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For a couple of hours on Monday night, Leiby Kletzky, 8, sat in a car outside a catering hall in Rockland County, N.Y.; the windows were rolled down, if the man suspected in his killing is to be believed.
More than 400 people were at a wedding inside the hall, including the man who had driven Leiby there, Levi Aron, 35. No one apparently noticed the little boy sitting there on the warm night. And no one knew then that Borough Park, Brooklyn, was mobilizing to find him.
Leiby was 35 miles from home, where his world was defined by family and religion and community and Mr. Aron’s by dead-end jobs and marriages that fell apart. They encountered each other on a sidewalk in Borough Park, one a lost child who needed directions, the other an adult from nearby Kensington who indicated he could help.
On Thursday, three days after they met on the sidewalk, the police were trying to sort through Mr. Aron’s account of how he had met the boy, and what had happened during the undetermined time that they spent together before the boy was suffocated and dismembered.
Mr. Aron appeared in Brooklyn Criminal Court and pleaded not guilty to charges of kidnapping and murdering Leiby. Judge William Miller ordered him held without bail and said he would have to undergo a psychological evaluation after his lawyer said Mr. Aron might have mental problems.
The lawyer, Pierre Bazile said, “He has indicated to me that he hears voices and has had some hallucinations.” He also said Mr. Aron had “indicated despondency and concern for his well-being.”
Mr. Aron, in a green-checked shirt, stood stone-faced.
The police said Mr. Aron had scratches on his wrists and arms that they believed were indications of a struggle. They did not have a precise time of death, a law enforcement official said, but believed it was on Tuesday. There is “nothing to indicate otherwise at this point,” said the official, who, like others discussing the case, insisted on anonymity because the investigation is continuing.
The police said Mr. Aron told them that when he realized how many people were looking for Leiby — thousands of volunteers had joined the search, putting missing-person posters on street corners and in subway stations and all but turning the neighborhood inside-out — he became afraid to take him to his parents or to the authorities.
The police commissioner, Raymond W. Kelly, said at a news conference that that was when Mr. Aron, according to his account, had panicked and suffocated Leiby. Mr. Aron told the police that he had smothered the boy with a towel. Leiby, Mr. Aron told the police, “fought back a little bit until eventually he stopped breathing,” according to his confession, portions of which were reported by NBC New York.
Mr. Kelly said there were also ligature marks on Leiby’s body, indicating that Mr. Aron might have bound him as he killed him.
Mr. Kelly said detectives had corroborated much of what Mr. Aron had told them.
The police said Mr. Aron offered Leiby a ride — Monday had been Leiby’s first day to leave day camp by himself, and he had ended up blocks from a rendezvous point with his mother.
The boy had asked for directions to a Judaica bookstore, and Mr. Aron said he knew the way. He also offered Leiby a chance to watch television, something the police said the boy could not do at home.
But Mr. Aron could not find the bookstore, and ended up taking Leiby along to the wedding, at Ateres Charna in Rockland, north of New York City. While the police have confirmed that Mr. Aron was at the wedding, they have not yet determined with certainty whether Leiby was there, too.
“He indicated that he left the boy in the car, when he stopped in,” a law enforcement official said, “and he didn’t stay that long, because his back was bothering him and he left the kid in the car with the windows open.”
It was not clear if the bride and bridegroom were aware that Leiby was outside in the car.
The following morning, Mr. Aron said, he left Leiby in his attic apartment when he went to his job at a hardware supply store. Mr. Aron told the police that the boy was still asleep when he left for work.
While it was not clear exactly when Leiby was killed, detectives were confident that the parts of Leiby’s body found in a Dumpster on 20th Street had been put there not long before the police went to Mr. Aron’s apartment. “He got rid of it Tuesday going into Wednesday,” the law enforcement official said, adding that detectives were working on the theory that Mr. Aron had driven to the Dumpster alone.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/15/nyregion/suspect-pleads-not-guilty-in-leiby-kletzkys-death-and-offers-account.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1
More than 400 people were at a wedding inside the hall, including the man who had driven Leiby there, Levi Aron, 35. No one apparently noticed the little boy sitting there on the warm night. And no one knew then that Borough Park, Brooklyn, was mobilizing to find him.
