JOLIET, Ill. — An Illinois man was found guilty Friday in the fatal stabbing of a 6-year-old Palestinian American boy and the wounding of his mother, an attack that prosecutors said was motivated by anti-Muslim hate and a response to the Israel-Hamas War.
Joseph Czuba was convicted of first-degree murder, attempted murder, aggravated battery and hate crimes in the Oct. 14, 2023, killing of Wadee Alfayoumi, who was stabbed 26 times, and in the wounding of his mother, Hanan Shaheen, who was stabbed more than a dozen times in suburban Chicago.
The jury deliberated for just over an hour.
The mother and son rented two rooms from Czuba and his then-wife in Plainfield Township, about 40 miles southwest of downtown Chicago, where the attack took place.
Shaheen, 33, testified that Czuba, 73, turned on her shortly after Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. She said he and his then-wife were aware that she is Muslim and of Palestinian descent before they agreed to rent the rooms to her, and that she didn’t previously have any issues in the two years she rented from them. She was the prosecution’s first witness.
Shaheen and Czuba’s ex-wife, Mary Connor, who also testified for the prosecution, said that in the week leading up to the stabbings, Czuba was outraged about the war between Israel and Hamas. Shaheen said he began speaking hatefully about Muslims. Shaheen testified that Czuba told her “your people” are killing Jewish people and babies in Israel, that Muslims were not welcome in his home and that she needed to move out.
“I told him, ‘Pray for peace,’” Shaheen testified.
Days later, Shaheen said, Czuba forced his way into her room, held her down, stabbed her with a knife and tried to break her teeth, as her son, Wadee, watched in fear from a corner of the room. At one point, she said, she was able to get ahold of the knife and stab Czuba with it before he seized it from her.
She said that when she went into a bathroom to call 911, Czuba moved on to Wadee, who had just celebrated his birthday. She said she could hear him shouting, “Oh no, stop!” A knife was still lodged in Wadee’s body when first responders arrived at the home. A knife with a 7-inch blade, which prosecutors held up to show jurors multiple times during closing arguments, was removed from his body. Shaheen was hospitalized and received 19 stitches on her face, as well as staples on the back of her head.
The killing of Wadee and attack on Shaheen drew international attention and left many people in Illinois’ large Muslim and Palestinian communities frightened. Some in those communities criticized the rhetoric from public officials and some in the media which they said had demeaned Muslims and Palestinians.
Czuba did not testify at his trial.
In court documents, prosecutors said he became obsessed with the war in the Middle East.
“This happened because this defendant was afraid that a war that had started on Oct. 7, 2023, a half a world away in the Middle East, was going to come to his doorstep,” prosecutor Michael Fitzgerald, a Will County assistant state’s attorney, told jurors in his opening statement. “This happened because Hanan and Wadee were Muslim.”
Connor, 64, testified that he had become paranoid about his personal safety and believed that their lives might be in danger because of Shaheen. She said that they both had a good relationship with Shaheen, whom she said she considered a friend and good tenant. Czuba tried to make the home enjoyable and would sometimes bring home toys for Wadee, she said. Days after the war, she said, Czuba became withdrawn and told her that he wanted Shaheen to move out of their home.
“Hanan needs to move because her friends could come and do us harm,” Connor testified Czuba had told her.
But Connor, who was married to Czuba for 30 years, said she disagreed. She believed they should adhere to the terms of Shaheen’s lease, and give her 30 days notice to move, and told Czuba that Shaheen had never had a guest in the home.
“I was angry,” Connor testified. “In my mind, there was no reason for her to move.”
She said Czuba also withdrew $1,000 from his bank account because of fears the U.S. banking system would fail.
Prosecutors played for jurors a conversation between Czuba and a Will County sheriff’s sergeant, in which Czuba compared Wadee and Shaheen to “infested rats.”
“What do you do when you have an infested rat situation? You exterminate them.And that’s what he did that day,” prosecutor Chris Koch said in his closing argument Friday. “That was his thought process.”
In his closing argument, George Lenard, one of Czuba’s attorneys, invoked O.J. Simpson’s trial attorney Johnnie Cochran, telling jurors that there had been a rush to judgment in Czuba’s case.
Lenard also questioned why Shaheen retreated to the bathroom, evidence from the scene, the location of some of her wounds and appeared to suggest she had a financial interest in the case, something he tried to question her about under cross examination. Shaheen filed a wrongful death suit against Czuba and his ex-wife that is still pending.
“You know this is a half-baked case that the prosecution is giving you,” he said.
He urged the jurors to “have the courage” to find Czuba not guilty.
Prosecutor Christine Vukmir rebutted his argument, calling the suggestion that Shaheen stabbed Wadee and then framed Czuba as “outlandish.”
“That is the plot that he is presenting to you,” she told jurors. “It is ridiculous.”
Czuba was found on the ground outside when deputies arrived at the house.
Jurors heard from police officers, firefighters and other first responders, as well as from a physician assistant who treated Shaheen at a hospital. They also heard Shaheen’s 911 call to police, in which Wadee’s cries could also be heard and she repeatedly told the dispatcher, “He is killing my baby.”
One of the Will County sheriff’s deputies who found Wadee’s body cried on the stand as jurors watched footage from her body-worn camera. Some of the footage and images were so graphic that Judge Amy Bertani-Tomczak granted a request from one of Czuba’s attorneys that the giant courtroom television monitor be turned away from the gallery so that only the jurors could see it.
Selina Guevara reported from Joliet, Ill., and Janelle Griffith from New York.
The post Illinois man convicted of murder and hate crimes in stabbing of 6-year-old Palestinian American boy appeared first on NBC News.
