RedHanded - Episode 146 - The Butcher of Brooklyn: Levi Aron

Episode Date: May 7, 2020

On 11 July 2011, 8 year old Leiby Kletzy was walking home from school when he vanished. After an extensive police hunt for CCTV, Leiby’s tight-knit Hasidic community were shocked to see that the man who had taken the little boy was wearing a yarmulke; he was one of their own... Merch! www.redhandedshop.com Sources: https://nymag.com/news/features/levi-aron-2011-12/ https://murderpedia.org/male.A/a/aron-levi.htm https://wildabouttrial.com/trial-coverage/levi-aron/ https://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/14/nyregion/borough-park-residents-reeling-with-news-of-boys-death.html https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/sundown-lieby-kletzky-killer-pleads-guilty https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/levi-arons-interview-from-rikers https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/missing-hasidic-boy-found-murdered https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/sundown-signs-of-struggle-before-kletzky-murder https://crownheights.info/jewish-news/445459/today-3rd-yahrtzeit-of-leiby-kletzky-obm/ https://www.timesofisrael.com/nyc-man-pleads-guilty-in-leiby-kletzkys-murder/ https://www.aish.com/jw/s/In_Memory_of_Leiby_Kletzky.html https://www.theyeshivaworld.com/news/headlines-breaking-stories/97250/latest-development-leiby-kletzky-spotted-on-cctv-cameras-505pm.html https://enacademic.com/dic.nsf/enwiki/11778297 https://nypost.com/2017/06/02/brother-of-man-who-dismembered-child-found-dead-in-closet/ https://www.theyeshivaworld.com/news/headlines-breaking-stories/97250/latest-development-leiby-kletzky-spotted-on-cctv-cameras-505pm.html https://collive.com/leiby-kletzkys-killer-indicted/ See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Red Handed early and ad-free. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. They say Hollywood is where dreams are made. A seductive city where many flock to get rich, be adored, and capture America's heart. But when the spotlight turns off, fame, fortune, and lives can disappear in an instant. Follow Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Hannah.

I'm Saruti. And welcome to Red Handed, now endorsed by Anna Paquin. I know! That was crazy. That was nuts. My God, when I was at uni, I used to, like, obsessively watch True Blood every single week when it was on. God. Oh, man. What a woman.

She won an Oscar at age 11. Because her Instagram handle is an underscore before her name, and I was like, oh, it's just a fan account, don don't worry because the blue tick didn't load on my phone for whatever reason and then I like double checked it and I was like oh god no it's actually the real life Anna Backwoods yeah I'd even seen people being like somebody because I had like been on social media that morning before you sent it to me but I didn't really take it in I think it's because I didn't click onto the actual Instagram like account so I was just like I don't know someone's just recommended us great I was like fuck when you sent me that screenshot I was like oh my god that's mad but yeah thanks Anna hi thanks for listening yeah come to our LA show when we're

eventually allowed to do one yes when when we're eventually allowed to do one. Yes, when we're eventually allowed that. Yeah, don't hold your breath, but maybe one day we'll see you guys there. Other than that, very quick announcements before we kick off. Merch, merch, merch, merch, merch. You guys know the drill. Merch is currently out. Link to the store, which is redhandedshop.com, is in the episode description. Go get your hands on some beautiful Get In The Bin merch. Loads of you have bought some already, but obviously they're out for delivery. So as

soon as they arrive, please send us snaps because we want to see. Because you've already seen us in them. So it's only fair, really. Take a picture of yourself inside a bin. Just don't hurt yourself trying to climb out. That too. That would be so on brand. So please do that. Also, I just wanted to say, because some people have been asking these questions. They very i was gonna say very boring questions but clearly they were questions that people wanted answers to the shirts are a poly cotton blend they are ready to go in that sense i don't know it seemed i didn't even know it doesn't even say on the shirt but i have found out for you it is a poly cotton blend we do also ship internationally so it doesn't matter where you are in the world we can get you a get in the bin shirt. So don't worry about that. Other than that,

the three quarter length baseball sleeve shirts are a little bit more fitted. The tees are pretty relaxed. So I'd probably buy them just like to fit your actual size. We don't have a size guide. I think they come up quite big though. I've got a medium baseball shirt and it's quite, but it's super snuggly. It's very snuggly. They are perfect quarantine lounging around wear. So get your hands on some merch. That's all I've got to say on that matter. I have got a rough sex defence update that I should have put in last week, but I didn't get my brain in gear in time. The domestic abuse bill is being debated in Parliament. So that is step one to getting the rough sex defence completely not allowed. So well done, everyone.

We'll keep having a look at it and updating you with what's going on with that. No, we're not doing rough sex today. We're doing child abduction. So hooray. Everyone's favourite. Everyone's favourite. We know you guys really like these ones but we're doing it for a very specific reason everyone is talking about the new netflix series unorthodox

and if you haven't watched it after today's episode i think you might want to it has experienced a little bit of a backlash which i've linked the article in the show show notes we also discovered it in under the duvet you can make your own mind. But I could only find one article and I don't think I can think of a single series about religion or a single series full stop that hasn't had some sort of backlash. And also, I don't think the lady makes particularly good points in it. But, you know, whatever.

We are not going to be including any spoilers for Unorthodox in this main episode, even though I really, really want to. We'll be saving all of our best spoil sports semantics for Under the Duvet after the show. Please, please listen in the right order. Or not. Do what you want.

Order is a social construct, just like religion. Yeah, you guys can do what you want. But if you do listen to Under the Duvet before you watch Unorthodox, you cannot complain about spoilers because we have warned you. That is the only thing I'm not having. But apart from that, do what you want.

And on that bombshell, we're going to be doing a classic red-handed roundup of Orthodox Judaism. And as you might have guessed from our unorthodox reference, we're going to be looking specifically at Hasidism. Depending on where in the world you live, your exposure to the Hasidic Jewish community may be limited or you might be very aware of them. There's quite a aware of them.