Leiby was 35 miles from home, where his world was defined by family and religion and community and Mr. Aron’s by dead-end jobs and marriages that fell apart. They encountered each other on a sidewalk in Borough Park, one a lost child who needed directions, the other an adult from nearby Kensington who indicated he could help.
On Thursday, three days after they met on the sidewalk, the police were trying to sort through Mr. Aron’s account of how he had met the boy, and what had happened during the undetermined time that they spent together before the boy was suffocated and dismembered.
Mr. Aron appeared in Brooklyn Criminal Court and pleaded not guilty to charges of kidnapping and murdering Leiby. Judge William Miller ordered him held without bail and said he would have to undergo a psychological evaluation after his lawyer said Mr. Aron might have mental problems.
The lawyer, Pierre Bazile said, “He has indicated to me that he hears voices and has had some hallucinations.” He also said Mr. Aron had “indicated despondency and concern for his well-being.”
Mr. Aron, in a green-checked shirt, stood stone-faced.
The police said Mr. Aron had scratches on his wrists and arms that they believed were indications of a struggle. They did not have a precise time of death, a law enforcement official said, but believed it was on Tuesday. There is “nothing to indicate otherwise at this point,” said the official, who, like others discussing the case, insisted on anonymity because the investigation is continuing.
The police said Mr. Aron told them that when he realized how many people were looking for Leiby — thousands of volunteers had joined the search, putting missing-person posters on street corners and in subway stations and all but turning the neighborhood inside-out — he became afraid to take him to his parents or to the authorities.
The police commissioner, Raymond W. Kelly, said at a news conference that that was when Mr. Aron, according to his account, had panicked and suffocated Leiby. Mr. Aron told the police that he had smothered the boy with a towel. Leiby, Mr. Aron told the police, “fought back a little bit until eventually he stopped breathing,” according to his confession, portions of which were reported by NBC New York.
Mr. Kelly said there were also ligature marks on Leiby’s body, indicating that Mr. Aron might have bound him as he killed him.
Mr. Kelly said detectives had corroborated much of what Mr. Aron had told them.
The police said Mr. Aron offered Leiby a ride — Monday had been Leiby’s first day to leave day camp by himself, and he had ended up blocks from a rendezvous point with his mother.
The boy had asked for directions to a Judaica bookstore, and Mr. Aron said he knew the way. He also offered Leiby a chance to watch television, something the police said the boy could not do at home.
But Mr. Aron could not find the bookstore, and ended up taking Leiby along to the wedding, at Ateres Charna in Rockland, north of New York City. While the police have confirmed that Mr. Aron was at the wedding, they have not yet determined with certainty whether Leiby was there, too.
“He indicated that he left the boy in the car, when he stopped in,” a law enforcement official said, “and he didn’t stay that long, because his back was bothering him and he left the kid in the car with the windows open.”
It was not clear if the bride and bridegroom were aware that Leiby was outside in the car.
The following morning, Mr. Aron said, he left Leiby in his attic apartment when he went to his job at a hardware supply store. Mr. Aron told the police that the boy was still asleep when he left for work.
While it was not clear exactly when Leiby was killed, detectives were confident that the parts of Leiby’s body found in a Dumpster on 20th Street had been put there not long before the police went to Mr. Aron’s apartment. “He got rid of it Tuesday going into Wednesday,” the law enforcement official said, adding that detectives were working on the theory that Mr. Aron had driven to the Dumpster alone.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/15/nyregion/suspect-pleads-not-guilty-in-leiby-kletzkys-death-and-offers-account.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1
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