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Community Mourns While Police Question Confession Of Brooklyn Boy's Killer
By
Ben Yakas
Published Jul 14, 2011
Modified Jul 14, 2011
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By
Ben Yakas
Published Jul 14, 2011
Modified Jul 14, 2011
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Police are taking a closer look at the detailed confession of Levi Aron, the man who allegedly killed and dismembered an 8-year-old Hasidic boy earlier this week. Aron gave a detailed confession to police last night (which you can read here) before he was officially charged with murdering Leiby Kletzky. But police are strongly questioning whether Aron's statement was entirely true.
Aron's insistence that he had simply offered to give Leiby a lift to a Jewish bookstore, then invited him to a wedding in upstate Monsey, has struck police as too unbelievable and unlikely a scenario. Although there has been no evidence as of yet that Leiby was sexually molested before he was killed, there was evidence he had been tied up with rope. They also believe Leiby was killed on Monday, not Tuesday—when Aron allegedly "panicked" after seeing reports about the missing boy—and they think that Aron did not take the boy to the wedding in Monsey.
While police continue to construct the timeline of the murder, thousands of mourners and residents poured into Borough Park into a narrow parking lot outside the Hechal Hatfila temple for Leiby's funeral last night. Leiby Kletzky's father, Nachman Kletzky, expressed his gratitude for the outpouring of support as he eulogized his son, who would have turned nine next week: "Here lies my child. Purity of heart. Very quiet and very respectful. Satisfied and never demanding. My child is gone...We must gather our strength and see what we can do for other Jews. We have to show love and give to others," Kletzky said.
Mayor Bloomberg also expressed his condolences to the family: "Some things are just inexplicable, a nine-year-old boy with a whole future, his life ahead of him and then gone. Obviously the perpetrator is a very sick individual, and this is the sort of thing — I don't know what's going to happen with the investigation, but it's hard to see how something like this could've been prevented."
Tagged
borough park
brooklyn
confession
Hasidic
leiby kletzky
levi aron
Mourning
murder
orthodox jew
police
Ben Yakas
Ben Yakas is a former Gothamist reporter.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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