There's quite a lot of them in London, specifically in like north, north-west-y-ish. Like Stamford Hill, Golders Green, etc. They're quite distinctive. The men can be spotted in long black coats with long side curls, black hats, fur hats, all kind of hats actually. And the women wear wigs and thick peachy tights to cover their legs kind of like what the royals did to megan markle after she joined them did you see they made her wear like really thick skin color pantyhose and then everyone was obsessed with it because they were like megan what's happened to you you're wearing pantyhose it was quite a departure from her previous look, but anyway. I mean, no wonder she fucking left. I'd leave if they made me wear ballet tights.

I'd be fucking out of there. Every single thing. So you've got to wear like a fucking calf-length skirt and peachy tights underneath. But anyway. So in London, Hasidic people are particularly prevalent in certain areas, as Hannah alluded to. And their communities tend to be quite insular. Geographically, Hasidic people tend to stick together. Before we launch into the rundown, we will do the same disclaimer we have always done.

We are not attempting to give you every single piece of information about a religious sect that has been around since the 1700s in one podcast episode. That would be absolutely ridiculous, about a religious sect that has been around since the 1700s in one podcast episode. That would be absolutely ridiculous. Unless you are Dan Carlin and your episodes are seven hours long. Are they not? Yeah, exactly.

But what we will do is share with you the information that we have gathered in the research for this week's episode. And although not all of it may be true for every Hasidic person in every situation, it is true for some, if not most. Complicated enough for you? Fantastic. I think that's the thing. I can't remember. I think it must have been a couple of years ago when I mentioned the documentary One of Us on the show

and someone got in touch with us from the Hasidic community. And she said, you know, not everyone is like that, but I definitely know people like that. And I think that's the key thing that we need to lay out before we properly get into it is like, we're not saying that all of these things are true across the board. But they are in some cases. And that's really key. And also something else I've been thinking about, which we should probably dig into before we get on to the rest of the show. I've been reading a lot about like whether Jew or

Jewish is the preferred term. And there's like a lot of back and forth on that because there's nothing wrong with being Jewish, a Jew, there's nothing wrong with that. But people have used the term Jew as an offensive slur. So there's like a lot of people talking about reclaiming the word or like someone I read a New York Times article article where Trump had given an address and he said every other religion by name apart from, he was like Hindu Sikhs at Jewish families. He didn't say Jews. It feels like even when I was writing the notes, I was like, is this right? Am I, should I be using this word? So I'm just flagging it now to let you know that I've thought about it and I don't know what the right thing is because some people seem to be offended by either one some people think that

Jew is derogatory and then other people are like why is being a Jew a bad thing you should just say the word so that's where we are with that I don't know what the right answer is this is completely I mean this is related but it's with a different sort of group I always thought in America particularly you don't say black, you say African-American. But I was recently reading this stuff and the comment section of this where some black people had been discussing this and they were like,

I am glad that this person in this video said the word black rather than African-American because I find that offensive. And they were what politicians, what people would call African-American because they said that, why should I be distinguished as being from Africa? I'm not. I'm American. I just happen to be black.

So I think there's always going to be some people who prefer one term over the other. We're not always going to get it right, but we've always thought about it. I think that's what you can take away from Red Handed. So let's get into it. Hasidism is described by most people as being a subsect of ultra-Orthodox Judaism, which can be characterized by following the Torah, the Talmud, and for the Hasidim, which is the collective noun, the Tanya, to the letter. Teachings include men not shaving their beards, women covering their heads, and of course, keeping kosher. The ultra-Orthodox contingent tend

to separate themselves from the secular world. They send their kids to Jewish-only, separate-sex schools. Gender roles are very clearly set out within ultra-Orthodox Judaism. Women are not allowed to participate in many religious ceremonies. Most marriages are arranged by a matchmaker. Sex on a Friday is mandatory, and women are not allowed to sleep in the same bed as their husbands if they are on their period. Once their period is finished they have to be ritually cleansed. Again this is not the case for all sex across the Hasidim but it does happen. Women are not allowed to sing and I also read that some ultra-orthodox men won't even listen to women on the radio because they're worried about what thoughts might creep into their behatted heads.

Gosh. I think that's on you, mate, actually. Yeah. Yeah, I was going to immediately start talking about unorthodox. I won't. We're going to save it for under the duvet, so come talk to us about it. So, Hasidic families are big. They are expected to have as many babies as humanly possible.

So for this, they marry young, sometimes when they're just teenagers. So it is reasonably common for a Hasidic woman to be a mother of six before she's even 30. Members of what is often called ultra-Orthodox Judaism don't really like being referred to as ultra-Orthodox for the most part. The thinking behind that being that they are just Orthodox. Orthodox meaning following all of the teachings of Judaism strictly. For them, people who don't practice like they do are not Orthodox. Therefore, they claim that there is nothing ultra about their religious expression.

What we would recognise as modern Orthodox Jews don't wear the strict uniforms of the ultras. There are no mink hats or long black coats, although the men do wear yarmulkes and the women dress modestly. Modern Orthodox Jews tend to integrate a bit more into secular society and tend to have more sort of normal jobs within society. We're dealing with an American case today so let's focus on American Jews, American Jewish people. I still don't know

what the right thing to say is and usually Orthodox Jewish communities in the States are descendants of Eastern European immigrants who came to the New World between 1880 and 1920. Most ultra-Orthodox are descended from Holocaust survivors who came to the States after World War II. Modern Orthodox Jewish people tend to be pro-Israel, whereas ultra-Orthodox tend not to be. There's obviously a lot of exceptions to that rule. So I'll leave you guys to fight out the intricacies of modern Orthodox versus ultra-Orthodox amongst yourselves. Let's move on. Before we fully launch into Hasidim Town, I had a look at how to convert to Orthodox Judaism, because for years I thought it wasn't possible. But it turns out I was wrong. It is possible. It's just really, really bloody hard.

