Leiby Kletzky Killer Gets 40 Years
Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
By Josh Nathan-Kazis August 29, 2012
The murderer of 8-year-old Orthodox Brooklyn boy Leiby Kletzky has been sentenced to 40 years to life in prison, the AP reported today.
The sentencing comes weeks after Levi Aron, 36, pleaded guilty to the July 2011 killing.
“G-d willing, the sentencing of Levi Aron today will finally remove the spotlight from this tragedy and allow the Kletzys to raise their children in peace,” said New York State Assemblyman Dov Hikind in a statement. Hikind represents the Orthodox Brooklyn neighborhood of Boro Park, where Kletzky lived and was abducted.
In interviews in early August, residents of Boro Park told the Forward that the bloody incident still haunted them.
“The kids, I think, have basically forgotten,” said one 28-year-old neighborhood woman who would only give her name as Sara,“ No one else has.”
Leiby Kletzky was walking home alone from camp for the first time when Aron snatched him off a street near his home in July 2011. The boy’s body parts were later found in a Dumpster and in Aron’s freezer.
Why I became the Forward’s editor-in-chief
You are surely a friend of the Forward if you’re reading this. And so it’s with excitement and awe — of all that the Forward is, was, and will be — that I introduce myself to you as the Forward’s newest editor-in-chief.
And what a time to step into the leadership of this storied Jewish institution! For 129 years, the Forward has shaped and told the American Jewish story. I’m stepping in at an intense time for Jews the world over. We urgently need the Forward’s courageous, unflinching journalism — not only as a source of reliable information, but to provide inspiration, healing and hope.
— Alyssa Katz, editor-in-chief
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
