Brooklyn boy Leiby Kletzky was given drugs, then smothered, says autopsy
(CBS/WCBS/AP) NEW YORK - The medical examiner says 8-year-old Leiby Kletzky, who was allegedly abducted off a Brooklyn street, then killed and dismembered last week, was given a combination of drugs before he was smothered.
The cause of death was cited as intoxication from a muscle relaxant, an anti-psychotic drug and two pain medications, followed by smothering.
Prosecutors say Levi Aron lured Leiby to his home last week after the little boy got lost while walking home from an Orthodox Jewish day camp. The 35-year-old Aron has pleaded not guilty to charges of murder and kidnapping.
Video cameras captured the fateful encounter between the two on a Brooklyn street, while Leiby's mother waited anxiously just a few blocks away. Detectives later found the boy's severed feet, wrapped in plastic, in the man's freezer, as well as a cutting board and three bloody carving knives.
At his arraignment last Thursday afternoon, Aron appeared disheveled, confused and pale. According to CBS station WCBS, he was held without bail, and placed on suicide watch in protective custody.
Police and prosecutors said Aron, a clerk at a hardware supply store, has confessed to suffocating the boy with a bath towel. Aron has writen a confession which ended with "I'm sorry for the hurt that I caused," Police Commissioner Ray Kelly told WCBS.
"It defies all logic and I think that's what's been so terribly disturbing about this case," Kelly said. "There's absolutely no reason. There's nothing more innocent than an 8-year-old child and to be killed in this manner is just heart breaking."