Homicide unsolved after eight years
Police still hope to find killer or killers of man who was found dead in burning truck
Monday will mark eight years since Michael Kleiman’s body was found in a burning truck here, and town of Ulster police are trying to build renewed interest in the case in hopes of getting new leads.
Detective Sgt. Kyle S. Berardi, who has been on the case from the start, said town police, state police and the Ulster County District Attorney’s Office met recently to review the matter.
Kleiman’s body — which was burned beyond recognition — was found about 2:45 p.m. on July 25, 2008, inside a torched gray Nissan Frontier pickup (license plate CGE5199) in an isolated, wooded area between state Route 32 and Devil’s Lake Road in the East Kingston section of Ulster. Because of the condition of the remains, authorities were unable to identify Kleiman for nearly two weeks after the grisly discovery.
The pickup, parked on property that once was home to the Hudson Cement plant, had been set aflame with Kleiman’s lifeless body inside, police said at the time.
Police believe Kleiman, a 59-yearold Kerhonkson resident, was killed elsewhere and that his body then was brought to the East Kingston site. Berardi said police have yet to discover where he was killed.
“Somebody has to have knowledge of this,” Berardi said Friday. “After a crime of this nature, I don’t think that somebody could do this and continue life as usual.”
Berardi refused to discuss details
of the killing itself, saying “some of that information is only known to the actual killer and investigators” and divulging it might impede the investigation.
Police are hoping to get information from anyone who had a friend or relative who was absent from work unexpectedly around
the time of Kleiman’s death, missed scheduled appointments, abruptly left the area (either permanently or temporarily), used more drugs or alcohol than usual or had an “abnormal interest” in media coverage of the case.
Police hope to find anyone “who may have unknowingly provided” the killer or killers with rides or other transportation away from East Kingston or the town’s business district
between 1 and 4 p.m. on the day Kleiman’s body was found.
Police said eight years ago that, given where the burned truck was located, the killer or killers probably knew the East Kingston area well.
Kleiman lived on Sundown Road in Kerhonkson and worked as a nurse’s aide at a children’s rehabilitation center in Westchester County. He was 6-foot-2 and weighed 230 pounds.
Berardi said there have been no recent leads in the case but that investigators have followed more than 600 since the homicide “and numerous people have been interviewed.”
Police have said Kleiman lived alone and led a quiet lifestyle.
He was known to frequent swimming holes throughout Ulster, Sullivan, Orange and Westchester counties, Berardi said. Kleiman’s interests also
included going to auctions and antique stores in the region.
Anyone who might have information about the case is asked to call the Ulster Police Department’s Detective Division at (845) 3821111 or the department’s tip line at (845) 336-3784. Information also can be emailed to ksberardi@ulsterpolice.com or sent by postal mail to Town of Ulster Police Department, 1 Town Hall Drive, Lake Katrine,
N.Y. 12449.
There is no statute of limitations in murder cases in New York state, and Berardi said the case will remain open until it is solved.
“It’s never been closed. It’s always been an open investigation,” he said.
And if current investigators are unsuccessful and even more times goes by, “maybe a fresh set of eyes will see something” new, he said.