Tradition dictates that if you want to be converted, you have to be denied three times by community leaders to prove that you want it badly enough. Converting to the more liberal reform Judaism is much easier. But apparently, if you officially convert to orthodox or conservative Judaism and you have a foreskin, it's gotta go. Even if you have been circumcised already for any other reason other than being Jewish, whoever is converting you will take a blood sacrifice from where your foreskin used to be. That is shocking. I mean, with a knife.

I know I chat a lot of shit about the Catholic Church, but even they don't take a schlong sacrifice. Like, that is outrageous. Yeah yeah and i do the same about hinduism but no they're they're not gonna they're not gonna do that that's intense that's intense it really made me do you remember when we did that fgm episode ages ago and i watched that um american circumcision documentary and the people who are anti-circumcision call themselves the intactivists, which is hysterical.

But it completely changed the way I look at male circumcision. Oh, yeah, yeah. So give that a watch. Give that a watch. If you're running dry on things to watch, you can watch. Yeah. Though, in other update news,

Sudan has finally banned or made illegal female genital mutilation so that's something i saw that get on it sudan so uh where was i oh yeah cutting off foreskins once you have successfully converted to judaism you are entitled to citizenship in israel but some super rabbis in israel can decide that you're not jewish enough to get married to a Jewish person in Israel, depending on who converted you. I think it's basically just who their mates are, really, or like who they think is like conservative enough or legit enough. So you can you can go and live there, but you might not be able to do the whole the whole thing. Of course, you've got to hold on to a little bit of control still and, you know, help your mates out.

It's all right. With all that that it's now hasidim time all hasidic jews are orthodox but not all orthodox jews are hasidim and there are further subsects that follow different practices and wear different clothes the different types of hasidism come from different areas of the world. Satmar Hasidism, the kind featured in the Netflix show Unorthodox, comes from Hungary, or rather it did. The city in which it originated from is now technically actually in Romania. The Hasidic movement kicked off in the late 1700s in Eastern Europe. It was founded by Rabbi Israel Baal Shentov, who was super into like love, joy and humanity. And similarly to when the Catholic Church did all of their masses in Latin, Judaism in the 1700s was less accessible to poor people

than it was to the rich. And Rabbi Israel wasn't having it. He wanted communion with God to be for everyone regardless of their wealth. So he travelled all over the place to spread the word of a mystical communion with God. His catchphrase was, Fear nothing, fear no one, but God himself, and love every Jew as you love yourself. By 1740, he was known as the master of the good name and was a pretty popular guy people love joy and that was his whole bag doesn't sound that bad does it but literally show me a religion that didn't start off right no i mean sounds fine i mean maybes be like love everyone like you love yourself but apart from that like not everyone though only other jews that's what i mean that's

the only thing i would be like, maybes say that instead. But apart from that, I'm like, yeah, right, chill, cool. He's trying to, you know, democratise religion. That's always a good thing. Like, I've had it. And this may come as a surprise to people. Hasidism is an extension of Kabbalistic teachings. Kabbalah obviously popularised quite briefly by Madonna and her loyal followers.

When was that? In like fucking 2007 or some shit? I don't know why, but when you said that out loud, I had an image of a barbed wire tattoo pop into my brain at the same time. So I feel like they're kind of contemporary bedfellows. The tribalistic tattoo and Madonna being into cabalalism all right well welcome to saruti's parade everybody that's how we're going to put in order all of our sort of mental inventory it's just what pops into my head when you say something the only person i can think of in real life with a barbed wire tattoo that was in the public eye was mel c so maybe she was something to do with

cabala maybe that's where that link came from who knows who knows i don't know please don't fact check me on that. You've all got better things to do. All right, let's move on. So Hasidic people today study teachings in depth and at length. And they're described as people who are trying to become better people by internalizing the Hasidic teachings. Yiddish is the lingua franca and a lot of people credit the Hasidic community with stopping the language from dying out completely. One point about unorthodox that I will raise now, because I forgot to say it in Under the Duvet. Yiddish and German are incredibly similar. I do not buy that she wouldn't understand German at all.

She should have just been speaking German the whole time. Yeah, I mean, a lot of the times when they're speaking Yiddish, I'm like, are they speaking German? I can't tell. And they even point out how similar they are. Yeah, she's like, oh, we have those words in Yiddish. And I'm like, well, why are you speaking English then? Yeah, that was my only bugbear with the entire show, though. So that's all right. And anyone who speaks Yiddish is probably going to tell us how incredibly different they are. I don't know. They sounded pretty similar. I think I've heard

before that it is quite similar to German. But anyway, so within the Hasidic community, rabbis are particularly important, more so than in other sects of Judaism. Even though they're important everywhere, they're pretty much the like, they're it. Their main role is offering advice to fellow Jews. And some rabbis are considered to have supernatural powers, like predicting the future.

Oh, yes. In Hinduism, there is still a lot of like a weight given to things like astronomy. No, astrology. Astronomy. Astronomy is fine. Astrology. Like say you're going to marry somebody, even families like my family in India will still get the fucking like holy man to come over and do the astrological charts and check that you two should get married and he can literally be like no i don't think this is a good match because of like when they were born the way the stars are matching up and that can be enough to call off a wedding that is more than enough to call off a wedding i kind of rate that i love star chart it's mad

though because it's just like if you didn't want some two people to get married you could literally pay off the holy guy to go tell their families that the astrological charts don't work. It's fucking nuts. That's so interesting. New York is where we are today. And the Hasidic community in New York have their own ambulance service, their own home guard called the Shomrim, which is Hebrew for the watchers. And in some parts of Brooklyn, which is by most estimates

