A 29-year-old man has been sentenced to life in prison without eligibility for parole for 10 years for the second degree murder of a teen-aged boy.
Aaron Ryan pleaded guilty to second degree murder as part of a joint submission between the Crown and the defense.
The teen was found dead in a motel room at Park Motel on Dundas Street West in Trenton in January 2024.
Ryan, as well as four others, faced charges including first degree murder.
The four others, 22-year-old Morgan Belyea, 27-year-old Steven Courneyea both of Belleville, 43-year-old Harold Russell, and 29-year-old Khadijah Courneyea pleaded guilty to lesser charges on January 16, 2025.
In an agreed statement of facts, it outlined an incident leading to a group attack against the boy at the motel.
Victim impact statements were read by family and friends of the teen, describing the tremendous loss felt from the death.
In his sentencing on Wednesday, Justice Patrick Hurley called the murder “brutal and senseless”, saying that the incident in no way justified what Ryan did to the boy.
He expressed sympathy for the victim’s family and friends calling their impact statements “powerful and eloquent descriptions of the love each person had” for him.
In addition to life imprisonment without eligibility for parole for 10 years, Justice Hurley imposed a DNA order, a lifetime weapons prohibition, a non-communication order with respect to the people identified in the agreed statement of facts, and a forfeiture order with respect to all items seized by the police.
