The family of 8-year-old Brooklyn boy who was smothered and then chopped up into pieces on Tuesday thanked New Yorkers “who had us in our thoughts and prayers.”
In a statement tacked to the front door of Leiby Kletzky’s home this morning, the boy’s family said they are “forever grateful and thankful to [God].”
The statement continued, “We would also like to express to each and individual … who assisted us above and beyond physically, emotionally and spiritually, and to all from around the world who had us in their thoughts and prayers.”
This comes after it was revealed that Kletzky spent his final moments of life in a fierce battle with kidnapper Levi Aron, desperately clawing at the coward suffocating him with a towel, authorities said.
“There are some scratches on Aron’s arms and wrists,” said Police Commissioner Ray Kelly. “Based on the marks on the defendant . . . There was some struggle. There are marks on his body.”
But the killer kept pressing on the towel until Leiby gave in.
“He fought back a little bit until eventually he stopped breathing,” Aron, 35, allegedly confessed. “Afterwards, I panicked, because I didn’t know what to do with the body.”
Cops said the maniac used three knives and a cutting board to dismember the child in the cramped attic apartment in Brooklyn’s Kensington section.
Police made the grisly find Tuesday, a day after Kletzky went missing.
Even hardened criminals agreed with the commissioner, screaming, “You f–king killer!” in Brooklyn Criminal Court before Aron pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder and kidnapping charges.
Brooklyn DA Charles Hynes said his office confiscated Aron’s computers and will also investigate whether Aron had previous improper contact with kids here and in Tennessee, where he previously lived.
A disheveled Aron was held without bail and ordered to undergo psychiatric evaluation on Rikers Island after his lawyer told the judge his client “hears voices and suffers from hallucinations.”
Aron has fully confessed, and Kelly said yesterday that cops confirmed his claim that he attended a wedding in Monsey, a heavily Orthodox Jewish town in Rockland County, hours after the abduction.
Police were checking video from 14 cameras at the Ateres Charna catering hall to determine whether Aron was telling the truth about taking Leiby with him.
The wedding of Monsey resident Yakov Morsel and Queens woman Dina Munk was packed with up to 500 guests, many of them kids.
Aron claimed he left the boy briefly in his car, parked outside the hall with the windows rolled down, as he joined the reception, sources said.
The groom’s neighbors said the boy would have stood out at the wedding because he is a Hasid, unlike the majority of guests, who were Orthodox Jews and don’t grow payos, the traditional side curls.
