An 88-year-old Brooklyn man is heading back to prison for the rest of his life after killing and dismembering a woman in 2022. It is the third time he has been convicted of murdering a woman.
Harvey Marcelin was sentenced to life behind bars on Wednesday, June 10, following a two-week trial. On May 7, 2026, a jury convicted him of first-degree murder, tampering with evidence, and concealing a human corpse in the death of 68-year-old Susan Leyden.
Security cameras caught Leyden walking into Marcelin’s apartment on February 27, 2022. She was never seen leaving. Instead, footage showed Marcelin pushing a shopping cart down the street with a large bag inside. Right before Leyden’s dismembered remains were discovered the following day, cameras also recorded Marcelin buying an electric saw at a local Home Depot.
Marcelin insisted he was innocent during the trial. However, a witness named Lisa Lendahl testified that she had gone over to Marcelin’s apartment to use drugs and saw Leyden’s dead body right there in the room.
The 2022 killing followed a long, documented pattern for Marcelin. He has already spent a combined 50 years in the prison system for taking the lives of two previous girlfriends.
His first murder conviction happened after he fatally shot his girlfriend in 1963. Marcelin managed to convince a parole board to release him in 1984. He told them he had no interest in dating anymore and just wanted to take care of his elderly mother if they let him out.
Shortly after getting out, he stabbed a woman he was living with to death. People saw him leaving his apartment carrying a dripping garbage bag. Her remains were later found dumped in New York City’s Central Park.
“We see the foot coming out of the bag, so we knew we had something bad here,” Robert Boyce, who was working as a police officer at the time of the discovery, told WABC.
Marcelin went right back to prison for that murder but was paroled yet again in 2019. He told the parole board he had argued with the victim over rent and “went berserk.”
“I just lost it for a minute,” Marcelin told the board. He said he was sorry, claimed he had no living relatives left, and planned to spend his remaining time volunteering at soup kitchens.
“I give you my word, I will never reoffend,” Marcelin promised them.
Just three years later, Leyden was dead.
At the sentencing hearing for this latest murder, Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Danny Chun made sure Marcelin wouldn’t get a third chance at parole.
“The cold fact is that every time you were released, you killed someone else,” Chun told the 88-year-old. “Which leads this court to believe that, regardless of your age, if you are ever paroled again, I have no doubt that you would kill again.”
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