Police: NYC boy's remains found in fridge, trash

[July 13, 2011]  NEW YORK (AP) -- Remains believed to be those of a little boy who disappeared while walking home from a Brooklyn day camp were found in a refrigerator Wednesday inside the home of a man being questioned by detectives, police said.

Eight-year-old Leiby Kletzy is shown on grainy surveillance video footage wearing a backpack as he walks down the street. A man who seen walking near the boy in the video is in now custody, chief police spokesman Paul J. Browne said. Detectives found other body parts believed to be those of Leiby wrapped in a black plastic garbage bag inside a red suitcase that had been tossed into a trash bin in another Brooklyn neighborhood, Browne said.

At about 6:45 a.m., an NYPD crime unit carted away the trash bin and put it in a truck, and police officers walked in a line looking for evidence under cars and on sidewalks.

The 35-year-old man is still being interviewed, police said, and has not yet been arrested on any formal charges. He lives alone in his apartment, in a building shared with his parents. The man, whose birthday is Wednesday, once had a summons for urinating in public but otherwise did not have a criminal record.

The man made statements implicating himself in the crime, Browne said, but would not go into detail.

Investigators hunting for the boy noticed the man on the video going into a nearby dentist about 5:30 p.m. Monday, Browne said. The dentist, located later in New Jersey, said he remembered someone coming in to the shop who wasn't a patient, but who was paying a bill for a patient there, and police were able to track down the man using records from the office. When they went to his home, they made the gruesome discovery.

Leiby was last seen near 44th Street and 12th Avenue in the Borough Park section of Brooklyn just before 5 p.m. Monday. The Hasidic boy was coming home from day camp and was supposed to meet his mother about three blocks away but never showed up.

Hasidism is a form of mystical ultra-Orthodox Judaism. Followers live in tight-knit communities nearly closed off to modern society and wear traditional dress -- for men, dark clothing that includes a long coat and a fedora-type hat. Men often have long beards and ear locks.

Most of the 165,000 members in the New York City the area live in neighborhoods in Brooklyn and are part of three different major sects. Hasidism traces its roots to 18th-century Eastern Europe.

The insular community rarely seeks outside help, and State Assemblyman Dov Hikind, whose district includes the area, often speaks for the group.

The man in custody at a Brooklyn precinct was Jewish but it's not clear if he's Hasidic. A $100,000 reward had been offered, Hikind said the outpouring of support has been tremendous with people from all over the state volunteering their time to scour the neighborhood and hand out flyers.

Hikind said the boy was the only son of the Kletzy family. The couple has four daughters, and the husband drives a private car service.

"Everybody is absolutely horrified," he said. "Everyone is in total shock, beyond belief, beyond comprehension ... to suddenly disappear and then the details ... and the fact someone in the extended community ... it's awful," he said.

Hikind said the parents did not know the 35-year-old man, who lived about a mile away from the boy.

[Associated Press; By COLLEEN LONG]

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