the biggest community of Orthodox Jews outside of Israel, the Hasidic community have their own court system overseen by rabbis to settle disputes. Before you all jump all over this, that is quite rare. And I don't want to say that like, oh, well, like the Hasidic community are just a law unto themselves and blah, blah, blah, blah. Not necessarily true. But in some parts of Brooklyn, specifically Borough Park, which is where we're looking today, these sort of like community courts do exist. Oh, for sure. I can completely believe that. I don't know that much about that. But what I can speak to is there are similar things with the Islamic community in England, in London and in Birmingham and places like that where they do have kind of Islamic courts. And the problems that it poses is things like women can only go to those Islamic courts if they want to say, get a divorce, if they want to do, if they want to sort of

complain about their husband or something, and they're run by their fucking husband's mates, or like religious leaders. There are all sorts of problems linked to that. So it's incredibly challenging. But you know, it's difficult in multicultural multi-religious societies to know how to have those integrated into the wider society it's complicated not saying i have the answer just pointing out it happens and it has challenges massive challenges associated with that so just like there are lots of different types of judaism out there there are in turn some different types of Hasidim and you can spot what kind of Hasid a man is by what they are wearing. A Hungarian Hasid for example wears a velvet hat and wears it backwards and a round felt hat is worn by a Gur Hasid. But there are some qualities that do unite

them. Hasidim wear the same clothes that their ancestors did. They are wary of technology. They are allowed cars and phones, but the internet and TV are big no-goes. Such an insular community can also be incredibly hard to leave. And there is actually an organization out there called Footsteps that supports those who have left the community. Many women who leave have to leave their children behind. There's a Vogue article in the show notes which you should have a look at and it's about women who've left the community and their relationship with what they could wear because obviously they're so restricted while they're in the community. Not only do they have to wear wigs like in satmar hasidism your skirt has to be three inches below your knee on the dot and that's the only thing that's allowed it's a really interesting article about just how to rediscover how you can dress

yourself and that must be so incredibly difficult because if you leave the community obviously not everyone is completely banished forever there are some stories about people who stay in touch with their family and blah blah blah but you know if you are banished and you're completely on your own and you've got to learn how to dress yourself that must be incredibly difficult oh i can't even imagine and you know it is sort of it is a big theme of unorthodox for example just the feeling of like the biggest pull they will have to get you back into the community or to stop you leaving is this idea of you will not survive out there because you don't know you don't know what the world is like you're not prepared for it because we've actively taken steps your entire life to make sure you're not prepared for it so I can't even imagine the

bravery of these people who leave these communities especially the women because they are even more isolated than the men are like for example in unorthodox how the women, because they are even more isolated than the men are. Like, for example, in Unorthodox, how the men have, when they speak English, they have American accents, but the women don't. Good point. Also, quick note about the internet and TV. That is not all sects, but it is quite a lot of them, especially for children, completely off the table. Our case today happened in Borough Park in Brooklyn, and the Hasidim there are mainly Boboff. The streets are considered very safe for New York City. So on the 11th of July, 2011, eight-year-old Yuda Kletsky was allowed to walk home from a day camp being held at his school all by himself. He usually got the bus, but after practising the very short walk

home with his mum, Esty, the day before, he was allowed to walk home on his own. Everyone called Yuda Lybie, so that's what we'll be calling him for the rest of the show. And he was the third of six children. And I also read that in Hasidic communities, children tend to take on responsibilities

at a very young age, so they can help their mothers with all of the other children. So at eight years old, after weeks of begging, little Laibi was allowed to walk only one block. I cannot stress how short this walk is. And he was allowed to walk this one block on his own. His mum was waiting for him at a predetermined point very close to the school. All Laibi had to do was walk one block and then turn right. But Lybie never showed up. A frantic SD called the Shromron at 6.15pm

and what would end up being a 36-hour search began. Shromron is a voluntary anti-crime unit. They claim to have reports of missing children 10 times a day, so they knew how to swing into action. Some 5,000 people joined the search, and not just from the Hasidic community, or from those neighborhoods, but from the neighboring Black, Asian, and Latino communities too. They checked alleyways, sweet shops, stores, homes, and just about everywhere. The NYPD were called two hours later and launched a level one search. Level one means dogs, horses and helicopters. But still no one found the missing boy. The Shomrim had a trick up their sleeve and this trick was called Yakov German. He was 47 and he'd

helped to find children before. This is not a pun, I just couldn't think of a synonym for it. He did not have the most orthodox of methods, but he got things done. In 2000, I kind of love this man. In 2003, Yakov had barreled into a burning building, passed firefighters and carried the children inside to safety like a giant firefighting bear. He was just like, I'll deal with this. Step aside, New York City Fire Department. Oh, Yakov. Yakov got Lybie's description from the rest of the Shomrim and immediately began to criticize their approach. He thought the only logical thing to do was to go straight back to the place where little Lybie was last seen alive. And he told the New York Times, this is a direct quote,

I knew I'd have to do it myself. I love him. I love him. Yakov headed over to Lybie's school. At around 11.30pm, his son happened to work there, so access wasn't a problem, and neither was access to the CCTV footage. Quickly, he successfully pinpointed the moment when Lybie left school and headed off down the street. It was 5.05pm.

The next day, Yakov went to every shop on the street and asked to see their closed circuit security footage. His plan was to follow Lybie's path step by step. He called Lybie's father, Nachman, and said, I'm going to find him. Then Yakov ran into a little problem. Most of the stores he demanded footage from only had decorative cameras and that's a really interesting point like that's why it's almost impossible to survey a city for cctv coverage because a lot of people they don't work or like they're they're never meant to work in the first place they're just sort of like ornaments but eventually yakov found a tape from a locksmith's

and bingo after picking through each frame meticulously, there was Lybie. He had gone too far. He had missed his turn. Another store called Tri-State Fleet also had footage of Lybie. And in that footage, the little boy looked confused. He knew he had done something wrong. He didn't know where he was. He was almost out of his neighbourhood. He would have been scared of the non-Jewish people living in the other areas of town. Then, in the footage, you could see the little boy is being spoken to by a man.

