An owner found guilty of fatal beads A Palestinian young boy and attacking the boy’s mother in the canton of Plainfield, Illinois, in October 2023, died in detention, the authorities announced on Saturday.
The Sheriff’s Bureau of Will County confirmed to CBS News Chicago that Joseph Czuba, 73, died Thursday in the care of the Illinois Correctional Services department. The Czuba died less than three months after being convicted.
The Czuba was found guilty of a first degree murder leader, a chief of murder attempted, two aggravated battery counts and two hatred crime leaders in the attack that killed Wadee Alfayoumi, 6, seriously injured his mother, Hanan Shaheen. He was sentenced in May to 53 years in prison
His cause of death was not immediately known.
Tea target The mother and the son Because of their Islamic faith And in response to war between Israel and Hamas, which started a few days earlier.
The evidence during the trial included heartbreaking testimonies of Shaheen and his frantic call 911, as well as bloody crime scene photos and police videos. The jurors deliberated less than 90 minutes before putting a verdict.
The family rented rooms in Czuba’s home in Plainfield, about 40 miles from Chicago, when the attack occurred.
Center of the prosecutors’ case was a painful testimony to the boy’s mother, who said that Czuba had attacked him before moving on to his son, insisting that they had to leave because they were Muslims. Prosecutors also played the call for 911 and showed police images. The wife of the Czuba, Mary, whom he has divorced since then, also testified for the accusation, claiming that he had agitated about the War of Israel-Hamas, which had broken out a few days earlier.
The police said that the Czuba had pulled a knife from a support on a belt and stabbed the boy 26 times, leaving the knife in the child’s body. Some of the photos of the bloody crime scene were so explicit that the judge agreed to transform the television screens showing them from the public, which included relatives of Wadee.
The attack renewed the fears of anti-Muslim discrimination and struck particularly strong in the suburbs of Plain-Champ and surrounding, which have a large established Palestinian community. Wadee’s funerals attracted large crowds and Plainfield officials devoted a park play area in his honor.
Ahmed Rehab, the executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations in Chicago, said on Saturday in a statement that “this depraved killer died, but hatred is still very alive”.
