Saturday, June 14, 2014

Dad fatally stabs son and daughter during court-ordered summer visitation (Yashresh, Israel)

Repulsive, in that we are still seeing the same FR-friendly pleas for sympathy--as if a father who committed a double homicide is deserving of pity for being "deprived" of his children.

Once again, we see that in fact it was the OPPOSITE. Despite a history of domestic violence, the father was still granted extensive, unsupervised visitation. So what does he do? Slaughters the kids to punish Mom.

Once again, we see what the real problem was: Not that he was "deprived," BUT THAT HE WAS ALLOWED ANY ACCESS AT ALL. No access, no opportunity to kill.

Yet another victory for the fathers rights people.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2656646/Israeli-police-Father-killed-2-US-children.html#ixzz34ZxW3wFw

Horror as two Ohio children, ages 10 and 11, stabbed to death by their father just hours after landing in Israel to spend summer vacation with him

Sara Levy, 10, and Yishai Levy, 11, were found stabbed multiple times in their father's home in the town of Yashresh

Children's father turned himself in to police drenched in his kids' blood

Victims' parents were divorced, and Sara and Yishai were supposed to stay with their father in Israel twice a year as part of court settlement

Karen Levy, Sara and Yishai's mother, lives in Columbus, Ohio, where both kids went to school

Mrs Levy divorced her husband after she accused him of domestic violence against her

Israeli police seized suspect's journal from his home featuring 'obsessive' writings about his feelings towards his ex-wife

By Snejana Farberov
Published: 17:27 EST, 12 June 2014 | Updated: 17:38 EST, 13 June 2014

An Israeli father walked into a police station in the city of Ramla Wednesday night drenched in blood and confessed to stabbing to death his two children while they were visiting him from Ohio.

The man, who has not been named, then led officers to his apartment, where they discovered the brother and sister knifed to death.

The children, 10-year-old Sara Levy and her 11-year-old brother, Yishai, lived with their mother, Karen Levy, in Ohio and attended Columbus Torah Academy.

Just hours before their murders, the children arrived in Israel for their court-ordered bi-annual visit with their dad.

'The entire Columbus Torah Academy community is heartbroken over the loss of our two precious students,' headmaster Rabbi Zvi Kahn said in a statement. 'Our thoughts and prayers are with the children's grief-stricken mother. We ask that everyone respect the family's privacy.'

The children were full of life, had many friends and 'had a really deep loving relationship with their mother,' Gordon Hecker, president and CEO of the Jewish Federation of Columbus, said in an interview.

The man and his ex-wife, Mrs Levy, had been involved in a 'complicated' divorce and police had received complaints against the father of violence before the couple split up, Rosenfeld said.

The father has refused to cooperate with investigation since his confession, the police spokesman said, adding, 'Obviously he is the main suspect.'

The Israeli website Ynet said the mother was an American immigrant and spent time in a women's shelter before moving with the children to the U.S. to be closer to her family.

It quoted Ruth Halperin-Kaddari, director of a center that represented the woman, as saying that during divorce proceedings, the mother raised concerns that the father might harm the children.

In response to Karen Levy's petition to the Family Court in Petah Tikva, a judge Friday ruled that the bodies of Sara and Yishai will be sent back to the U.S. for burial no later than Monday following an autopsy.

Police in Israel said while the slain children's father does not have a criminal past, in 2005 and 2009 his then-wife filed domestic violence complaints accusing him of beating her.

On Wednesday morning, Sara and Yishai Levy arrived in Israel from Ohio and were picked up from the airport by their aunts, who then drove them to their father's home in the town of Yashresh, Ynet reported.

According to relatives, the father was happy and excited to have his kids with him. After the brother and sister arrived at the house, they had dinner with their extended family and played with their cousins.

At around 9.30pm, the father's relatives went home, leaving the three of them alone. Two hours later, the man turned up at a Ramla police station spattered with his children’s blood.

Police say the double murder suspect, who works as a computer programmer, stabbed his son and daughter in the upper body multiple times.

Responding officers described a horrific scene inside the suspect's apartment that left them in shock.

Police believe that the father may have murdered his children to punish his ex-wife for taking custody of them after their divorce and going to the U.S.

When police searched the man's home in the town of Yashresh after the slayings, they discovered a journal in which the suspect 'obsessively' documented his feelings and actions related to his ex-wife, Times of Israel reported.

Osnat Azulai, the man's neighbor, told Ynet that the father took it very hard that his children were not with him full-time.

Other neighbors in the close-knit community recalled that in recent days, the man appeared especially depressed. A relative said that the father told him when his children were not with him, his soul was missing.

Speaking to the radio station Galei Zahal, Karen Levy's friend revealed that the couple had a rocky marriage punctuated by incidents of domestic abuse, which eventually drove the mother of two to file for divorce.

The couple met in Ohio more than a decade ago and fell in love. Karen Levy, who was not Jewish by birth, decided to follow her then-fiance to Israel, where she converted to Judaism so the two could get married.

But their relationship then allegedly took a violent turn, forcing Mrs Levy to stay in a battered women’s shelter for a time.

During their drawn-out divorce trial, the wife was able to secure main custody of their two children because her spouse could not provide child support.

Desperate to take her children to the U.S., the mother agreed to let them visit their father in Israel twice a year as part of a divorce settlement.

According to the friend, even after Karen Levy received official permission from a judge to leave Israel with her son and daughter, the father’s family attempted to take the children away from her in the airport.

The friend said that while Karen feared for her oww life during their marriage, she never suspected that her ex-husband would be capable of taking the children’s lives.

Her worst fear after their divorce was that her ex-husband might prevent Sara and Yishai from returning home after one of their bi-annual visits, said the friend.