Police call in former suspect for questioning in 37-year-old murder case

Police on Thursday summoned for questioning a man formerly suspected in the 1982 murder of 12-year-old Nava Elimelech, whose body was recently exhumed and case reopened.

The man, Amos Shelef, was arrested in 1998 along with his brother Yehuda, with both suspected in the grisly murder. But the cases against them were eventually closed.

Shelef claimed at the time that his ex-wife had given police false information in an attempt to get revenge on him.

According to the Haaretz daily, he is not currently considered a suspect and it was not clear why he was summoned.

“I have been summoned for no reason,” Shelef told the Kan public broadcaster upon arriving at the police station. “Twenty-one years ago we were arrested and interrogated. It all amounted to nothing. I come here with absolute confidence.”

His lawyer Moshe Meroz said: “It seems police haven’t got any leads, and this is a do-over of an investigation that ended in nothing. It seems the exhumation of the body proved unjustified and police are doing everything to cover up their actions.”

The development came a day after police returned to her mother a pair of earrings that the slain girl had been wearing on the day of her murder.

The pieces of jewelry had been found in Elimelech’s grave and were held by police. Hebrew-language media reported that finding the earrings hadn’t furthered the investigation, that they hadn’t been the reason the body was exhumed, and that police had simply decided to return the earrings to their owners.

The examinations and checks performed on Elimelech’s remains have reportedly not brought about a breakthrough in the investigation.

According to a report earlier this month by Channel 13, investigators at the Lahav 433 investigation unit believe Elimelech’s killer is 70 years old, has a criminal record and is currently living in the center of the country. The station reported that 100 detectives, many of them undercover, are currently on the case.

Elimelech went missing on March 20, 1982, after leaving her parents’ home in the central city of Bat Yam to visit a friend, who lived 300 meters (less than two-tenths of a mile) away.

After 10 days of searching, Elimelech’s head and other body parts washed up on various beaches in central Israel, wrapped inside plastic bags. A pathologist determined that the murder took place on the day she went missing.

The murderer was never apprehended, despite the Israel Police assembling what was described at the time as the biggest investigation team in the country’s history, with some 40 members.

Elimelech’s body parts were sent at the time for examination in a London lab in an attempt to determine the murder weapon. Several suspects were arrested over the years, but were released for lack of evidence.

A breakthrough in the investigation is said to have happened several months ago. Reports said the new development was related to recent technological breakthroughs in DNA identification. Elimelech’s remains were exhumed earlier this month and sent for testing.

Many details of the investigation are currently embargoed.

Michael Bachner contributed to this report.