An elderly transgender woman from New York City was seen on store surveillance footage sitting on a severed human leg in her motorized wheelchair before being arrested for murder.
Harvey Marceline, 83, who was convicted of two other murders in 1963 and 1984, was arrested late last week for the murder of Susan Leiden, 68, after security cameras caught her throwing the body outside her Cypress apartment. Hills.
Leiden’s headless torso was stuffed into a trash bag and thrown into a shopping cart in Brooklyn.
On March 2, a passer-by made a gruesome discovery on Pennsylvania and Atlantic Avenues around 1:45 a.m. when he looked inside a trash bag.
On Friday, the NYPD held a press conference showing a video of Marceline sitting on a severed human leg. CCTV footage from inside the store shows Marceline climbing out of her wheelchair, exposing her leg, and then sitting back down.
“This is a horrific and barbaric murder that resulted in the disposal of a decapitated torso on the corner of New York and the serial killer disappeared from our streets,” Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez told reporters.
“This is just the latest in a list of heinous crimes that Ms. Harvey has committed throughout her life, and we can only hope that she will not be able to commit more,” he added.
An elderly transgender woman from New York City was seen on store surveillance video sitting on a severed human leg (circled) in a motorized wheelchair before being arrested for murder.
Harvey Marceline, 83, was arrested late last week for the murder of Susan Leydon, 68, after surveillance cameras allegedly caught her dumping her body outside her Cypress Hills apartment.
Surveillance video of the store showed Marceline sitting on her leg in a motorized wheelchair.
Marceline, who killed two women in 1963 and 1984, was charged with murder, criminal falsification of evidence, and concealment of a human corpse.
According to an NYPD investigation, Leiden, an LGBTQ activist who lived in the city’s shelter, was last seen alive on February 27 when she entered Marceline’s apartment at 50 Pennsylvania Avenue, carrying a “multicolored bag with a flower sticker” and a cat basket.
Two days later, Marceline and another woman were seen leaving the building with the same bag as they made their way to a Manhattan home improvement store to buy saws, trash bags and cleaning products, Gonzalez said.
On March 2, CCTV footage captured Marceline leaving the apartment again with a shopping cart and a trash bag inside the cart, leaving it outside.
Police said the female corpse was found inside a sack without a head or limbs and did not appear to have decomposed.
On March 3, police found blood and garbage bags at the apartment complex, and a search warrant at Marceline’s home found a “human head” along with the saws Marceline had bought.
On March 7, a severed leg, cut off below the knee and still worn over the toe, stuck out of a discarded tire four blocks from the house.
Gonzalez added that the woman who walked into Home Depot cooperated with police, but did not say if she had any charges in connection with the murder.
Marceline was charged with murder, criminal falsification of evidence and concealment of a human corpse. Marceline represents legal aid, who did not immediately respond to ‘s request for comment.
Police identified the victim as Susan Leiden, 68, formerly of Teaneck, New Jersey, and an acquaintance of Marceline’s. She was last seen entering Marceline’s apartment on 27 February.
Police said the female corpse was found inside a sack without a head or limbs and did not appear to have decomposed. They said the head was found in Marceline’s apartment.
The leg was found Monday, March 7, in Cypress Hills, just days after the torso was found a few blocks away. Police said the body parts belonged to Leiden, an LGBTQ+ activist.
Leiden’s murder is the third murder Marceline has been implicated in.
According to the New York Post, on April 18, 1963, Marceline was arrested for shooting her then-girlfriend Jacqueline Bonds three times in their Harlem apartment.
Earlier that year, she was arrested for illegal gambling and attempted rape. The rape case was dismissed when the victim failed to appear in court.
For Bonds’ murder, Marceline was sentenced to 20 years to life and released on parole in 1984, according to state prison records.
While in prison, Marceline allegedly filed court documents saying she was involved in the notorious 1971 Attica prison riot that killed 29 prisoners and 10 hostages, according to the New York Daily News. Marceline was not among the inmates who received a class action lawsuit payment after the riot.
After her release in 1984, she fatally stabbed another friend, Anna Laura Serrera Miranda, cutting her open and stuffing her body in a bag before dumping it on the street near Central Park, according to the Daily News.
Marceline was arrested in 1986 and convicted of manslaughter. The psychiatric examination concluded that she had a “schizoid personality with sociopathic traits” but was not considered insane.
Marceline applied for parole several times, and during one of those hearings, she said she had “women issues,” the Post reported.
She also accused an all-female parole board of denying her release in 1997, which was overturned by a three-judge panel in Albany, according to court records.
Marceline also faced a disciplinary hearing in 2001 for performing oral sex on another prisoner, but was not punished, according to a Daily News report.
She was released from Cayuga Correctional Facility in upstate New York in 2019.
Marceline is currently in custody without bail at Ryker’s Island.
The Brooklyn prosecutor’s office said the case is still under investigation.
The incident comes as the city continues to see a spike in violent crime compared to last year.
Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez called the murder “terrible and barbaric.”
Violent crime in New York continues to rise, with the overall crime rate up over 47 percent.
While the number of homicides is nearly the same, with 67 this year compared to 66 last year, the number of assaults is up more than 19 percent, rising from 3,210 to 3,824.
The number of shooting victims increased from 181 cases to 215, an increase of more than 18 percent compared to the same period last year, while the number of rapes increased by more than 31 percent, with 293 cases so far.
This year saw the biggest surge in robberies, up almost 45 percent from the same period in 2021. In general, the number of crimes increased by more than 47 percent.