Brooklyn, NY - The dismembered body of a missing 9-year-old Hasidic boy was found at two locations in Brooklyn and police this morning arrested a suspect in the slaying—who had the child’s severed feet in his freezer, sources told The Post.
Police made the gruesome discovery after raiding a Kensington home and arresting the 35-year-old suspect, who led them to parts of missing boy Leibby Kletsky’s body, stuffed in a suitcase and hidden in a Dumpster outside an auto repair shop about two miles away, sources said.
Police said they found three knives in a butcher block inside the suspect’s apartment.
The suspect was taken into custody at 2:40 a.m. Wednesday at his home on East Second Street in the Kensington section of Brooklyn, and NYPD Deputy Commissioner Paul J. Browne said that during questioning, the man “made statements implicating himself” in the death of Leibby.
It was a tragic end to the “angelic” 9-year-old, 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.
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“There are no words, just no words, to describe the sense of what happened here,” said State Assemblyman Dov Hikind in an interview this morning.
Police did not release the name of the suspect, but sources said they tracked him down by tracing CC 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.
Witnesses who saw police raid the suspect’s home at E. 2nd St. and Avenue C recognized the handcuffed, 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.
“I’m shocked,” said Rosso Safia, 23, owner of the Park Slope Auto Center. “There’s a little kid in the dumpster we use. I have a little girl of my own. This is the worst thing that has ever happened to us.”
Safia said the
store put it’s garbage out around 6:30 last night and that the dumpster is emptied some time between midnight and 3 a.m. He said police told him the dumpster was empty when the boy’s body was discovered.
“When they pick up the garbage they leave the plastic top open so anyone could have tossed it in.”
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.
Police have not given a motive for the crime.
“There is no indication at this time that the victim was known to the suspect previously,” Browne said in a statement released Wednesday morning.
“Before establishing his identity, detectives had observed the suspect 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,” Browne said. “Detectives located one of the dentists, who worked there at his home in New Jersey late last night, and established that the suspect had been in the dentist’s office on Monday to pay a bill.”
Police said that, with the assistance of a receptionist and another dentist associated with the practice, detectives tracked down records, found the name and address of the suspect, then went to his home — where he was arrested.