The story of a boy who disappeared on Monday while walking home from a Brooklyn day camp has ended not only in tragedy but has left city residents in shock, appalled at the level of depravity capable of infecting the human mind.
Eight-year-old Leiby Kletzy’s image was shown yesterday in newspapers, on TV, and on the Internet in the hopes he might have wandered off or been kidnapped but might be returned alive.
Those hopes were dashed early this morning when body parts of a child approximately the same age were found wrapped in a black plastic garbage bag that had been stuffed into suitcase and tossed in a trash bin.
Additional parts were later found in a refrigerator inside the home of a man now being questioned by detectives. The man, identified only as being 35, has not been arrested on formal charges. Other than a summons for urinating in public, the individual, who lives alone, has no criminal record.
Police report that the man made statements that appear to implicate him in the crime, though a spokesman for the New York City Police Department would not comment further on the case.
Leiby was last seen near 44th Street and 12th Avenue in the Borough Park section of Brooklyn just before 5 p.m. on Monday. The boy, whose family practices the ultra-Orthodox and insular form of Judaism known as Hasidism, was supposed to meet his mother three blocks away from the day camp. He never showed up, however.
The man who is a possible suspect is also Jewish, though it unclear if he is a member of the Hasidic community.
New York State Assemblyman Dov Hikind, whose district includes the area, is quoted as saying of the tragedy:
Everybody [in the neighborhood] is absolutely horrified. 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.
Noting that a $100,000 reward had been offered for information leading to the capture of the boy’s killer, Hikind added that the outpouring of support from all over the state has been tremendous.
UPDATE: The man believed responsible for this murder has been identified by police. His name is Aron Levi. He works at a hardware supply store in the Kensington section of Brooklyn and is described by a co-workers as "a strange guy" who seemed perfectly normal at work yesterday. Police found three knives in a butcher block inside his apartment, though no word has been released confirming that any of the knives was the murder weapon.
UPDATE: Aron Levi was charged with murder at 6:30 p.m., after telling police he was not sure why he killed the child. Autopsy results are not yet in, but police say Aron told them he suffocated the boy to death in his apartment, then dismembered him.
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