On July 11, 2011, Leiby Kletzky, a Hasidic Jewish boy, was kidnapped as he walked home from his school day camp in the mainly Hasidic neighborhood of Borough Park, Brooklyn in New York City. Kletzky's disappearance sparked an all-out search by New York City police and a block-by-block search by up to 5,000 Orthodox Jewish volunteers from New York and other states coordinated by the Brooklyn South Shomrim volunteer civilian patrol.
His dismembered body was found in the Kensington apartment of Levi Aron, aged 35, and in a dumpster in another Brooklyn neighborhood, Greenwood Heights, on Wednesday morning July 13. Videos from surveillance cameras along the boy's route showed him meeting a man outside a dentist's office and then apparently getting into his car. The dentist's reception records led police to Aron at his apartment, where he showed them parts of the boy – and told them where he had dumped the rest of the body. The kidnapping and murder of the eight-year-old boy shocked the tight-knit Brooklyn Hasidic community, whose streets are considered safe.
Aron gave a 450-word handwritten confession to police after his arrest, but pleaded not guilty at his first court hearing. Before the case went to trial, on August 9, 2012, Aron pleaded guilty to one charge of second-degree murder and one charge of second-degree kidnapping as part of a plea bargain agreement worked out between prosecutors and defense attorneys. On August 29, Judge Neil Firetog sentenced Aron to 40 years to life in prison. The case drew comparisons to the 1979 kidnapping of six-year-old Etan Patz from nearby SoHo, who was abducted while walking to his school bus for the first time.
Disappearance Yehudah Kletzky, known as "Leiby", was the third of six children and only son of Nachman Kletzky and Esti Forster Kletzky, Boyaner Hasidim and residents of Borough Park."Leiby Kletzky, z"l". Hamodia American News, July 21, 2011, p. B26. He was reported missing late Monday afternoon while walking home from a day camp held at his school, Yeshiva Boyan Tiferes Mordechai Shlomo. Kletzky had begged his parents to let him walk home from the camp instead of taking the school bus. It was the first time that his parents allowed him to walk alone and they had practiced the route the day before; his mother waited for him at a predetermined point a few blocks away at 50th Street and 13th Avenue. The boy missed a turn upon leaving camp and headed in the wrong direction.
Search Kletzky's mother called the Brooklyn South Shomrim volunteer civilian patrol to report a missing child at 6:14 p.m. The organization, which says it receives 10 calls of missing children per day, immediately checked candy stores, other shops, and homes of friends and relatives where the boy might have gone. By 8:30 p.m., Shomrim contacted the New York City Police Department (NYPD), which declared a Level 1 search. The police search involved canine units, mounted police, and police helicopters. On Tuesday morning, Brooklyn South Shomrim, together with Shomrim organizations in Crown Heights, Flatbush, and Williamsburg, made an all-out call for volunteers to join the search. Five thousand Orthodox Jewish volunteers from the local community and from other communities in the Tri-State area, joined in a block-by-block search. Bangladeshi residents of nearby Kensington also joined the search. State Assemblyman Dov Hikind posted a $5,000 reward for information leading to the return of the child, which was eventually increased to $100,000 by members of the community.
Meanwhile, Yaakov German, a Bobover Hasid and father of Kletzky's yeshiva rebbi, went door-to-door on Tuesday morning with his son to examine videos from surveillance cameras posted in stores and offices along the boy's route. The videos showed that after leaving his school at 1205 44th Street – between 12th and 13th Avenues – at about 5:05 p.m., Kletzky missed his turn at 13th Avenue, instead continuing up 44th Street. Other videos showed the boy walking by Shomrim Locksmith at 44th Street and 15th Avenue, and then along 44th Street at 17th Avenue. On 18th Avenue, the boy was seen talking to a man who then crossed the street and entered a dentist's office. When the man came out, Kletzky followed him and appeared to get into his car.
After examining the videos, police located the dentist, who alerted his receptionist, the wife of politician Simcha Eichenstein.Shaer, Matthew (December 4, 2011) "A Monster Among the 'Frum'", New York Magazine. "[Simcha] Eichenstein's wife, Herbst knew, worked for Sorscher as a receptionist. Elbowing Bernstein out of the way, Herbst uploaded a clip of the bearded man and sent it to Eichenstein. Eichenstein sent it to his wife, at home with her small children. 'Of course,' she told her husband. She couldn't remember the man's name, but she was sure she had seen him. 'He came in to pay a bill. He was the last one in the office.'" She gave them the name and address of the suspect who had come in to pay his bill that day. After midnight on Tuesday, police also managed to identify the car in the surveillance video as a gold 1990 Honda Accord. Forty-five minutes later, two Flatbush volunteers searching for the missing boy in Kensington spotted the car and sent in the license plate number, which matched Aron's details. Police went to the suspect's apartment in Kensington around 2 a.m. Wednesday morning. They arrived to an open door, and when they asked Aron where the boy was, he allegedly nodded toward the kitchen, where the police found blood-soaked carving knives and bloody towels in bags. The boy's severed feet were found in the freezer. The suspect told police where to find the rest of the remains: In a red suitcase thrown in a dumpster on 20th Street between Fourth and Fifth Avenues. Aron was taken into police custody at 2:40 a.m. Wednesday morning.
