19 year old arrested in fatal shooting of Exeter man
Reading police have arrested a 19-year-old city man in the fatal shooting of an Exeter Township man during a spontaneous argument around midday Monday, Nov. 22, in the 500 block of Penn Street.
Aeneas K. O’Brien, who turned 19 a week before the incident, was charged with firstand third-degree murder in the slaying of Leonard King Jr., who was pronounced dead in Reading Hospital shortly after the shooting at 1:24 p.m., according to court records.
O’Brien was taken into custody shortly before 5 p.m. Tuesday by city police officers in his residence in the 1700 block of North 16th Street. He was committed to Berks County Prison without bail following arraignment Tuesday night Nov. 23, before District Judge Gail M. Greth in Reading Central Court.
Investigators provided this account in the probable cause affidavit:
A witness said she was driving east in the 500 block of Penn
with O'Brien riding in the front passenger seat when a man later identified as King was crossing the street. After she stopped, she said, King yelled obscenities at her.
O'Brien got out and confronted King in the street, and an argument ensued.
O'Brien went back to the car but did not get in, instead closing the door. The driver said she drove off when she saw O'Brien pull a gun from a pocket. She heard gunshots as she was driving away.
Police and a fire department medic crew arrived to find King on the south sidewalk, suffering from a gunshot wound to the chest. Paramedics immediately took him to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 2:49 p.m.
Investigators obtained security camera footage from a store in the block. It shows a green Toyota Corolla being parked in the bus-loading zone on the south side of the block. O'Brien gets out from the passenger side, and an argument takes place with King.
O'Brien closes the door, and the car drives off. O'Brien, while standing in the street, fires three shots at King, who turns away and runs west onto the south sidewalk, collapsing near a storefront.
O'Brien is seen running east on Penn, then south on South Sixth.
Three spent bullet casing were found in the middle of the eastbound lane where the Toyota had been parked seconds before the shooting.
The driver of the car told police that she spoke with O'Brien shortly after the shooting and he repeatedly said he was sorry for what had happened.