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Levi Aron’s Interview from Rikers

Admitted murderer says he doesn’t know why he killed lost 8-year-old boy

by
Stephanie Butnick
August 12, 2011
Levi Aron in court.(Jesse Ward/NY Daily News)
Levi Aron in court.(Jesse Ward/NY Daily News)

In his first interview since confessing to the killing and dismembering of 8-year-old Leiby Kletzky, Levi Aron told the New York Daily News he didn’t know why he abducted and murdered the lost Hasidic boy who asked him for directions.

Though he was deemed fit to stand trial, the 35-year-old is believed to have a psychiatric disorder and said he hears voices.

From the interview:

“I don’t know what happened,” Aron said. “I just panicked.”



Asked repeatedly if he wanted to apologize, the confessed child killer kept looking away and remained silent. At one point, he nodded his head, but would not say he was sorry.



Aron wore a wrinkled gray jumpsuit with a hospital bracelet on his wrist and appeared lethargic during an hour-long interview at Rikers Island

Never saying Kletzky’s name and referring to the grisly murder only as “the incident,” Aron, who is on suicide watch in the prison infirmary, also said he hadn’t spoken to his family since the murder.

Stephanie Butnick is chief strategy officer of Tablet Magazine, co-founder of Tablet Studios, and a host of the Unorthodox podcast.