Confession According to a 450-word handwritten statement in which he confessed to killing the boy, Aron claimed that Kletzky had asked him for directions and accepted a ride, saying he wanted to be dropped off at a bookstore. Aron suggested that they drive together to a wedding in Monsey, New York; they returned around 11:20 p.m. Aron claimed that he planned to return the boy to his family on Tuesday, but when he saw the missing child posters the next day, he said he "panicked", returned to the apartment, and smothered the boy with a towel. Then he dismembered the body and stuffed it into bags, which he placed in a suitcase and left in a dumpster in another neighborhood.
A video from the security camera at the Ateres Charna wedding hall in Rockland County confirmed that Aron was at the wedding, but no sign is seen of Kletzky. A color surveillance video taken later that night at a Sunoco gas station on the Palisades Interstate Parkway showed Aron and Kletzky getting out of Aron's car and going into the bathroom. The video was time-stamped 8:15 p.m.
There was no evidence that the victim had been sexually abused. Aron was unknown to Kletzky before meeting the boy on the street.
Funeral Kletzky's funeral, held in the parking lot of a Borough Park synagogue was attended by thousands of Orthodox Jews, many of whom traveled from throughout the Tri-State area to attend. Attendance was estimated at 8,000 by the Shomrim civilian patrol, and 10,000 by Arutz Sheva.
Perpetrator Levi Aron was an Orthodox Jew who grew up in Brooklyn. His father, Jack, worked at the Hasidic-owned B&H Photo in Brooklyn; his mother, Basya, died five or six years previously. Aron lived in the attic apartment of his parents' three-family home on the corner of Avenue C and East 2nd Street in the Kensington neighborhood. He was married twice; in 2004 he married Diana Diunov, an Israeli woman, and in 2007 he married Deborah M. Parnell of Tennessee, a divorced mother of two whom he had met online and with whom he moved to Memphis, where he worked as a security guard. Both marriages ended in divorce.
Aron worked as a clerk at a hardware-supply company in Brooklyn. He was described by his coworkers as quiet and socially awkward. Aron had injured his head when he was hit by a car while riding his bike at the age of 9 and suffered problems stemming from that accident. It is believed that this caused extreme shyness and neurotic behaviors with Aron in later life. He had no prior arrest record. He had been served with an order of protection in January 2007, and had received a fine for a seat belt violation and one speeding ticket. In Brooklyn, authorities cited a summons for public urination.
Legal proceedings Defense attorneys' statements Aron appeared in Brooklyn Criminal Court on July 14, 2011, and pleaded not guilty. At the hearing, his lawyer stated that Aron "suffers from hallucinations" and "hears voices". The court ordered Aron to be sent to the prison ward at Bellevue Hospital Center for a psychiatric evaluation.
After Aron had been hospitalized, his lawyers stated that he was "seeking to quiet the voices in his head by listening to music". They also described his demeanor as "abnormal".
In December 2011, another of Aron's attorneys, Howard Greenberg, sparked outrage when he remarked of his client, "Look, everybody knows when blood relations have offspring, there can be genetic defects ... There's inbreeding in that community" – the latter referring to the Hasidic Jewish community of New York City.
Autopsy findings On July 20, 2011, the office of the New York City medical examiner released autopsy results revealing that Kletzky had ingested a lethal mix of four different drugs and had then been smothered. The cause of death was determined to be intoxication from a combination of cyclobenzaprine (a muscle relaxant), quetiapine (an antipsychotic), and hydrocodone and acetaminophen (two analgesics), followed by smothering. Upon release of the autopsy results, the case was officially ruled a homicide.
On August 9, 2011, the New York City medical examiner's office revealed that Kletzky had ingested a fifth drug, Duloxetine, which is used for generalized anxiety disorder and as an antidepressant. The blood tests revealing this drug took a few weeks to process at an outside lab.
Indictment Hours after the autopsy results were released on July 20, a Brooklyn grand jury indicted Aron on eight counts of murder and kidnapping – including two counts of first-degree murder, three counts of second-degree murder, two counts of first-degree kidnapping, and one count of second-degree kidnapping – which carries a maximum sentence of life in prison without parole.
A day after the indictment was handed down, one of Aron's lawyers, Gerard Marrone, resigned from the case, saying that he could not represent the defendant as "the allegations were too horrific". Attorney Jennifer McCann joined Pierre Bazile for the defense. The case was prosecuted by the Kings County (Brooklyn) District Attorney's Office. The lead prosecutor was veteran Assistant District Attorney Julie B. Rendelman of the Homicide Bureau. Rendelman was the attorney who successfully prosecuted Horace Moore for the stabbing murder of NYC bus driver Edwin Thomas. Also assigned to the case was Assistant District Attorney Linda Weinman.
Arraignment Aron was declared competent to stand trial in an arraignment at the New York State Supreme Court in Brooklyn on August 4, 2011.
Results of the psychiatric evaluation, obtained by the Associated Press, indicate that Aron was diagnosed with an adjustment disorder. The suspect was said to be "confused and apathetic", with a "'practically blank' personality". In addition, the psychologist apperceived him as reserved, apathetic, sad and cooperative, and diagnosed a schizoid personality disorder. Details also emerged that Aron had a younger sister who died while institutionalized for schizophrenia.