Murder suspect reenacts Beersheba killing before police and victim’s widow
Eight held over death of father who was stabbed after he asked teens in a park to keep the noise down
One of the youths that police suspect killed Beersheba resident Gadi Vichman on Friday night reenacted the events before police investigators and the victim’s wife on Sunday evening.
Eight suspects in their late teens and a 16-year-old minor were arrested Sunday in connection to Vichman’s murder. Three of the adults and the minor, a female, are suspected of carrying out the murder while the other four suspects are alleged to have assisted them after Vichman was killed.
Police apparently were aware of the identity of all eight suspects within minutes of the murder, but a “tactical decision” was made to gather as much evidence as possible before making any arrests. “Only after we were convinced, as we’d gathered evidence against each one of them,” were the arrests carried out, a senior police official said.
Vichman, 36, the father of two young children, was stabbed to death outside his apartment building on Friday night after he asked local teens to stop making noise. Vichman’s widow stated that the Beersheba police did not respond to her first emergency call, a charge that local police refuted.
The police report on the incident stated that a patrol car was sent to the neighborhood, but that the officers found no disturbance in the area.
According to Maariv, police followed the four murder suspects and were able to secure a wiretap on their cell phones.
Police were able to listen to the suspects discuss the alleged murder, coordinate stories and attempt to disrupt the investigation.
At a mayors’ conference in Jerusalem Sunday evening, Police Commissioner Yohanan Danino said, “Every difficult incident is horrifying. Behind each incident stand the victim and his family, and the state and entire society as well,” Walla News reported.
Hillary Zaken and Asher Zeiger contributed to this report.