Then the man leaves the shop for seven minutes. Then he returns and Lybie got into the man's car. A battered Honda Accord. And he got into the car at 5.30pm. I don't know what it is, but I always feel like a Honda Accord is just such a sinister car. Is it because it's so inconspicuous? It is always a Honda Accord, man. I could literally, I think we've done 10 cases

where it's been a Honda Accord. Don't buy a Honda Accord, people. The car's licence plate in the CCTV footage was obscured by a bush. But Yakov was far more concerned by another detail. The man who had taken Lybie was wearing a yarmulke. Up until now, everyone had assumed that Lybie had been snatched by an outsider, but now it was clear he had been taken by one of their own. Yakov ran the police and shared

his findings. They too watched all the footage. And by the time, Lybie had been missing for a dreaded 24 hours. And then finally, a lead. After hours of poring over the footage, the yarmulke-wearing man was spotted after he had initially spoken to Lybie, walking into a dentist's office. The receptionist of the surgery was contacted immediately

and sent the footage. The receptionist said the surgery was contacted immediately and sent the footage. The receptionist said she recognised the man, but she couldn't remember his name. Police took themselves off to the dentist's surgery, while Yakov followed a tip from a psychic rabbi who reckoned that Lybie would show up in the Kensington neighbourhood. The police deduced that the last receipt in the till must be the man that they were looking for. But the top receipt's timestamp didn't make sense. It showed the details of a man called Levi Aaron paying a bill at 4.30pm.

And that just couldn't be right because Lybie got into the car at 5.30pm. Surely this was just another dead end. Wrong. The police and the Shomrim figured out by swiping their own cards in the machine that the machine was actually printing receipts with the timestamp one hour out. And that meant that Levi Aaron had to be their guy. There's so many bits in this case where it's just like, if that one person hadn't done that one thing, they never would have found him.

It is mad. That's exactly what it is. And it just feels like, I don't know, it just makes you think with other cases like this, what one little thing could they have done that could have cracked the whole case wide open? Because here it just feels like everything falls into place to lead them to their man. And their man, Levi Aaron, was pretty easy to find. The police found him and quickly headed to his apartment, which just so happened to be in Kensington.

Psychic rabbi was right. Once the NYPD arrived at late 30s Levi Aaron's attic apartment, he's in his late 30s, not the apartment. I imagine the apartment is much older. And the apartment was owned by Aaron's father, and he lived there alone. When the police got there, the door was ajar and inside Levi Aaron was waiting. He was shirtless and his arms were covered in scratches. The first words out of the officer's mouths were, where is the boy? And Aaron said nothing and nodded towards the kitchen. Sorry to give the game away here when we've worked so hard to build the tension, but if you are eating, it's probably a good idea to stop now.

Pervert. Yep. Because a grisly scene met the police inside Levi Aaron's kitchen. There were blood-soaked carving knives on the counter and a stack of bloody towels in a bin bag. A pair of little feet were discovered in a Ziploc bag

inside the freezer. Levi Aaron remained calm and collected, and told the NYPD that the rest of the body could be found in a dumpster two miles away. So who was this Levi Aaron character? And how did he come to kidnap, kill and dismember eight-year-old Lybie Kletzky when his only previous offence had been for public urination? To answer that, we have to go back to 1987 when Levi was just 10 years old. He was knocked off his bike and every time he told the story, it had different details. Sometimes it was a car that hit him. Sometimes he had flipped over the handlebars. But one thing is for sure, Levi Aaron suffered a pretty serious head injury from this incident. And it would haunt him for the rest of

his life. He became shy and withdrawn. And when orthodox family moved to brooklyn aaron found it difficult to fit in but not just because he was a bit weird the orthodox aaron family lived in a one foot in one foot out existence in the midst of the hasidim of brooklyn they were orthodox but not all the way into the fold of the Hasidim. When he grew up, Aaron got a job at a hardware store where he gained himself a reputation for being, quote, a lunatic genius because he instantly memorized the location of every item in the store and could call on this knowledge at any time. In his spare time, Aaron loved doing karaoke.

He made videos of himself singing and even had plans to audition for American Idol. All this despite the fact that he was totally, utterly tone deaf. In 2004, Aaron married a young Israeli lady called Diana Deunov. It only lasted a year, and Diana described Aaron as, quote, perfectly sane. He was just so full of rage. The community didn't accept him, and he knew that they never would. Soon after the divorce, Aaron met Debbie Keevil on a Jewish dating site called Saw You at Sinai. She was from Tennessee and also divorced. Hilarious, isn't it? It's the

best dating site name I've ever heard. Plenty of fish can fuck off. Saw You at Sinai. Fantastic. That is perfect. I love it. Saw You at Sinai. Genius. Better than like some of the other ones. What have we got? Like Christian Mingle, J-Date, Muslim Matrimony. Have you just made that up or does that exist? No, they're all real things. They're all real things. Every single one I just said is real. Do you remember that restaurant we went to in Birmingham when we were on tour and you were like, have you seen Muslims go dating because this is this is like the places they go on that show we'd got to Birmingham quite like not that late but it was like you know probably later than when you would normally go for dinner and uh we just went to like a random restaurant that was near our hotel we were staying in which is like kind of not like it's not in the central it's not in the central bit of Birmingham

what's the name of that restaurant? I cannot remember, but it was absolutely packed. And I believe that Hannah was the only not brown person in there. Yeah, it didn't serve booze. The food was all right. But yeah, it was... But also, that's a very good experience for a white person, I think, to be in a minority.

So I didn't hate it. Classic Birmingham. Thank you very much. Harvard is the oldest and richest university in America. But when a social media-fueled fight over Harvard and its new president broke out last fall, that was no protection. Claudine Gay is now gone. We've exposed the DEI regime, and there's much more to come. This is The Harvard Plan, a special series from the Boston Globe and WNYC's On the Media.

