In court, murder suspect says he didn’t kill woman ‘on purpose’
Police tell judge killing was planned, Jason Blaise had removed his and Elena Granberg’s phones from scene; victim’s sister has said his courtship attempts were rebuffed
A man who has confessed to the murder of 27-year-old Elena Granberg, found stabbed to death last month, appeared Sunday in court, where he claimed he had “not killed her on purpose.”
Jason Blaise, 30, has admitted to investigators that he carried out the killing, and police believe the crime was premeditated.
His claim in court that the killing was accidental came in response to questions from reporters as he waited in the courtroom ahead of the hearing.
Blaise initially confessed to the killing to investigators while hospitalized after he attempted to kill himself. A psychiatric evaluation has found him fit to stand trial.
His attorney has claimed that his client was suffering an anxiety attack at the time of the murder. However, a legal representative for the police said that there was mounting evidence that the crime was premeditated.
“He claimed he panicked, but he planned the murder. After the murder, the suspect removed his and the deceased’s phone as well as a computer,” police told the court.
The Rishon Lezion Magistrate’s Court extended Blaise’s detention by eight days. This was his first appearance in court as previous custody hearings were held in his absence while he was hospitalized.
A passerby found Granberg’s body lying next to a road near the central city of Rehovot on August 25. Medical teams called to the scene declared the woman dead. Police opened an investigation and forensic teams gathered evidence from the site.
Blaise, a resident of Bat Yam, was found by investigators who arrived to detain him after he attempted to overdose on pills.
According to Granberg’s relatives, the victim had known the suspect for several years.
Granberg’s older sister Nadia explained that the man had romantic feelings for her sibling but she was only interested in being friends, and accused him of being responsible for the murder.
“There were signs of abuse, scratches on her face, I saw the corpse,” Nadia said, according to the Walla news site.
“He courted her, they argued a lot. He was frustrated that they weren’t together. He always wanted to be with her and from the beginning she said they were only friends,” she said.
She had been scheduled to meet her sister the day before her body was found.
“She was late, and then she wrote to me that she is delayed because he didn’t feel well. She explained that they stopped on the side of the road and he cried,” she added. The family notified police on Thursday morning that Granberg never returned home.
Activists have long complained that not enough is done to prevent violence against women in Israel, particularly in cases known to the authorities.
A study by the Hebrew University-based Israel Observatory on Femicide examining the first half of 2022 found a 71 percent increase in femicide relative to the same period last year — 12 compared to seven.
In July, Prime Minister Yair Lapid addressed the scourge of violence against women, saying it was “a stain on the country and it cannot continue.”
The Times of Israel Community.