Murderer Was Known as ‘Strange’

By REUVEN FENTON, DANNY GOLD, DANIEL EDWARD ROSEN, REBECCA ROSENBERG and LARRY CELONA – NEW YORK POST

The body of a missing 9-year-old Hasidic boy was found at two locations in Brooklyn this morning and police arrested a suspect in the slaying, sources told The Post.

Police made the gruesome discovery after raiding a Kensington home and arresting 35-year-old Levi Aron, who led them to missing boy Leibby Kletzky‘s body.

Cops said Aron, who works at the Empire Supply hardware store on McDonald Avenue in Kensington, allegedly suffocated the boy.

Police said they also found three knives in a butcher block inside Aron’s apartment.

Co-worker said Aron is divorced with no kids and acted completely normal at work yesterday.

“I can’t believe this,” he said. “He was a strange guy, but he was here yesterday and he was fine after killing this little boy.”

It was a tragic end to the “angelic” boy, who disappeared Monday afternoon after getting lost while walking alone for the first time from his Borough Park day camp and following a man down a busy street, sparking a massive search.

“There are no words, just no words, to describe the sense of what happened here,” said State Assemblyman Dov Hikind (D-Brooklyn).

“Everybody’s shocked. You can see it on the faces of everyone you see here. We’ve had tragedies, people getting hit by cars, but nothing like this. This is a 9-year-old. Some stranger took this child and murdered him in the most brutal way possible.”

Police sources said Aron was tracked him down by tracing credit card transactions and video surveillance that showed the boy walking behind a bearded man on 45th Street and Dahill Road and possibly getting into a gold-colored car.

Police had observed Aron in a video recorded at 5:30 p.m. on Monday where he was seen entering a dentist’s office on 18th Avenue in Brooklyn.

Detectives located one of the dentists who worked there at his home in New Jersey last night and established that the suspect had been in the dentists’ office on Monday to pay a bill.

With the assistance of a receptionist and another dentist associated with the practice, detectives at 2 a.m. found records at the dentists’ office that established the suspect’s name and address. Aron was arrested about 40 minutes later.

Witnesses who saw police raid the Aron’s home at E. 2nd St. and Avenue C recognized the bearded man from surveillance videos.

A gold-colored car was also found at the residence, and investigators were seen going over the vehicle inch by inch.

Neighbors said Aron regularly attended the local shul.

“You could tell he was mentally unstable,” one neighbor said. “He would be calm but then would flare up. The whole family is strange.”

Kletsky was last seen on surveillance video around 45th Street and Dahill Road walking behind a bearded man in a white shirt and dark pants.

“The boy is standing alone at some point. The male crosses the street in his direction, and the boy follows him on Dahill Road,” said NYPD spokesman Paul Browne, adding that it’s unclear whether the pair exchanged words.

The suspect is seen driving off in a gold, possibly Japanese-make car, although “we don’t know for certain whether the boy had gotten into the vehicle or not,” he said.

Leibby’s distraught dad, Nachman, a passenger-van driver with five daughters, reviewed the earlier footage.

“He had tears in his eyes,” said Moishe Lefkovitz, the manager of the locksmith shop at 44th Street and 15th Avenue where the surveillance footage was taken.

“He kept shaking his head, saying, ‘Where are you going? Where are you going? What are you doing?'”

Authorities say the boy was caught on video walking alone from the Boyan Day Camp at a school on 44th Street near 12th Avenue at 4:50 p.m. Monday after returning from a class trip to Manhattan Beach Park.

Leibby — who usually takes the bus — was allowed to leave camp on foot so he could meet his mom and dad just seven blocks away, where they had a doctor’s appointment.

The couple even took special pains to repeatedly go over the boy’s walking route with him, a pal said.

The child had instructions to walk up 44th Street to 13th Avenue and then turn right on 13th Avenue and walk straight across to 50th Street, said a family friend, Rabbi Bernard Freilich. “It sounded like he wasn’t an expert on the streets,” Freilich said.

Surveillance shows the boy walking out the front door on 44th Street toward 13th Avenue, as instructed, but instead of turning right toward the meeting spot, he kept going.

Video footage from the locksmith shop shows him on that corner at around 5:20 p.m. The last known footage of him with the suspect was recorded between 5:30 and 5:45 p.m.

His parents waited until 7 p.m. before contacting the Shomrim, the local civil-patrol group. Shomrim contacted the NYPD at 8 p.m.

Officers and search dogs, aided by the scent of Leibby’s personal belongings — including of his black leather shoes — flooded the school looking for clues. An estimated 3,000 volunteers — including busloads from Hasidic communities in Lakewood, NJ, and upstate Monsey — joined the search.

“I haven’t slept since Sunday,” said Bob Moskovitz, the coordinator for the Flatbush Shomrim. “Then today you wake up, you’re tired, and the first thing you hear is this horrible news. You’re totally wiped out. It’s a total disaster. You’re running on adrenaline, and all of a sudden, this. It’s a horrible, horrible situation.”