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Follow Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder. Follow Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge all episodes of The Cotton Club Murder early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus. Hi, I'm Lindsey Graham, the host of Wondery Show American Scandal. We bring to life some of the biggest controversies in U.S. history, presidential lies, environmental disasters, corporate fraud. In our latest series, NASA embarks on an ambitious program to reinvent space exploration with the launch of its first reusable vehicle, the Space Shuttle. And in 1985, they announced they're sending teacher Krista McAuliffe into space aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger, along with six other astronauts. But less than two minutes after liftoff, the Challenger explodes.

And in the tragedy's aftermath, investigators uncover a series of preventable failures by NASA and its contractors that led to the disaster. Follow American Scandal on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. Experience all episodes ad-free and be the first to binge the newest season only on Wondery+. You can join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app up to Brooklyn with her mom to meet Levi Aaron and his family. And by 2006, the pair were married and Aaron moved down to Tennessee. He got a job at a deli and seemed to be quite happy for a while. But he didn't really get on with Debbie's children and that made life difficult for everyone. Even with his new Tennessee mountain life, Levi Aaron's childhood bike accident still haunted him. He went to a doctor and for the

first time was put on an antidepressant. It levelled him out and according to Diane, he was pleasant to be around when he was taking them, but a total nightmare when he wasn't. The marriage was over by 2007 and Aaron went back to Brooklyn and the Orthodox community. He went back to his old job and his old apartment where the severed feet of Liby Kletsky would be found four years later. After the police discovered the boy's remains Aaron gave a 450 word written confession and according to him, this is what happened that day he abducted little Lybie. It was a Monday. Aaron left work at 5pm and headed to the dentist. He parked his car and was stopped by a small boy. Lybie would have been told by his parents that if he was ever in trouble, to just ask another Jewish person for help. So the little boy had asked Aaron for directions to a bookstore in Yiddish.

Aaron offered to drive the boy home, but he said that he just had to nip into the dentist and pay his bill. So he went to the dentist and Lybie waited. Aaron claimed that once they were in the car, the boy changed his mind about where he wanted to go. Aaron had to get to a wedding, so he decided that he would just take the boy with him. Seems like a natural, a natural decision to make.

Honestly, and even the dentist thing, in what world does a child come up to you and say, I'm lost, please help me? And he's tiny, like he's small for an eight-year-old. In what world are you like, yeah, just five minutes. I've just got to go and pay this, pay this bill. I'll be back. It's like, oh, there's so many things. None of it makes any sense. And we know the dentist and the wedding are true because there's CCTV footage of it's happening. Like some of the confession details are a bit muddy, but those aren't. So this wedding was in Muncie, which is a good hour drive out of

the city. And it might have taken even longer because according to a wedding guest, Aaron arrived at 8.15pm. And the CCTV footage shows Lybie getting in the car at half five. So we don't know what happened in those three hours. But no wedding guests saw the small boy because he stayed in the car. If anybody had seen him, this is just so heartbreaking because maybe they could have saved his life. Aaron and Lybie got back to Brooklyn at about 11.30pm. Aaron decided that because his back hurt, he would wait until the morning to return the child to his worried sick family. He left Lybie in the front room watching TV while he went to sleep. In the morning, Aaron went to work and promised the child that he would take him home after he got back. Again, just take the kid.

This is obviously his story and when he's inside his apartment or at work, we have to sort of take his word for it, but I don't know if i believe no because i really feel like okay like you said the dentist and the wedding we have proof for but i just feel like it's because he wants to keep the boy with him and then he takes him home and we don't know what's happening during that time i find it really hard to believe that somebody would want to keep a very small child that they don't know when you know the entire world is going to be looking for them in your house for no reason other than you can't be bothered or it's not convenient at that exact time to take him home

no aaron went to work everything was normal none of his colleagues spotted anything amiss with their lunatic genius after he'd finished he was on his way back to his flat and levi aaron saw a massive poster of liby's face before Before he saw this, Levi Aaron claims that he had every intention of returning the boy. But when he saw the poster, he panicked. So Aaron said he went back to his flat and made Lybie a tuna sandwich. And then he smothered him with a towel. Aaron said that Lybie fought back initially, but after a while he stopped breathing. He said that he then cut up the young boy on his mattress using a kitchen knife.

He said he started with the left hip. He tried to put it in a plastic bag, but it didn't fit. So he cut the leg again at the ankle. He repeated this process with the other leg. Then he said he took a shower. Then he put Lybie's remains in a bin bag and zipped them up in a red suitcase. And then he took that suitcase to a dumpster in a different part of town. But for as meticulous as he was with the body disposal, he didn't clean the kitchen.

Levi Aaron led the authorities to Lybie's remains in Sunset Park on the 13th of July. Aaron's confession seems calm and comprehensive, but there are a few problems with it. The autopsy of Liby's body revealed that the child had been drugged with a muscle relaxant, an antipsychotic, an anti-anxiety drug and two different types of pain medication. Levi Aaron made no mention of this in his written confession nor in his video one that was later taken by police it's also unclear how Aaron came by these drugs he was not prescribed all of them so I think Levi Aaron is not a well man and I think you can discern that from not understanding that you should take this child back and not take him to a wedding instead like there's obviously some like mismatched thinking here and yeah i think i think he's just really

really unwell but him leaving out the drugging basically what the police decided was that he puts the drugs in the tuna sandwich he gives it to the kid and then the kid then he smothers him because this is the thing i think you're totally right he's very very unwell but he knows enough to give a certain specific concoction of drugs to this young boy to make the killing potentially easier and then he knows to dispose of the body take it to a different part of town dump it in a dumpster etc it's just heartbreaking because literally liby if he'd have asked anybody else on that street, he probably would still be alive. And that's the thing. He just chose exactly the wrong person to ask for help that day. Yeah, it's honestly, I mean, it's just the worst luck, isn't it? Days after his

arrest, Levi Aaron employed two lawyers, Pierre Bazil, I think, who used to be a policeman, and Jennifer McCann. They were both inexperienced attorneys and spent more time defending their credentials than they did defending Levi Aaron. Another more experienced lawyer was initially involved, but he stepped down saying, quote, you can't look at your kids and then look at yourself in the mirror. Extremely experienced attorney Howard Greenberg eventually took on the case on a pro bono basis. Howard had been around the block a few times. He's like, he looks a bit like Gene Wilder. Older guy with like mad hair. Like if you like picture a criminal defense attorney that like...

