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The DNAinfo archives brought to you by WNYC.
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Confessed Killer of Leiby Kletzky to Get 40 Years in Prison in Plea Deal

By  Sonja Sharp and Murray Weiss | August 1, 2012 5:45pm | Updated on August 2, 2012 9:37am

BROOKLYN — The confessed killer of 8-year-old Leiby Kletzky is expected to plead guilty next week and get 40 years to life in prison, law enforcement officials told DNAinfo.com New York.

Levi Aron, 36, who admitted brutally murdering and dismembering the boy from Borough Park, is expected in court next Thursday to accept the plea deal.

Aron confessed to luring Kletzky into his car after the boy became lost on his walk home from camp last July. It was the first time his parents let him walk home alone. He told prosecutors he drove Kletzky to a wedding in Monsey, N.Y., before taking him back to his Kensington apartment, where he later drugged and smothered the boy before dismembering his remains.

Police and prosecutors have tried to shield the boy's grief-stricken family from the horrific details of the murder. Kletzky's remains were discovered stuffed in a suitcase in a dumpster in Sunset Park. His severed feet were found stashed in plastic bags in Aron's freezer.

“The family has to live with this for the rest of their lives. They want to bring this to a conclusion,” Assemblyman Dov Hikind told the New York Daily News, which first reported on Wednesday.“The idea of having a trial was not something that they wanted to go through. They want to make sure that there is justice.” 

The grisly details of the murder would almost certainly come out at trial where Aron, whom the Daily News reports has grown morbidly obese behind bars, had indicated he would pursue a plea of insanity. 

The proposed deal would include 25 years to life for murder, and an additional 15 years for kidnapping, the paper reported.