Police believe disappearance of Leiby Kletzky is linked to man he was seen following on street

Sign in Brooklyn asks for help in locating missing child Leiby Kletzky, who is actually eight.

















A 8-year-old Brooklyn boy who vanished while walking home alone from camp may have driven off with a man he met on the street, police said Tuesday night.

A massive search is underway for Leiby Kletzky, who had begged his parents to let him walk home alone from camp for the first time. His parents agreed to meet him halfway between his Borough Park school and the family's home on Monday afternoon.

But he never showed up - and now cops think his disappearance may be linked to a man he was seen following on the street.

The Orthodox Jewish boy was filmed by a store surveillance camera standing alone about 5:30 p.m. at the corner where 45th St., 18th Ave. and Dahill Road intersect, police said. At that point, he was already far off course from a seven-block walk to meet his parents.

The video shows a bearded man turn the corner and walk down Dahill Road with the boy walking behind him. The man then gets into a gold-colored sedan and drives off - but the video does not show the passenger side of the car.

Leiby is not seen getting into the car or driving away with the man.

"We have not ruled out that the boy got into that same vehicle," said NYPD Deputy Commissioner Paul Browne, the department's top spokesman.

Police are asking the public for help in identifying the man, who Browne described as white and wearing a white shirt and dark pants. The frightening revelation capped more than 24 hours of frantic searches by dozens of police and hundreds of volunteers from the Orthodox Jewish community.

The boy's family has faith the intense police search will pay off. "Now that they are zeroing into the area where he was last we are very encouraged and hopeful he will be found," said Isaac Kletzky, Leiby's uncle.

On an earlier surveillance video, Leiby was filmed leaving the camp at Yeshiva Boyan at 4:50 p.m.

About 30 minutes later, yet another video shows him walking alone on 15th Ave. near 44th St., police said. The 4-foot-tall boy was carrying a backpack and wearing blue pants and a blue shirt with green and white stripes. The encounter with the bearded man in the gold car, shown on a third surveillance video, came seven minutes later.

"Everyone's thinking the worst and hoping for the best," said Shmuel Eckstein, 44, a friend of Leiby's father. "He's a very good kid. He's an angel. He has no rebellious streak to him."

NYPD cops were searching the neighborhood by helicopter and door to door. Agents from the FBI's New York office also joined in the search.

The Shomrim neighborhood patrol provided dozens of members and arranged for more than a hundred volunteers to join the hunt.

Leiby's parents were wracked by dread yesterday, their pain etched into their faces. "They're distraught," said Simcha Bernath, head of the Borough Park Shomrim. Leiby's father, Nachman Kletzky, huddled in his home yesterday afternoon with four rabbis while his wife rested for the first time since her son went missing.

State Assemblyman Dov Hikind, who spoke to the father , said the dad was depressed. "'Let's hope,'" the father said, according to Hikind.

State Assemblyman Peter Abbate, Hikind, the Shomrim and others have put up a reward of $100,000 for information that breaks the case. Anyone with information on the boy's whereabouts should call Crime Stoppers at (800) 577-TIPS.