The New York Department of Corrections is refusing to say whether a biologically male murderer who identifies as a transgender woman will be imprisoned in a female correctional facility.
Police have charged 83-year-old Harvey Marcelin with murder. Police say Marcelin dismembered a victim and toted pieces of the victim’s body around the city.
Marcelin had already served several decades in prison for both murder and manslaughter, The New York Times reported, noting that earlier court records show that Marcelin was formerly listed as male.
Authorities indicted the woman-killer on second-degree murder charges in the death of 68-year-old Susan Leyden on Thursday, the publication reported, as Marcelin had allegedly both dismembered and hidden Leyden’s body parts.
Marcelin is currently housed in the Bronx’s West Facility, The Daily Wire has learned, where “both males and females who have contagious diseases are housed in an air-controlled environment to help stop the spread of disease.”
The New York Department of Corrections would not explain why Marcelin is housed here or whether Marcelin will ultimately be transferred to a female correctional institution, since Marcelin identifies as a woman.
The department did not respond to multiple Daily Wire requests for comment.
State records show that Marcelin, who was convicted of two Manhattan homicides in both 1963 and in 1984 and spent over 50 years in state prison, described having “problems” with women when discussing the 1984 crime, The Times reported.
An 83-year-old ex-convict who spent decades behind bars for killing two women is now a suspect in the dismemberment of a Brooklyn woman.
The suspect was identified by authorities as Harvey Marcelin and was arrested in New York City. pic.twitter.com/dDEerPn3it
— PIX11 News (@PIX11News) March 10, 2022
Police discovered Leyden’s dismembered remains early in the morning of March 3, after a 9-1-1 caller reported finding a torso in a shopping cart outside a Brooklyn pawnshop, the New York Police Department told The Daily Wire on Monday morning.
Police discovered a “human head” in Marcelin’s Cypress Hills home, the New York Post reported of a criminal complaint. The Post cited sources who said that police also found electric saws, in Marcelin’s home, that the killer had bought at Home Depot.
And a few days later, sources told the publication, Leyden’s leg was discovered a few blocks north of Marcelin’s residence. Leyden’s arm is reportedly still missing.
Prosecutors said that the last time Leyden was seen alive, she was seen on surveillance video entering Marcelin’s apartment on February 27 with “a multi-colored bag with a flower decal,” the Post reported — the same bag that her torso was later found in.
On April 18, 1963, Marcelin shot Jacqueline Bonds three times inside the Manhattan apartment that they were sharing at the time — apparently after Bonds ended the relationship, the Post reported.
Marcelin received a sentence of 20 years to life in 1963 but was later freed on lifetime parole in 1984, according to state prison records reviewed by the Post.
Less than a year later, Marcelin fatally stabbed yet another paramour and stuffed this ex-girlfriend’s body into a bag, which the killer left near Central Park, the Post reported.
Authorities then convicted Marcelin of first-degree manslaughter in 1986 and sentenced Marcelin to six to 12 years in prison, according to the publication. Marcelin was reportedly denied parole on a number of occasions before authorities released the killer from Cayuga Correctional Facility, a medium-security state prison for males, in 2019.
“She was in a f***ing wheelchair,” said 30-year-old John Gallagher, an acquaintance of the suspect who spoke to the New York Post about the 2022 killing.
“I don’t even understand how she did what she did to this last one,” said Gallagher. “She’s so frail. Even disposing the body the way she did, she must have had some type of help.”
“I imagine it’s not that easy even with power tools to dispose of a body. It seems like a lot for an 83-year-old to do, in a wheelchair nonetheless,” added Gallagher, according to the publication. Marcelin “once told me that she wished she had been born a goat and that she was a satanic witch. It was the weirdest thing I’ve ever heard.”