87-year-old serial killer found guilty of dismembering woman in East New York
A Brooklyn jury has convicted Harvey Marcelin of killing and dismembering a 68-year-old woman in 2022 and scattering her remains across East New York.
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A Brooklyn jury has convicted Harvey Marcelin of killing and dismembering a 68-year-old woman in 2022 and scattering her remains across East New York.
Marcelin, 87, was found guilty of first-degree murder, tampering with physical evidence and concealment of a human corpse after roughly one hour of jury deliberations, according to the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office.
He is scheduled to be sentenced on June 10 and faces a maximum sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Prosecutors said Susan Leyden, 68, was last seen alive on surveillance video entering Marcelin’s Pennsylvania Avenue apartment on Feb. 27, 2022. She was never seen alive again.
Days later, investigators say surveillance footage captured Marcelin rolling a gray shopping cart carrying a black plastic bag. On March 3, Leyden’s torso was discovered inside that bag at the corner of Atlantic Avenue and Pennsylvania Avenue.
Police later found Leyden’s head and limbs, blood, cleaning supplies, a hammer and the box for an electric saw inside Marcelin’s apartment.
One of Leyden’s legs was later discovered near a garbage can about three blocks away, according to the investigators.
During the trial, prosecutors presented surveillance video showing Marcelin buying a saw and cleaning supplies at a Manhattan Home Depot around the time Leyden disappeared.
The city medical examiner determined Leyden died from blunt force trauma to the head and other injuries.
During the trial, jurors heard testimony from Lisa Lindahl, a woman who was also inside the apartment during parts of the aftermath.
She testified that she accompanied Marcelin to Home Depot to buy supplies and later helped clean blood inside the apartment, after discovering Leyden’s body.
Defense attorneys questioned her credibility and suggested she may have been more involved than she admitted.
Marcelin had previously been convicted of murder in 1963 and 1985 for killing two other women.
Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez called the killing “cruel and reprehensible” and said the handling of Leyden’s remains “shocks the conscience.”
“I hope Ms. Leyden’s family finds a measure of solace in this guilty verdict,” Gonzalez said in a statement.
