Investigators believe an 11-year-old boy killed his 5-year-old brother at their home in Centennial on Tuesday afternoon.
The older brother was arrested on Wednesday on suspicion of first-degree murder and is being held at the Marvin W. Foote Youth Services Center in Centennial, according to the Arapahoe County Sheriff’s Office.
Neither child has been publicly identified, though the 5-year-old boy was a kindergartener at Timberline Elementary, Principal Mary Bowens wrote in a Wednesday email to parents.
Authorities responded to the boy’s home, a rental property in the 5200 block of South Jericho Way, at about 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, . The street, filled with single-family homes with wide driveways and green yards, remained closed Wednesday afternoon as the investigation continued.
Authorities have not said how the killing unfolded or offered any details about the attack. Arapahoe County Sheriff’s spokesman Anders Nelson declined to offer any information on the nature of the 5-year-old’s injuries or say why investigators considered the death to be first-degree murder, citing the early stage of the “very complex investigation.”
The 5-year-old boy’s cause of death remained under investigation Wednesday, sheriff’s officials said.
“It is with great sadness that I want to share with you that one of our kindergarten students has died unexpectedly,” wrote in the email to parents. “There is currently an active police investigation and law enforcement asked the district not to release the studentap name. We ask the community to honor the family’s privacy at this time.”
The sheriff’s office said Wednesday that there was no ongoing danger to the community and that everyone involved in the boy’s death has been identified.
Children as young as 10 can be criminally prosecuted in Colorado. Typically, hundreds of Colorado children between the ages of 10 and 12 face criminal charges each year.
State lawmakers have on multiple occasions introduced bills aimed at raising the minimum age for prosecution to 13, but those bills have failed. Both of the recent efforts — in 2022 and 2023 — included exceptions that would have allowed children as young as 10 to still be prosecuted for homicide. Children younger than 12 cannot be charged as adults and their cases must proceed in juvenile court.
Timberline Elementary plans to offer students and staff support through its mental health team and in the coming days, Bowens wrote.
“There is no right or wrong way to cope with loss, but there are some things that adults can do to help students work through this difficult time,” Bowens wrote. “I want to remind you how important it is to have conversations with your own child and remind them that if he or she is struggling with this loss to seek out the support of an adult.”
Bowens ended the email with a reminder to “Please hug your children — nothing is more important than our kids.”
