Teen stabbed ‘more than 130 times’ by twin sister’s boyfriend

An 18-year-old girl who was murdered on a Tel Aviv stairwell last month was stabbed more than 130 times by her twin sister’s boyfriend, a court heard on Thursday.

Hili Sobol was found in a pool of blood outside her family’s apartment on February 18.

Shiri Sobol and her boyfriend David Eran were both charged with murder, conspiracy to commit a crime and obstruction of justice at the Tel Aviv District Court.

Prosecutor Zohar Dolev claimed a confession by Eran had been strengthened by his recreating the murder and showing a knife cut on his finger. The charge sheet said gloves covered in her boyfriend’s and her twin sister’s blood were found in Shiri Sobol’s bedroom and were identical to gloves found in a box in the same room. A tear in one of the bloody gloves matched the cut on Eran’s finger, the court heard.

Shiri Sobol developed “intense hatred” for her sister after a series of arguments and Hili’s return from boarding school, the court was told.

From July until last month, she sent text messages to Eran expressing her antipathy for Hili with phrases such as: “That’s it, I’m fed up with living here with that nutcase,” and “It’s hard for me to live like this when she’s here at home. It’s not her house, she should get out of my life.”

Shiri even sketched out the scenarios in which she wished Hili would die, the prosecution charged.

“I hope she dies already,” she allegedly wrote, and “If only an Arab or a terrorist would stab her.” She also wrote to Eran that Hili wanted her to break off her relationship with him and had threatened that her friends would hurt him if Shiri refused. Thus the idea of getting rid of Hili was planted in Eran’s head, the prosecution claimed.

Shiri and Eran allegedly planned the murder several months in advance and — according to the charge sheet — even made two unsuccessful attempts.

On the day of the killing, Eran took two knives and a change of clothes, the prosecution alleged. Shiri told him that Hili was at home, whereupon he came to the stairwell of the building, put on gloves, and on meeting Hili outside the apartment, stabbed her more than 130 times all over her body. It was all with the full knowledge and agreement of sister Shiri, who even watched the killing, the prosecution said.

Some four minutes after the killing, Shiri called the police to report that her sister had been stabbed by an unknown person, apparently an Arab. That was while Eran was in the apartment, cleaning blood off his clothes and changing into a new set. Shiri was hiding his bloodied clothes and knives, and when the police came, she said that an Arab had stabbed her sister.

All the while, Eran was hiding in the twins’ mother’s room, which Shiri had locked and told police they couldn’t enter. While in the apartment with the police officers, she texted Eran and coordinated their versions to have him tell officers that an Arab man had stabbed Hili and that he had tried to help her. At one point, the officers’ suspicions were raised and they found and arrested Eran.

The charge sheet said that after Eran’s arrest, he told another detainee in a police van and in a detention room in court that he had committed the murder, which he described in detail, the prosecution charged. He also revealed that the two of them had planned the murder over some months and had even tried and failed to carry it out on three occasions. When the same detainee met Shiri Sobol and asked her why she’d murdered her sister, Sobol allegedly replied: “Now I’ll have quiet.”

Judge Benny Saguy ordered Eran and Sobol be sent for psychiatric observation.

Shiri Sobol’s defense lawyer, Gil Friedman, accused police of being determined at all costs to bring Shiri into the case, while asserting she had not been involved in any way. “In the charge sheet, they’re trying to attribute murder to someone on the basis of text messages she wrote a few months before. I think it’s delusional,” he said.

“Also, to connect her as an accessory before and after the act, I think is also far-fetched,” he added.

Friedman said he had spoken to the Sobol family whose “suffering is indescribable. We expected better news today. Shiri is in a very grave emotional state.”

Sassi Gez, Eran’s defense attorney, said his client had never been involved with the law before, prompting questions about his mental state which needed evaluation.

The court will resume discussion of the case on March 31.