As Levi Aaron awaits trial for the murder of 8-year-old Leiby Kletzky, New York magazine takes a look at how the Jewish man fit in--or didn't--to the tight-knit Orthodox community:
Aron spent three years at a high school in Borough Park, where he was remembered as a spectral and strange presence. He watched his brother Joe, a well-adjusted and charismatic boy, depart for college, then a promising job in Arizona. Aron left high school before graduation and failed to obtain his GED. Unable to find his own way out, he moved his belongings down to the basement of the Kensington house. Despairing, Jack arranged a job for him at Empire State Supply, a Hasidic-owned hardware store about a mile from Yeshiva Boyan. Someone who remembers him from the shop recalls Aron as a “lunatic genius,” completely antisocial but able to remember the location of every item in the store, down to the last screw. The managers assigned Aron to the back room, where he helped manage inventory, out of customers’ view.
Aron's attorney Howard Greenberg recently told the New York Post that he would quit practicing law if Aron was not found insane. Greenberg joined the defense team after another member of the team, Jennifer L. McCann, received some criticism--including from a judge on the State Supreme Court--that she was too inexperienced.
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