Suspect in woman’s stabbing death tries to kill himself
Man hospitalized in serious condition; victim’s sister says his courtship attempts were rebuffed
A 30-year-old man suspected in the murder of a woman found stabbed to death Thursday is in serious condition after attempting to commit suicide before his arrest.
The body of the 27-year-old woman from the central city of Rishon Letzion, later named by authorities as Yelena Greenberg, was found early Thursday morning in a field outside nearby Rehovot, the Israel Police said in a statement.
A passerby found her body lying next to a road. Medical teams called to the scene declared the woman dead. Police opened an investigation and forensic teams gathered evidence from the site.
The suspect, a resident of Bat Yam, was found by investigators who arrived to detain him after he attempted to overdose on pills. He was taken to Shamir Medical Center in serious condition.
The man was supposed to attend a court hearing on Friday to determine the extension of his arrest.
District police commander Avi Bitan held an assessment of the case after which it was decided that it would be handled by the district’s serious crime unit, police said. The investigation was given top priority, Channel 12 reported.
According to Greenberg’s relatives, the victim had known the suspect for several years.
Greenberg’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, adding that she was scheduled to meet the victim Wednesday evening.
“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 the woman 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.
Last month, 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.