled Tuesday morning that it is in the best interest of the boy and the community to keep the public from a preliminary hearing and a later hearing to determine whether tor try him as an adult.
Loew said that the case is now in juvenile court. Adams County District Attorney Dave Young said he will seek to prosecute the boy, who was 15 when Kiaya Campbell died, as an adult.
Loew made her decision to exclude the public, including a Denver Post reporter, after asking defense attorneys and prosecutors what their position was in regard to holding an open hearing.
Young said he did not have an opinion. A defense attorney requested that the hearing remain closed.
Young has not named the boy because he is a juvenile, but Loew in a previous hearing identified him as the son of Kiaya’s father’s girlfriend.
The suspect has been held in an Adams County juvenile detention facility. The teen entered the courtroom Tuesday morning wearing green detention facility pants and a blue sweat shirt.
Kiaya disappeared the night of June 7 while walking with the teen to a store from the home in the 12400 block of Forest Drive in Thornton where her father lived with his girlfriend and her two sons.
Following an Amber Alert and an intense search involving 23 rescue and law enforcement agencies, her body was discovered the afternoon of the following day in a greenbelt area about 1½ miles from where her family reported she had disappeared.
The teen Kiaya was with told police that he run and became separated from the girl when it began raining hard. Some neighbors have disputed that there was a rainstorm in the area that night.