That's Howard. That's our man Howard. Just says outrageous things, which honestly, the stuff he says is... Well, I mean, I'm going to tell you. Right from the outset, Howard made it clear that he and his team would be going for the insanity defence. He stated, this is a very simple case. Levi Aaron is either evil or he's crazy. Howard Greenberg argued that Aaron had been led by the police in his confession.

Greenberg claimed that Aaron was suffering from an acute schizophrenic break and that you could have convinced him that he shot Kennedy if you spent a bit of time with him. And this schizophrenia argument is not totally unfounded. Levi Aaron's sister died in a psychiatric hospital after being diagnosed with schizophrenia, and Levi Aaron had been hearing voices. Aaron never specified whether the voices told him to kill Lybie and cut up his body,

but he did say that the voices told him to kill himself for what he had done. Howard Greenberg claimed that this schizophrenia was brought on by Levi Aaron's bike accident and also by inbreeding in the Orthodox community. Not one to shy away from theatrics, Howard Greenberg claimed that he would quit the practice of criminal law entirely if Levi Aaron was found to be sane. He is still practicing criminal law today, but not because Levi Aaron was found to be insane, just because he's a liar. So Levi was found to have an adjustment disorder

and a personality disorder with schizoid features. His mood was described as neutral and practically blank. But it was not enough for an insanity defence, and Levi Aaron was found to be fit to stand trial. Aaron was indicted on eight counts of murder and kidnapping, including three counts of second-degree murder, two counts of first-degree kidnapping, and two counts of first-degree murder.

He was facing life without parole. New York doesn't have the death penalty. His trial began in August, and his defence gave up on the insanity idea and pleaded guilty to one charge of second-degree murder and one charge of second-degree kidnapping as part of a plea bargain. He was found guilty and sentenced to 40 years in prison.

He did not show any remorse at trial. He didn't show anything, really. He just sat there, blank. Which, I guess, would fit with the kind of schizoid features that he's been diagnosed with. That is very sort of like a typical... Yeah, that's what a lot of people say about him as well. They just say that he was just not really there. And throughout the trial, Aaron never referred to Lybie by name.

But he did say he understood what he had done was wrong. After sentencing, Aaron was taken to Rikers Island, where he was put on 24-hour suicide watch. His prison uniform is made entirely out of Velcro strips. None of them, though, were long enough for him to strangle himself with. The Kletskys filed a civil suit against Aaron for $100 million in damages. Thousands attended Lybie's funeral, and his death shook the insular community. Their streets were not as safe as they thought, and not all Jews could be trusted anymore. One community member told the press quote this is our 9-11 is it oh don't know

how i feel about that i don't feel great about that at all yeah did you see that in new york last week there was a funeral of a really famous rabbi and hundreds if not thousands of people gathered at this funeral and the police are trying to break them up on horseback. Guess what the rabbi died of? Corona. Yep. Excellent. Outstanding. Oh, fucking hell. Hell.

Someone help me. All right, I'm going to have to put a pound in the jar for that. We really should be keeping track. I'm definitely at like 10 quid by now. The Lybie-Kletsky Memorial Fund made over $61,000 in its first day. There's also the Lybies Initiative, which grants a $500 tax credit to any New York City property owner who installs and maintains a CCTV camera on their property. And most impressive of all, there is now Libies Law, under which businesses can volunteer

to be designated safe places for children who are lost. These businesses put a green sticker in their window and their staff are subject to rigorous background checks. Oh, I don't know why that just made me like, when you read it out, just made me really emotional. That's really sweet. Oh, oh. I mean, it's sweet if the background checks work. Otherwise, it's just luring children into a trap.

There is that. There is that. I'll stop tearing up now. Over the positive over here. But if all that sounds positive and, you know, to some, like me, even tear-jerking for some reason, it isn't all positive. Because Rabbi, I'm going to try my best, Rabbi Yehuda Levine claimed that Lybie's death was down to gay marriage. And this is a quote. and ignoring the agenda of the descendants of evil. First, the gays wanted rights. Then they wanted adoption.

They wanted special protections. And ultimately, they wanted marriage. And we all know that we did precious little. Okay. Sigh. Sigh. Sigh. No. I mean, this is the thing. Like, this is the problem. Like, obviously, you can believe any religion you want.

You can do whatever you want. That's a society that I believe in, you should do what you want. But like, to use that religion to then persecute other minorities and other people, it's just the, the like, double standards of it is shocking. Like, the idea of being within a group that already feels like and is persecuted and feels on the fringes of society and all of this to then use that to then also persecute other people and blame them and scapegoat them it's just the irony of it you know this next argument i think it was even in the new york times like god knows how i made it in there but uh one article i read argued that technology and up-to-date systems were to blame for Lybie's death.

The writer claimed that had Levi Aaron not seen the poster with Lybie's face on it, and had the police not been so on it, and had the search not been so public, Lybie would have survived. Several problems with this argument. Number one, it assumes that Levi Aaron's account of events is true. And we have no idea if it is. He easily could have killed Libby the second he got back from the wedding.

We have no way of knowing. Fucking hell. And secondly, this technology argument is bullshit because if it weren't for the CCTV cameras, they never would have tracked Levi Aaron down in the first place. So, non-argument bin for you.

