Leiby Kletzky

In June 2017, Levi Aron's brother, Tzvi, was found dead in the same house where Leiby Kletzky's body was discovered.

Hours after the autopsy results were released on July 20, a Brooklyn grand jury indicted Aron on eight counts of murder and kidnapping – including two counts of first-degree murder, three counts of second-degree murder, two counts of first-degree kidnapping, and one count of second-degree kidnapping – which carries a maximum sentence of life in prison without parole.

In September 2013, Assemblyman Dov Hikind and State Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos announced the implementation of the Leiby Kletzky Security Initiative, which will provide the installation of 100 security cameras on public lampposts throughout the Midwood and Borough Park neighborhoods. Paid for by a $1 million state grant, the cameras will be maintained by Secure Watch 24, a private security firm and LLC controlled by Agudath Israel of America. Recorded data from the cameras will be retained for up to five years. According to Agudath Israel of America, camera footage will be accessed only by the New York City Police Department.

Aron gave a 450-word handwritten confession to police after his arrest, but pleaded not guilty at his first court hearing. Before the case went to trial, on August 9, 2012, Aron pleaded guilty to one charge of second-degree murder and one charge of second-degree kidnapping as part of a plea bargain agreement worked out between prosecutors and defense attorneys. On August 29, Judge Neil Firetog sentenced Aron to 40 years to life in prison. Aron would be eligible for parole in 2051, which includes credit for time served.

In March 2012 Aron appeared in court via video conferencing while his attorneys scheduled a new trial date. In May 2012 he appeared before the court again via video conferencing; the video showed that he had gained at least 50 pounds (23 kg) since his arrest.

On August 1, 2012, it was reported that prosecutors had struck a deal with the defense in which Aron would plead guilty in exchange for a sentence of at least 40 years to life in prison. The Kletzky family supported this decision, wanting to avoid reliving the murder if the case went to trial. On August 9, 2012, Aron changed his plea to guilty of one charge of second-degree murder and one charge of second-degree kidnapping at Brooklyn Supreme Court. He answered a series of questions from the judge in which he admitted to killing Leiby Kletzky. On August 29, 2012, Judge Neil Firetog sentenced Aron to 25 years to life on the second-degree murder charge and 15 years to life on the second-degree kidnapping charge. Aron would be eligible for parole in 2051, which includes credit for time served.

On July 11, 2011, Leiby Kletzky, a Hasidic Jewish boy, was kidnapped as he walked home from his school day camp in the mainly Hasidic neighborhood of Borough Park, Brooklyn in New York City, New York. Kletzky's disappearance sparked an all-out search by New York City police and a block-by-block search by up to 5,000 Orthodox Jewish volunteers from New York and other states coordinated by the Brooklyn South Shomrim volunteer civilian patrol.

Aron appeared in Brooklyn Criminal Court on July 14, 2011, and pleaded not guilty. At the hearing, his lawyer stated that Aron "suffers from hallucinations" and "hears voices". The court ordered Aron to be sent to the prison ward at Bellevue Hospital Center for a psychiatric evaluation.

In December 2011, another of Aron's attorneys, Howard Greenberg, sparked outrage when he remarked of his client, "Look, everybody knows when blood relations have offspring, there can be genetic defects... There's inbreeding in that community" – the latter referring to the Hasidic Jewish community of New York City.

On July 20, 2011, the office of the New York City medical examiner released autopsy results revealing that Kletzky had ingested a lethal mix of four different drugs and had then been smothered. The cause of death was determined to be intoxication from a combination of cyclobenzaprine (a muscle relaxant), quetiapine (an antipsychotic), and hydrocodone and acetaminophen (two analgesics), followed by smothering. Upon release of the autopsy results, the case was officially ruled a homicide.

On August 9, 2011, the New York City medical examiner's office revealed that Kletzky had ingested a fifth drug, Duloxetine, which is used for generalized anxiety disorder and as an antidepressant. The blood tests revealing this drug took a few weeks to process at an outside lab.

Aron was declared competent to stand trial in an arraignment at the New York State Supreme Court in Brooklyn on August 4, 2011.

Aron was held at Rikers Island on round-the-clock suicide watch. He gave his first media interview to the New York Post on August 12, 2011. He did not refer to Kletzky by name, and kept referring to the smothering and dismembering of the boy as "the incident". He did not explain why he took and kept the boy, saying, "He looked familiar. I thought I knew him".

On August 23, 2011, the State Supreme Court justice assigned to the case, Justice Neil J. Firetog, chided Aron's lawyers in court for discussing the case on their Facebook pages, accused them of leaking the court-ordered psychological examination to the press, and questioned their ability to handle such a complex case given their lack of experience. Pierre Bazile, who passed the bar in 2007, had defended only one homicide case, while Jennifer McCann had defended six cases, three of them ending in acquittal. A veteran criminal defense lawyer, Howard Greenberg, subsequently joined the defense team pro bono to offset the judge's criticism of lack of experience.

