29 years ago on Halloween night, a 15-year-old boy, Chaim Weiss, was hacked to death with a hatchet-like object in his third floor dorm room in the haredi Long Beach, New York yeshiva. The murderer has never been found, but cops now reportedly believe the killer was a yeshiva rabbi or fellow yeshiva student.
Above: Chaim Weiss
Haredi Yeshiva Student Likely Murdered By Rabbi Or Fellow Student, Cops Reportedly Say
Shmarya Rosenberg • FailedMessiah.com
29 years ago on Halloween night, a 15-year-old boy, Chaim Weiss, was hacked to death with a hatchet-like object in his third floor dorm room in the haredi Long Beach, New York yeshiva.
The murderer has never been found.
At first cops thought the murder had been done by an outsider and was likely a thrill killing. But after reopening the case three years ago, they’re now convinced the killer was an insider – likely a fellow yeshiva student or one of the rabbis, the Daily News reported.
Police found Weiss’ body was moved to the floor from the bed. A window in the room had been opened, as halakha (Jewish law) requires. And a yahrtzeit memorial candle had placed in the room. There was no sign of struggle.
Weiss was one of only two students in the entire yeshiva who did not have a roommate.
Almost 140 former students have been interviewed by police. All of those students said they had no idea how the crime happened, why it happened or who did it, and they had no other information of significance to share.
“We got nothing,” retired police Detective Robert Edwards, who was part of the investigation from the the very beginning, told the Daily News.
“It’s one that has really stuck with me,” Edwards also said. “He was sleeping in his room, a place that is supposed to be safe.”
At first, cops thought a yeshiva janitor or a local mentally ill man who had committed several violent home invasions, beating elderly locals, had done the crime.
But when those suspects were ruled out, police decided the murderer was likely a thrill-seeker. But that, too, was ruled out.
And now multiple sources have told the Daily News what FailedMessiah.com has also been told – cops now believe the murderer was a fellow yeshiva student or one of the yeshiva’s rabbis.
“How could this happen and nobody hear or say anything? Somebody’s got a secret,” Nassau County Police Capt. John Azzata reportedly said.
In 2013, cops held a news conference about the murder. They asked former students, who are now all in their 40s, to come forward and be reinterviewed.
Two years later, cops still hope to speak with about 100 more people.
“People are aware of what transpired back then and you’d hope with maturity they’d come forward now. [But] that hasn’t happened yet,” Azzata said.
A working theory of some people closely following the case is that Weiss either was a victim of child sex abuse and had decided to expose his abuser or saw child sex abuse or homosexual sex take place (perhaps abuse by a rabbi), had decided to report it, and was murdered to prevent that, FailedMessiah.com was told.