DOWNTOWN BROOKLYN — AN 88-YEAR-OLD PAROLEE was sentenced on Thursday to life in prison without the possibility of parole by Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Danny Chun, after his conviction on first-degree murder for killing and dismembering a woman whose body parts were discovered inside and outside his East New York apartment, according to Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez. 

Harvey Marcelin had prior convictions for murder and manslaughter in the deaths of two girlfriends in 1963 and 1985, according to the New York Post. He was out on parole when victim Susan Leyden, 68, was killed. On Feb. 27, 2022, surveillance footage captured Leyden entering Marcelin’s Pennsylvania Avenue apartment, the last time she was seen alive. Footage also showed Marcelin purchasing a saw and cleaning supplies, and outside rolling a shopping cart with a black plastic bag in it. 

The victim’s torso was discovered in the shopping cart at the corner of Atlantic and Pennsylvania avenues, and a leg three blocks away. Police discovered the victim’s head and other limbs, as well as blood, cleaning supplies, a hammer, and the box from an electric saw, inside his apartment. 

“The brutality of this shocking crime is almost beyond words,” Gonzalez said in a release Thursday.

✰✰✰