Levi Aron: The Kidnapping and Murder of Leiby Kletzky

Levi Aron was the Brooklyn man who kidnapped, drugged, smothered, and dismembered eight-year-old Leiby Kletzky in July 2011, a killing that stunned New York City’s Orthodox Jewish community. Aron pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and second-degree kidnapping in August 2012 and was sentenced to 40 years to life in prison. He died in custody on December 3, 2025, at age 49.¹

What He Did to Leiby Kletzky

On the afternoon of July 11, 2011, Leiby Kletzky left the Boyan Day Camp in Borough Park, Brooklyn, at about 5:05 p.m. It was the first time his parents had let him walk home alone, and they had agreed to meet him halfway.²³ Leiby missed a turn, became lost, and around 5:30 p.m. approached Aron, then 35 and a stranger, near a Judaica bookstore to ask for help. Surveillance footage later showed the boy following Aron to a gold car.⁴

Aron took Leiby to his attic apartment in Kensington, Brooklyn, then drove him to a wedding in Monsey, New York, according to Aron’s own written confession, returning around 11:30 p.m. The boy slept at the apartment. The next day, July 12, Aron went to work; investigators later found ligature marks on Leiby’s wrists.⁵⁶

Aron told police he saw missing-child flyers around the neighborhood and “panicked.” In his handwritten confession he said he fed the boy a tuna sandwich, led him to a side room, and smothered him with a towel. “He fought back a little bit until eventually he stopped breathing,” Aron wrote.⁵ The New York City medical examiner ruled the death a homicide caused by acute drug intoxication followed by smothering, finding cyclobenzaprine, quetiapine, hydrocodone, and acetaminophen in the child’s blood. Brooklyn District Attorney Charles J. Hynes said Aron had forced the boy to ingest a large quantity of drugs and, when the drugs failed to kill him, smothered him.⁶

Aron then dismembered the body. He placed some parts in his freezer and refrigerator and put the rest in a red suitcase, driving about 20 minutes to leave it in a dumpster on 20th Street near 4th Avenue in Greenwood Heights.⁵

How Police Found Him

The search for Leiby initially went in the wrong direction, focused for about 18 hours on a route the boy had not taken. A volunteer searcher named Yaakov German suspected Leiby had walked straight down 44th Street and began checking security cameras at nearby businesses. He found a clear image of the boy at a locksmith shop and additional footage from a car-rental business showing Aron appearing to follow him.⁷

Detectives noticed a man on the video entering a nearby dentist’s office about ten minutes before the encounter with Leiby. The dentist recalled someone visiting to pay a bill, and office records identified Aron by name and address. Roughly 40 minutes later, at about 2:40 a.m. on July 13, officers arrived at his East 2nd Street apartment.²⁶

Who Levi Aron Was

Aron was 35 at the time of the killing, divorced, and living alone in an attic apartment in a building shared with his father and uncle in Kensington. He worked at a hardware supply store.⁴ He was Orthodox but not Hasidic and had no prior criminal record.⁸ He had no known connection to the Kletzky family, and police described the crime as “totally random.”²

Neighbors and later psychiatric evaluators described him as quiet and socially awkward. During interrogation, he told police “I’m famous” as questioning progressed, and denied any prior sexual offenses against children.⁹

The Mental Health Question

At arraignment, defense attorney Pierre Bazile requested a psychiatric evaluation, citing “serious concerns about the defendant’s mental state.” Aron was placed on suicide watch.¹⁰ A court-ordered evaluation at Kings County Hospital found him competent to stand trial but diagnosed him with an adjustment disorder and a personality disorder with schizoid features. Evaluators described his mood as “neutral, practically blank,” with emotion showing only when he was asked about his incarceration.¹¹

Aron told doctors he had been hearing a voice for about a year, but gave conflicting accounts of whether it commanded him. He initially told hospital staff the voice instructed him to hurt himself and others, then later told a psychologist it did not command him.¹¹ His defense explored an insanity plea and brought on attorney Jennifer McCann for her experience with such cases; an earlier attorney, Gerard Marrone, had resigned citing “moral” issues with the representation.¹² No insanity defense was ultimately pursued.

The Plea and Sentence

On August 9, 2012, Aron pleaded guilty in Kings County Supreme Court to second-degree murder and second-degree kidnapping, sparing the Kletzky family a trial.¹³ Assemblyman Dov Hikind, acting as a spokesperson for the parents, said they wanted to avoid “the horror of those three days” of trial testimony.¹⁴

On August 29, 2012, Justice Neil Firetog sentenced Aron to 40 years to life in prison, making him eligible for parole in 2051 at age 77. Wearing an orange jumpsuit and a black yarmulke, head down and eyes closed, Aron whispered “no” when the judge asked if he wished to speak. A prosecutor read a statement from Nachman Kletzky: “God did not abandon our son, nor our family, for one second. … A day doesn’t pass without our thinking of Leiby.” Neither family attended in person.¹³¹⁵

Prosecutor Julie Rendelman told Aron that when he stood before a parole board four decades later, “his crime will not have been forgotten.” Defense attorney Howard Greenberg asked the judge to order protective custody, warning that without it “he’ll be murdered. His sentence is 40 years, not death.” Justice Firetog granted the request.¹⁵

Prison and Death

In August 2018, while housed at the Sullivan Correctional Facility in Fallsburg, Aron attacked a female corrections officer who had told him to clean his cell. According to the state correctional officers’ union, he grabbed her by the forearm and tried to drag her into the cell. She broke free, but he grabbed her twice more, and she used pepper spray. She suffered swelling, abrasions, and bruising and did not return to duty afterward. Aron was removed from the general population, and state police investigated the incident.¹⁶¹⁷

He was later transferred to the Wende Correctional Facility near Buffalo. Beginning on August 26, 2025, he was hospitalized for an undisclosed medical condition.¹⁸¹¹⁹ Reached by the New York Post, Nachman Kletzky declined to comment.²⁰

1
CBS New York. Levi Aron Dies in Prison
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ABC7. Brooklyn Boy Found Dead After Disappearance
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The Forward. Jewish Neighborhood in Shock After Grisly Murder
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ABC News. Brooklyn Boy Leiby Kletzky Struggled With Levi Aron
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The New York Times. Levi Aron’s Confession in Leiby Kletzky’s Killing
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ABC News. Dismembered Brooklyn Boy Leiby Kletzky Drugged, Smothered
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ABC7 Chicago. Brooklyn Man’s Discovery of Surveillance Footage Led to Arrest
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Times of Israel. Murderer of Hasidic Boy in Brooklyn Dies in Prison
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CBS News. Levi Aron’s Handwritten Confession Released
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ABC News. Alleged Killer Hearing Voices, Lawyer Says
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NBC New York. Levi Aron Psychiatric Evaluation
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NBC New York. Levi Aron Defense Strategy
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ABC7. Levi Aron Pleads Guilty in Leiby Kletzky Case
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The New York Times. Levi Aron Expected to Plead Guilty
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DNAinfo. Levi Aron Sentenced to 40 Years to Life
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New York Post. Man Who Chopped Up Boy’s Body Reportedly Attacked Prison Guard
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New York Daily News. Levi Aron Attacked Female Prison Officer
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Brooklyn Reporter. Man Who Kidnapped, Killed Borough Park Boy in 2011 Dies
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Cleveland.com. Convicted Child Killer Found Dead in Upstate New York Prison Hospital
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New York Post. Levi Aron Dies Behind Bars