What you should know
- The eighty-year-old Brooklynite and twice-convicted murderer seen on video sitting on a human leg as she cruised through a store on a motorized scooter after allegedly killing and dismembering a 68-year-old woman and disposing of her torso in the street has been arrested again on the murder and other charges in the latest case, police said Monday.
- Harvey Marcelin, 83, who spent decades in prison for two previous convictions in the deaths of other women, was charged last week in the death of 68-year-old Susan Leyden. Leyden was living in an LGBTQ+ senior housing community in Fort Greene at the time of her death, law enforcement sources said.
- Marcelin was officially arrested Monday on charges including murder and tampering with physical evidence in Leyden’s death, the New York police said.
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NEW YORK — The eighty-year-old Brooklynite and twice-convicted murderer seen on video sitting on a human leg as she cruised through a store on a motorized scooter after allegedly killing and dismembering a 68-year-old woman and disposing of her torso in Street has been arrested again on the murder and other charges in the latest case, police said Monday.
Harvey Marcelin, 83, who spent decades in prison for two previous convictions in the deaths of other women, was charged last week in the death of 68-year-old Susan Leyden. Leyden was living in an LGBTQ+ senior housing community in Fort Greene at the time of her death, law enforcement sources said.
Marcelin was officially arrested Monday on charges including murder and tampering with physical evidence in Leyden’s death, the New York police said.
Police say the two knew each other, but the extent of their relationship is unclear.
What is clear, police say, is that Marcelin was caught on video riding a motorized scooter and sitting on a human leg. A human leg was found blocks from Leyden’s torso a few days later and has not been definitively linked to the same victim, but law enforcement sources with knowledge of the case linked the appendage to Leyden.
The NYPD shared a video on Friday that they say shows the motorized scooter with the leg under it. They say that Marcelin is then seen in a video on the scooter, talking to another person in a store that sells clothes, among other merchandise.
The torso was found in early March at the corner of Atlantic and Pennsylvania avenues, just outside a construction safety equipment store next to a carpet store, by a passerby who noticed the bag on the way to the home of a friend in Greenpoint and decided to open it while he was still there on his way home.
He was the one who called 911.
The body of a woman, missing her head, arms and legs, was found in a trash bag in a shopping cart at a Brooklyn intersection Thursday morning, a law enforcement source with knowledge of the case says. .
A search warrant executed at Marcelin’s apartment found a human head, according to a criminal complaint released Thursday, along with saw blades. Law enforcement sources say tarot cards were also found on a table inside the apartment, and investigators are investigating whether they played a role in Leyden’s death.
The medical examiner will perform an autopsy to determine how he died.
“Last week, my office charged Harvey Marcelin with allegedly hiding a woman’s severed head in his home and dumping the victim’s torso in a bag on the street,” Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez said Thursday. , announcing the indictment. “Today, the grand jury indicted Harvey Marcelin for murder, and my office is committed to aggressively seeking justice. The facts of this horrific case are shocking and disturbing, and my heart goes out to the family and friends of the victim.”
According to prison records cited by the New York Post, Marcelin has been convicted of murders twice before. Marcelin spent more than 50 years in state prison for murder and manslaughter dating back to 1963. Marcelin’s previous convictions were for killing girlfriends she was living with, according to court documents.
A jury found Marcelin guilty of murder in 1963 for shooting and killing Jacqueline Bonds inside a Manhattan apartment. At the time, Marcelin was also facing a charge of attempted rape involving another woman, according to court records.
The judge sentenced Marcelin to life in prison after jurors could not agree on whether the crime warranted the death penalty.
NYPD investigates if there is a relationship in both cases.
Marcelin was paroled for life in May 1984, the Post reported, and arrested again for allegedly stabbing another girlfriend less than a year later and leaving her body in a garbage bag on the street near Central Park. Marcelin was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter and sentenced to between six and 12 years in prison.
State officials were reluctant to grant parole when Marcelin became eligible in the 1990s. During a State Board of Parole hearing in 1997, Marcelin admitted to having “issues” with women, according to court records. Other boards rejected parole citing Marcelin’s “attempt to blame” the victims.
Marcelin was released from prison at the end of 2019 on parole.
Police stress that their investigation is ongoing. They said Friday they are reviewing similar missing persons cases since Marcelin’s last release from prison to determine if there are more victims. Marcelin is being represented by Legal Aid, which did not respond to email requests for comment from our sister News 4 network last week.
Marcelin refused to speak to the police after her arrest.
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