Jerusalem 83-year-old charged with murdering his caregiver

Prosecutors file charges against an 83-year-old man suspected of murdering his caregiver.

Jerusalem resident Shimon Gutman, the suspected killer, had served time in jail over four decades ago for a deadly mail bombing.

The victim, Haviva Vashdi, had been caring for Gutman for four years. He allegedly became suspicious that Vashdi was stealing money and jewelry from him, and therefore decided to kill her.

During one of Vashdi’s visits to Gutman around the time of Rosh Hashanah, the elderly man took a knife to Vashdi’s throat, then stabbed her in the back and chest, prosecutors say.

The suspect then allegedly attempted to hide her body in a bathtub, filling it with water in order to hasten the corpse’s decomposition. He cleaned the bloodstains from the scene of the murder and lied about Vashdi’s whereabouts to her family, according to the indictment.

Gutman is charged with aggravated murder and obstruction of justice, for his attempts to hide the body. Prosecutors request that the court extend his detention until the end of legal proceedings.

Gutman was previously convicted of mailing an explosive to his mother-in-law in 1980 in revenge for what he claimed was his ruined marriage. The mother-in-law and two others were killed when she opened the package at a Givatayim post office. He served 18 years in prison for the killings.