Yeah, seriously. Fucking the whole argument in the first place so non-argument bin for you uh yeah seriously fucking the whole argument in the bin there's not just like several problems there isn't one redeeming fact about that entire argument um makes absolutely no sense uh that's just saying like well if a child goes missing we better just not outwardly look for them in case it freaks the person out who's got yeah exactly shut up exactly. Shut up. And if all this wasn't enough, unfortunately tragedy continued to befall Levi Aaron's family too. After the trial, they received threats that their house would be burned down. And six years later, Levi's brother, Zvi Aaron, was found dead in the very same apartment

that Lybie had died in. This was no suicide. Zvi's body had been wrapped in a blanket and bound with duct tape. Only his feet were poking out. This is really interesting, but I couldn't find fuck all about it. I have no idea what happened.

I have no idea who was prosecuted. I could literally find one fucking New York Post article about it. New York Daily News what happened. I have no idea who was prosecuted. Like I could literally find one like fucking New York Post article about it. New York Daily News. Sorry. Mad. No idea. That's crazy because that's not like an olden timey murder. This happened after Lybie's murder. So very strange. And a journalist asked the Arons' neighbours if they had thought that the Aron family was cursed. and the neighbour simply said, quote, I'm not God, I can't answer that. Isn't that just like the perfect last line of a film?

Yeah. So we're going to leave you with a message from Libby's parents. Quote, We pray that none of you should ever have to live through what we did, but if any tragedy is ever to befall any of you, God forbid that you should be blessed with a community and public as supportive as ours we feel that through libby we've become family with you all may libby soul live on as a blessing inside each and every one of you i think what this case does it shows you both sides of the coin,

because obviously the Hasidic communities are incredibly insular and women tend not to be allowed to do anything and all of that. But the flip side of that is that they're all there for each other all the time. And that's what when, if you watch stuff like One of Us or even Unorthodox to a certain extent, that's what can make leaving so hard is being completely on your own when you're so used to having this community. Like if your kids need looking after their sick people, who will do that? If your sick people bring food around your house, it's not all as black and white. No, I completely get it. And only from the sort of culture that I've been brought up in and sort of experienced, I can only sort of even slightly begin to

understand it because there is an element, especially within sort of Asian communities, particularly where it is very like, Eastern communities in general are very like, it's for the greater good. It's for the community. It's for the family. It's never for you as the individual to make up your decisions or your mind about what you want to do. And so I think there is that fine line, isn't there, between feeling like you're part of this community that would do anything for you, but also this community that would seek to suffocate and control you. And yeah, how you achieve that is very difficult to balance. But a very interesting story, definitely. I know we've plugged it so much, they should be bloody sponsoring this,

but unorthodox Netflix, go check it out. We're not sponsored by them but yeah, maybe somebody tweet at them and tell them too. That was the story of Laibe Kletsky and his pretty horrific murder. So yeah, let's kick off the month with another murdered child. We'll try.

We're not going to do it next week. We are going to avoid it next week so tune in then. I don't think we're doing any dead children for the rest of the month i don't think so i can't remember i don't think so but you know things could change but yeah so yeah the winds of change they are a blowing exactly so guys if you would like to as we said merch merch merch go get your merch other than that if you would like even more extra super great content, apart from what we're going to be bringing for you this month anyway, you can sign up on patreon.com slash redhanded. And here are some lovely people who have done that.

It feels like it's been ages since I've read names out loud. Let's do it. Right. Nicola Ansell. Thank you. Kirstie Eleanor. Sarah Favinger. Caroline Wilson.

Susie Mack. Jessica Madgson, Jessica Brockman, Ariel Golden, Abigail Altebeuf, Ren Nelia Garay, Justine DeJager, Charlotte Teller, Az Cecily Carraway, Madison Gannaway, Innes Christie, Georgina Banfield, Nikki, Sam Clashorst, Nick McKinney, Patricia Reeves, Beth Wilson, Cynthia East, Georgia Reynolds, Brittany L. Green, Emma Rezzoli, Brandy Pisona, Bill and Hannah Biston, Jamie Flenner, Meg Jacob-Blazley, D. Amy Rosa. Tag. Jack Keran, Kevin West, Jen Durrell, Katie L. Brungardt, Josie Perkins, Keith White, Molly Ryan, Cassidy Wetzel, Tag. Rebecca L. Mason, Sophie Victoria Spring, Nicole Maribel Rodriguez, Lynette Brighton,

Luli Smith, Steph Scanlon, Sarah Stollery, Emma Holt and Felix De Selby. Thank you so much for your support. We are going to keep bringing you all of the very finest COVID-19 updates and bonus content. So keep it here. Don't you dare touch that dial don't touch your podcast app and we'll see you for one of those shortly also five dollar and up patrons hop on over to under the duvet now for an unorthodox debrief goodbye bye I'm Jake Warren, and in our first season of Finding, I set out on a very personal quest to find the woman who saved my mum's life. You can listen to Finding Natasha right now exclusively on Wondery+.

In season two, I found myself caught up in a new journey to help someone I've never even met. But a couple of years ago, I came across a social media post by a person named Loti. It read in part, Three years ago today that I attempted to jump off this bridge,

but this wasn't my time to go. A gentleman named Andy saved my life. I still haven't found him. This is a story that I came across purely by chance, but it instantly moved me, and it's taken me to a place where I've had to consider some deeper issues around mental health. This is season two of Finding,

and this time, if all goes to plan, we'll be finding Andy. You can listen to Finding Andy and Finding Natasha exclusively and ad-free on Wondery+. Join Wondery in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. You don't believe in ghosts? I get it. Lots of people don't. I didn't either until I came face to face with them.

Ever since that moment, hauntings, spirits, and the unexplained have consumed my entire life. I'm Nadine Bailey. I've been a ghost tour guide for the past 20 years. I've taken people along with me into the shadows, uncovering the macabre tales that linger in the darkness and inside some of the most haunted houses, hospitals, prisons, and more. Join me every week on my podcast, Haunted Canada, as we journey through terrifying and bone-chilling stories of the unexplained. Search for Haunted Canada on Apple Podcasts,

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