NYC boy spent hours with suspect before murder
NYC boy spent hours with suspect before murder. A Brooklyn man reportedly told police that he spent more than 12 hours with a young Orthodox Jewish boy -- including taking him to a
wedding just outside New York City -- before smothering and dismembering him in a panic.
Levi Aron, 35, detailed the time he spent with Leiby Kletzky, 8, and allegedly confessed to killing the boy in a 450-word
statement obtained by WNBC-TV, NBC News reports.
"I understand this may be wrong and I'm sorry for the hurt that I have caused," Aron told police, according to NBC News.
Kletzky was walking
home alone from day camp for the first time Monday and disappeared while on his way to meet his mother on a street corner seven blocks away. Authorities said he had evidently gotten lost after missing a turn, and had reached out to Aron, a stranger, for help.
According to the obtained statement, Aron told police he wanted a ride to a bookstore but then lost interest.
"So I asked if he wanted to go for the ride -- (a) wedding in Monsey -- since I didn't think I was going to stay for the whole thing since my back was hurting. He said OK," Aron told police.
They returned to Aron's home around 11:20 p.m. Monday night and watched television before going to sleep in separate rooms, Aron told police. Police said Aron, who is divorced, lives alone in an attic in a building shared with his father and uncle.
Aron told police he planned to return Kletzky to his home Tuesday.
Apparently unaware that a search was already in progress for the boy, Aron left his home Tuesday to find
photos of the missing boy on fliers distributed in the neighborhood.
"When I saw
the flyers I panicked and was afraid," he told police. "I was
still in panic ... and afraid to bring him home. That is when I went for a towel to smother him in the side room. He fought back a little bit."
Now with the body of a dead boy in his home, he told police he panicked again "because I didn't know what to do with the body." He detailed to police how he dismembered the body.
A day-and-a-half search led police to Aron's home after midnight Wednesday morning after seeing him on a
surveillance video with the child. They asked: Where is the boy?
The man nodded toward the kitchen, authorities said, where blood stained the
freezer door. Inside was the stuff of horror films -- severed feet, wrapped in plastic. In the
refrigerator, a cutting board and three bloody carving knives. A
plastic garbage bag with bloody towels was nearby.
"It is every parent's worst nightmare," Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said Wednesday, following the Aron's arrest on a charge of second-degree murder.
The gruesome killing shocked the tight-knit Hasidic community in Borough Park, in part because it is one of the safest sections of the city and because Aron is himself an
Orthodox Jew, although not Hasidic. The Hasidim are ultra-Orthodox Jews.
"This is a no-crime area," said state Assemblyman Dov Hikind, whose district includes the area. "
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."
Source: cbsnews
