NEW YORK — A hardware store clerk was sentenced Wednesday to 40 years to life in prison after pleading guilty to kidnapping, killing, and dismembering a lost little boy, bringing an end to a gruesome case that horrified a tight-knit Orthodox Jewish community in Brooklyn.

Levi Aron, 37, had pleaded guilty this month to lesser charges in a deal that spared him a criminal trial and the possibility of life in prison without parole.

When asked Wednesday if he wanted to speak at his hearing, he whispered ‘‘no.’’ He will be eligible for parole in 40 years.

Aron admitted he kidnapped and killed 8-year-old Leiby Kletzky after the boy approached him on a Brooklyn street and asked for directions on July 11, 2011.

The boy was Hasidic and the killing shocked the community in Borough Park, home to one of the world’s largest communities of Orthodox Jews outside Israel.