BROOKLYN, NY (PIX11)—
"He told the boy, come into my car, come into my car, and the boy was very afraid, and he was 11 and a little smarter and he ran away."That shocking statement by an Orthodox Jewish woman on Wednesday, on the day Levi Aron was arrested for dismembering an 8-year-old boy in his attic apartment--apparently rattled the NYPD when it appeared on YouTube.
The woman was telling Hamodia, a community paper in Borough Park, about Levi Aron attempting to lure a neighborhood boy on his own block, East 2nd Street, two weeks before Leibby Kletzky was snatched on 18th Avenue in Borough Park.
Simon Gifter is a reporter for Hamodia. Late Wednesday morning, Gifter's colleague asked Police Commissioner, Ray Kelly, if there had been a previous kidnapping attempt by Aron. The Commissioner was unaware but vowed a thorough investigation.
The woman told the newspaper Hamodia that 'Shomrim', a volunteer Orthodox safety patrol, might have been told instead of NYPD. And today--the mother of the 11-year-old boy confirmed the attempted luring to the New York Post, saying "The story is true. We're going through a lot of trauma here." The Post said NYPD detectives spoke to the mom Wednesday, the day Leibby's dismembered body was discovered 3 doors from her own home.
Additional reporting by Peter Thorne
