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NEW YORK (AP) — An 8-year-old Brooklyn boy who got lost while
walking home alone from day camp in his Orthodox Jewish
neighborhood was killed and dismembered by a stranger he had asked
for directions, and his remains were found stuffed in a trash bin
and the man’s refrigerator, police said Wednesday.
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The gruesome killing of Leiby Kletzy shocked the tight-knit Hasidic
community in Borough Park, in part because it is one of the safest
sections of the city and because the man under arrest is himself an
Orthodox Jew.
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A day-and-a-half search for the boy ended with the discovery of his
severed feet inside a bloody freezer at the home of a man who was
seen with the child on a surveillance video, a law enforcement
official told The Associated Press. The rest of the remains were in
the trash in another neighborhood.
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“It is every parent’s worst nightmare,” Police Commissioner Raymond
Kelly.
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The 35-year-old suspect, Levi Aron, implicated himself in the
killing, Kelly said.
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Police said there was no evidence the boy was sexually assaulted,
but they would not otherwise shed any light on a motive except to
say Aron told them he “panicked” when he saw photos of the missing
boy on fliers that were distributed in the neighborhood. Police
were looking into whether Aron had a history of mental
illness.
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Detectives were questioning him Wednesday afternoon and planned to
charge him with murder. It was not clear whether he had an
attorney. The medical examiner’s office said it was still
investigating how the boy was killed.
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The Hasidim are ultra-Orthodox Jews who live in somewhat insular
neighborhoods. The streets are policed by a group of volunteers
known as the Shomrim patrol. Many of the mothers who gathered
outside the Kletzy family home Wednesday said the streets are
normally safe enough for a child to walk home alone.
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Adel Erps, like other neighbors, expressed shock the suspect was
Jewish. “He’s a sick person obviously, but it hurts so much more,”
she said.
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Aron’s family was Orthodox but not Hasidic, and he lives about a
dozen blocks away from the Kletzky family. When detectives arrived
at his attic apartment around 2:40 a.m., they asked him where the
boy was, and he nodded toward the kitchen, Kelly said.
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Detectives saw blood on the freezer door and opened it to discover
the feet inside, wrapped in plastic bags, according to the law
enforcement official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because
the investigation is still going on. A cutting board and three
bloody carving knives were in the refrigerator, and a plastic
garbage bag with bloody towels was found nearby.
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Aron told police where to find the rest of the body; it was in
pieces, wrapped in plastic bags, inside a red suitcase that had
been tossed into a trash bin in another Brooklyn neighborhood,
Kelly said.
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Police and volunteers had been looking since late Monday afternoon
for Leiby, who disappeared while on his way to meet his mother on a
street corner seven blocks from his day camp. This was the first
time he was allowed to walk the route alone; his parents had taken
him on a practice run on Friday.
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The break in the case came when investigators watched a grainy
video that showed the boy, wearing his backpack, getting into a car
with a man outside a dentist’s office. Police said the boy had
evidently missed a turn and gotten lost.
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Detectives tracked the dentist down at his home in New Jersey, and
he remembered someone coming to pay a bill. Police identified Aron
using records from the office, and 40 minutes later he was
arrested.
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Police said Aron, who is divorced, lives alone in the attic, in a
building shared with his father and uncle. When they arrived, the
door was ajar. It’s not clear how long the boy had been dead, Kelly
said.
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Kelly said it was “totally random” that Aron grabbed the boy, and
aside from a summons for urinating in public, he had no criminal
record. A neighbor told authorities her son had said Aron had once
tried to lure him into his car, but nothing happened and she didn’t
think much of it until the news of the killing, police
said.
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He lived most of his life in New York and worked as a clerk at a
hardware supply store around the corner from his home, authorities
said. Co-workers said Aron was at work on Tuesday.
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“He seemed a little troubled,” said employee Chamin Kramer, who
added Aron usually came and went quietly.
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Aron lived briefly in Memphis, Tenn., and his ex-wife, Deborah
Aron, still lives in the area. She said he never showed signs of
violence toward her two children from a previous
relationship.
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“It’s utter disbelief,” she said from the toy-littered backyard of
her home in the Memphis suburb of Germantown. “This ain’t the Levi
I know.”
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Deborah Aron said the couple divorced about four years ago after
about a year of marriage. She described Levi Aron as a person who
was shy until he got to know you and said he enjoyed music, karaoke
and “American Idol.” She said he attended Orthodox Jewish services
in Memphis.
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Leiby was last seen wearing dark pants and a short-sleeved shirt
and yarmulke with the traditional long locks of hair by his ears
worn by Hasidic men.
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Hasidic Jews abide by strict religious rules that require men to
wear plain, dark clothing that includes a long coat and a
fedora-type hat. Men often have long beards. Most of the 165,000
members in the New York City the area live in Brooklyn and belong
to three sects. Hasidism traces its roots to 18th-century Eastern
Europe.
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“This is a no-crime area,” said state Assemblyman Dov Hikind, whose
district includes the area. He said the boy was the only son of the
Kletzky family. The parents have four daughters, and the husband
works as a driver for a private car service.
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“Everybody is absolutely horrified,” he said. “Everyone is in total
shock, beyond belief, beyond comprehension … to suddenly
disappear and then the details … and the fact someone in the
extended community … it’s awful.”
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The medical examiner’s office released the body so that the boy
could be buried promptly Wednesday evening according to Jewish
custom.
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—(equals)
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Associated Press Writers Karen Matthews and Adrian Sainz in
Memphis, Tenn., contributed to this report.
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