Illinois Man Convicted in Killing of Palestinian American Boy Dies in Custody

U.S.|Illinois Man Convicted in Killing of Palestinian American Boy Dies in Custody

An Illinois landlord convicted of fatally stabbing a 6-year-old Palestinian American boy died in custody, the authorities said on Saturday. He was 73.

The landlord, Joseph M. Czuba, died two months into his 53-year prison sentence, according to the Will County Sheriff’s Office. He was convicted on murder and hate crime charges in the attack, which authorities said was motivated by anti-Muslim hate. It was not clear exactly when, where or how Mr. Czuba died.

The killing took place in October 2023, days after Hamas attacked Israel. According to the authorities, Mr. Czuba stabbed 6-year-old Wadee Alfayoumi and his mother, Hanan Shaheen in their home, killing Wadee and severely wounding Ms. Shaheen, who escaped to a bathroom and called 911. The judge who sentenced Mr. Czuba on May 2, Amy Bertani-Tomczak, called the attack “brutal and heinous.”

In Ms. Shaheen’s testimony before the jury that convicted Mr. Czuba, she said she had rented a pair of bedrooms from him in Plainfield Township, Ill., a Chicago suburb, for two years with no major issues. But after the Oct. 7 attacks, Mr. Czuba — who lived in the same building — began making hateful remarks about Muslims and asked Ms. Shaheen and her son to move out of the property, Ms. Shaheen said.

As he listened to coverage of the war unfolding in the Middle East, prosecutors said, Mr. Czuba became increasingly erratic and paranoid. That fear drove him to force his way into his tenants’ rooms, they said, and attack Ms. Shaheen, then 32, stabbing her more than a dozen times before she managed to escape.

Investigators said that Mr. Czuba then directed his rage toward Wadee, a kindergartner at the time who loved soccer and Legos. Ms. Shaheen told a 911 dispatcher that she could hear her son screaming from the bathroom, until the screams fell silent, according a 911 call played during the trial. Wadee was later pronounced dead at the hospital. He had been stabbed more than two dozen times.

The case received global attention and stoked fear and outrage among the large Palestinian and Muslim communities in Chicago’s suburbs. Some leaders in those communities linked the killing to what they described as dehumanizing rhetoric toward Palestinians in the wake of the Oct. 7 attacks.

In February, nearly two years after Wadee’s killing, Mr. Czuba sat impassively as a jury found him guilty on murder and hate crime charges. He again was silent at his sentencing hearing in May.