Legislative Overreach Following Leiby Kletzky's Murder

Following the brutal murder of 8-year old Leiby Kletzky that shook even the hardened New York City Police Department with the shocking brutality and dismemberment of his body by admitted killer Levi Aron, politicians are rushing to fill a perceived gap.

Brooklyn Councilman David Greenfield is proposing "Leiby's Law," 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's a safe place to get help.

Lawmakers and community leaders gathered to tout the idea on the street in Borough Park where where 8-year-old Leiby Kletzky was last seen alive.

"We are hopeful and optimistic that thousands will sign up," Greenfield said.

Borough Park stores were quick to pledge support.

Considering that many businesses, like grocery stores and supermarkets, have a pretty constant turnover of employees, trying to manage or enforce the safe haven sticker program is hopeless.

This law would not have stopped this particular murder - and wouldn't stop someone from picking an unattended child off the streets. It doesn't resolve any of the issues involved.

Moreover, the law would not have addressed a situation like Aron - who until his arrest for Kletzky's murder had not had a criminal record (other than a public urination citation). This would not have come up in a background check on any business that Aron worked for - meaning that a vulnerable child could still come in contact with Aron.

No, instead of yet another reactionary law to a horrific event, the response should be for parents to help their kids understand the threats and how to identify where to go for help. A voluntary local business group program makes more sense than one managed in the fashion being suggested by the politicians.

Amateur Sleuths Helped NYPD Crack Kletzky Case

After Leiby Kletzky disappeared and the tight-knit Orthodox Jewish community mobilized to try and find him, one of those men looking for him found critical pieces of information that helped lead to his admitted killer. While many assumed that Kletzky had walked along a predetermined route, Yaakov German was able to get a hold of surveillance video from several local stores and realized that instead of walking down 13th Ave, he never made a critical turn, and continued walking in a different direction away from his home. That meant that searchers were looking in the wrong direction.

Additional persistence paid off as they eventually uncovered video showing Kletzky along with Levi Aron:

When 44th St. dead-ended at Dahill Road, the trail seemed to go cold again.

A video store had footage that showed only sidewalks on one side of the street. Benchers Unlimited had footage of both sidewalks but no sign of the boy.

Then German spotted newly installed cameras at a car-leasing company, Tristate Fleet. That's when they spotted Aron, the man who would be later identified as Leiby's killer.

"We found the kid," German said. "We saw somebody going with him and back forth. We watched it in slow motion.

"We saw the perp going across the avenue, going into a white house, up three steps, going in for three minutes and coming back out. We went by and saw it was a dentist's office."

All this time, German was feeding information to Mayer, the liaison to the NYPD, and he was sharing it with detectives.

At about 5:30 p.m., cops arrived at Tristate. "They came in here, screeching tires," said owner Yehuda Bernstein, 40.

Cracking the case

Cops, who confirmed German's account, tracked down the dentist at home. They learned that Aron was the only patient who had been in and out quickly - to pay a bill - and they got his address.

Soon after, they swarmed Aron's house on E. Second St., where they found Leiby's severed feet in the freezer, 2 miles from where the rest of his body would be found in a Dumpster.

German, who shopped at the hardware store where Aron was a clerk, was outside the house when cops made the arrest early Wednesday.

"I never saw a detective with tears before in my life," he said. "They said, 'They don't have the whole body.' We all started crying."

Alon has confessed to the killing, but not all aspects of his confession match up with the evidence released to date. He says that he killed Kletzky after panicking over how the community reacted to his disappearance, but it also appears that Kletzky put up a fight before being killed by suffocation with a towel.

His lawyer claims that Aron hears voices and he's currently undergoing psychiatric evaluation, and I suspect that his lawyers will lay the groundwork for either an insanity defense or a reduced manslaughter charge on extreme emotional disturbance rather than murder 2.

This case is going to be a challenge for Brooklyn prosecutors as the jury pool all but likely to be prejudiced against Aron. Heck, even hardened criminals were yelling at Aron outside his arraignment:

Even hardened criminals agreed with the commissioner, screaming, "You f--king killer!" in Brooklyn Criminal Court before Aron pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder and kidnapping charges.

Brooklyn DA Charles Hynes said his office confiscated Aron's computers and will also investigate whether Aron had previous improper contact with kids here and in Tennessee, where he previously lived.

A disheveled Aron was held without bail and ordered to undergo psychiatric evaluation on Rikers Island after his lawyer told the judge his client "hears voices and suffers from hallucinations."

Investigators also confirmed that Alon did attend a wedding in Monsey, New York hours after Kletzky was abducted although quite a few people say that they didn't know or recognize him. Apparently, he was a distant cousin of the bride. The boy was never seen inside the wedding hall, and would have stood out because of his distinctive appearance (Kletzky had "payot" (long locks of hair in front of his ears), which is common in the Hasidic community, but not in the traditional Orthodox community.

Police are continuing to try to corroborate the admissions, and to pinpoint the timeline leading up to Aron's capture.

Investigators Looking at Whether Brooklyn Butcher Is Serial Killer

So much about the tragic end of 8-year-old Leiby Kletzky remains unanswered despite claims that admitted killer Levi Aron kidnapped and then killed Kletzky when he panicked over the reaction of the local community to the disappearance.

The boy was apparently lost and but for a wrong two, their paths may not have crossed. The two were together for several hours before Kletzky was killed.

According to the obtained statement, Aron told police he wanted a ride to a bookstore but then lost interest.

"So I asked if he wanted to go for the ride -- (a) wedding in Monsey -- since I didn't think I was going to stay for the whole thing since my back was hurting. He said OK," Aron told police.

They returned to Aron's home around 11:20 p.m. Monday night and watched television before going to sleep in separate rooms, Aron told police. Police said Aron, who is divorced, lives alone in an attic in a building shared with his father and uncle.

Aron told police he planned to return Kletzky to his home Tuesday.

Apparently unaware that a search was already in progress for the boy, Aron left his home Tuesday to find photos of the missing boy on fliers distributed in the neighborhood.

"When I saw the flyers I panicked and was afraid," he told police. "I was still in panic ... and afraid to bring him home. That is when I went for a towel to smother him in the side room. He fought back a little bit."

Now with the body of a dead boy in his home, he told police he panicked again "because I didn't know what to do with the body." He detailed to police how he dismembered the body.

A day-and-a-half search led police to Aron's home after midnight Wednesday morning after seeing him on a surveillance video with the child. They asked: Where is the boy?

The man nodded toward the kitchen, authorities said, where blood stained the freezer door. Inside was the stuff of horror films -- severed feet, wrapped in plastic. In the refrigerator, a cutting board and three bloody carving knives. A plastic garbage bag with bloody towels was nearby.

Aron's actions aren't one of a panicked individual who murdered someone in an act of desperation. Instead, it seems fully calculated and methodical. Parts of Kletzky were found in Aron's fridge, which was empty besides the remains and bloody instruments used in the dismemberment. The rest of the body was found in luggage discarded in a trash bin outside an auto parts store two miles from Aron's home.

It's little wonder then, that investigators are looking at whether Aron is a serial killer and are reexamining cold cases in New York and in Tennessee where Aron lived for several years. Aron's actions and behavior gave people the willies, but he had but one police citation for public urination.

The break in the Kletzky case came when video showed the boy getting into a car outside a dentist's office. Police tracked down the doctor to his New Jersey home, and that led to a tip on Aron.

Kletzky was buried yesterday as thousands of people from the tight-knit Jewish community came to pay their respects. He would have been nine next week.