87-Year-Old Who Dismembered Woman After Being Paroled for 2 Killings Will Never Be Released Again

An octogenarian who killed three people over a span of nearly 60 years, and was twice granted parole, will spend the rest of his life behind bars for the murder and dismemberment of his third victim.

Harvey Marcelin, 87, was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for the grisly 2022 murder of Susan Leyden in his New York City apartment, Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez announced on Wednesday, June 10. He was convicted on May 7 of first-degree murder, tampering with physical evidence and concealment of a human corpse after a jury trial in Brooklyn Supreme Court.

“The brutality of this shocking crime is almost beyond words,” Gonzalez said in a statement. “I hope this outcome provides Susan’s family and loved ones with a measure of justice and some comfort as they continue to grieve.”

Leyden, 68, who was once a jeweler but had fallen on hard times and become estranged from her family, was last seen entering Marcelin’s apartment building in East New York on Feb. 27, 2022. Leyden’s torso, which was shown to jurors in court, was found in a wheeled shopping bag on a street corner by an e-bike rider days later, while her leg was found in a black plastic bag inside a nearby garbage can a few days after that, per the DA.

Marcelin was seen on surveillance video wheeling the same shopping bag out of his apartment building prior to the torso’s discovery, and was also seen on surveillance footage purchasing a saw at Home Depot, the DA said.

Before the discovery of the leg in the black plastic bag, Marcelin was seen on CCTV footage at a Brooklyn dollar store shopping on a motorized scooter; when he briefly got up out of the chair, a black plastic bag could be seen on the seat, prosecutors said in court.

When police served a search warrant on the apartment, they found a ghastly scene: Leyden’s severed head, thigh and limbs were found in the bathroom.

The nature of the relationship between Marcelin and Leyden is not entirely clear. They had stayed in the same Bronx homeless shelter and Marcelin seemed infatuated with her and created several Facebook accounts in her name, prosecutors said.

After being arrested, Marcelin was hit with a first-degree murder charge, a relative rarity in New York, because of his decades-long violent history.

Marcelin was first convicted of murder for the 1963 killing of his estranged girlfriend Jacqueline Bonds. At the time, he was being prosecuted for rape — and Bonds was the key witness in the case, The New York Times reported.

He served 21 years in prison and was paroled in 1984. The following year, the remains of sex worker Ana Laura Sierra were found in a black garbage bag in Central Park. A witness told police they had seen Marcelin wheeling a shopping cart with a garbage bag through the building’s lobby, per the Times.

Marcelin was charged with murder but took a plea deal on a manslaughter charge. He served 35 years in state prison before being paroled in 2019 at age 81.

“He must be locked away,” Gonzalez said in his statement. “Today’s sentence ensures that he will never be able to hurt anyone else again.”