On October 24, 2011, Aron appeared at a brief hearing in the State Supreme Court via video conferencing. Outside the courtroom, his lawyers claimed that police forced Aron to write his 450-word confession, stating that he was not sane enough to be aware of his actions. They also told reporters that they were pursuing an insanity defense.

In November 2011, the Appellate Division of the State Supreme Court denied Aron's counsel's request to move the trial to Suffolk County or The Bronx in light of unfavorable media coverage in Brooklyn. However, it reserved the right to allow the defense to re-apply for a change of venue after the jury pool was questioned.

On August 17, 2011, Nachman Kletzky filed a $100 million civil lawsuit against Aron in Brooklyn Supreme Court, seeking damages for the "abduction, kidnapping, torture, murder and dismemberment" of his son. On August 23, Kletzky filed a $100 million civil suit against Aron's father, Jack, for neglecting to monitor his son or protect Leiby while the latter was in his home.

New York City Councilman David Greenfield has said he would propose "Leiby's Law," a bill under which businesses could volunteer to be designated as safe places for children who are lost or otherwise in trouble. Employees would undergo background checks and business owners would put a green sticker in their store windows so children know it is a safe place to get help. On August 16, 2011, the Brooklyn District Attorney's office announced a similar program called "Safe Stop". So far, 76 stores have signed up to display a green "Safe Haven" sticker in their windows to help lost children.

On July 20, 2011, relatives of Kletzky launched a website for the newly established Leiby Kletzky Memorial Fund, which aims to raise $1 million to help children and families in crisis and need. In its first day of operation, the website garnered $61,581 from 1,365 donors.

There was no evidence that the victim had been sexually abused. Aron was unknown to Kletzky before meeting the boy on the street. Child abductions by strangers are extremely rare in New York State, with one of the over 20,300 children who went missing in 2010 having been taken by a stranger, according to state statistics.

Aron worked as a clerk at a hardware-supply company in Brooklyn. He was described by his coworkers as quiet and socially awkward. Aron had injured his head when he was hit by a car while riding his bike at the age of 9 and suffered problems stemming from that accident. It is believed that this caused extreme shyness and neurotic behaviors with Aron in later life. He had no prior arrest record. He had been served with an Order of Protection in January 2007 and had received a fine for a seat belt violation and one speeding ticket. In Brooklyn, authorities cited a summons for public urination.

Levi Aron is an Orthodox Jew who grew up in Brooklyn. His father, Jack, works at the Hasidic-owned B&H Photo in Brooklyn; his mother, Basya, died five or six years previously. Aron lived in the attic apartment of his parents' three-family home on the corner of Avenue C and East 2nd Street in the Kensington neighborhood. He was married twice; in 2004 he married Diana Diunov, an Israeli woman, and in 2007 he married Deborah M. Parnell of Tennessee, a divorced mother of two whom he had met online and with whom he moved to Memphis, where he worked as a security guard. Both marriages ended in divorce.

After examining the videos, police located the dentist, who alerted his receptionist, the wife of community political operative Simcha Eichenstein. She gave them the name and address of the suspect who had come in to pay his bill that day. After midnight on Tuesday, police also managed to identify the car in the surveillance video as a 1990 gold Honda Accord. Forty-five minutes later, two Flatbush volunteers searching for the missing boy in Kensington spotted the car and sent in the license plate number, which matched Aron's details. Police went to the suspect's apartment in Kensington around 2 a.m. Wednesday morning. They arrived to an open door, and when they asked Aron where the boy was, he allegedly nodded toward the kitchen, where the police found blood-soaked carving knives and bloody towels in bags. The boy's severed feet were found in the freezer. The suspect told police where to find the rest of the remains: in a red suitcase thrown in a dumpster on 20th Street between Fourth and Fifth Avenues. Aron was taken into police custody at 2:40 a.m. Wednesday morning.

The case drew comparisons to the 1979 kidnapping of six-year-old Etan Patz from nearby SoHo, who was snatched while walking to his school bus for the first time.

Yehudah Kletzky, known as "Leiby", was the third of six children and only son of Nachman Kletzky and Esti Forster Kletzky, Boyaner Hasidim and residents of Borough Park. He was reported missing late Monday afternoon while walking home from a day camp held at his school, Yeshiva Boyan Tiferes Mordechai Shlomo. Kletzky had begged his parents to let him walk home from the camp instead of taking the school bus. It was the first time that his parents allowed him to walk alone and they had practiced the route the day before; his mother waited for him at a predetermined point a few blocks away at 50th Street and 13th Avenue. The boy missed a turn upon leaving camp and headed in the wrong direction.