NY NY - Chaim Weiss, 15, Long Beach, 1 Nov 1986

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[video=youtube;8X_IljAiMvk]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8X_IljAiMvk[/video]
 
I have to agree with everyone else who makes a connection between Chaim's murder and possible sexual abuse.

I'm concerned with Rabbi Avrom Cooper's personal attention towards Chaim. I'm concerned that the rabbi called twice during summer break in August 1986 to inquire when Chaim would be back. I'm concerned that, when Chaim returned, the rabbi "seemed eager to talk" to him. I'm concerned that this wish resulted in a private 10-minute meeting alone with him—in the rabbi's own home, no less! I'm concerned that afterwards Chaim did not wish to discuss that conversation with, above all, his own parents. I'm concerned that the rabbi later on suggested to Chaim's father that "bad fortune" may have visited the Weiss family because of possible "misdeeds" on their part.

To me, this sounds like the rabbi was worried about what Chaim might be telling his parents. I note that this is after the incident in July 1986 when Chaim uncharacteristically called his parents begging to come home from summer camp. What happened there? Maybe the rabbi called the parents just to see how they would interact with him. Since the parents were cordial, the rabbi would know Chaim hadn't mentioned anything against him. Therefore the next step was to speak to Chaim privately to put to rest any further doubts.

Source: Exclusive: Dad of 15-year-old killed in LI Yeshiva dorm haunted by mysterious events leading up to 1986 murder

Now whether this means that the rabbi himself was inappropriate with Chaim, or whether Chaim endured inappropriate behavior at the camp, from a counselor or another student, and then decided to bring that to the rabbi's attention, since he was the principal, I doubt we'll ever know. But with all the recent stories of sexual abuse of minors in the Roman Catholic Church, I think we would be naive to overlook this type of behavior in other communities.
 
Also—according to one account, on the night of the murder, a student reported that his door was opened and then closed in the middle of the night.

Most of us, myself included, have interpreted this to mean that the killer was looking for Chaim's room. He opened the door, realized it was the wrong room, and moved on. This then suggests someone unfamiliar with the layout of the dorm.

But what if we have it backwards? What if the door opening happened after the murder? What if the killer, after murdering Chaim, heard movement from another room and feared someone else had heard him commit the murder?

One reaction, of course, would be to just leave as quickly as possible. But let's say you fear that you won't have time to leave before a student opens their door and sees you. In that case, a good option is to just confront the situation, go into the room you heard the noise from as a kind of "Oh, don't worry, it's just me checking up on you guys!" And this then would suggest not only someone who knows the layout, but someone the students would know.
 
And last but not least (sorry for all the posts!), there's this article about a mysterious letter addressed to Chaim eight years after his murder, and cryptic Hebrew markings left on Chaim's grave.

In regards to the letters, they appear to be the Hebrew letters Y-TS-F. Now, Hebrew is a language whose words are composed of (usually) three-consonant roots, and it's written without vowels. According to biblehub, this root in particular means "to look out" or "keep watch."

However, the root word in this particular configuration occurs only once in the Bible according to Biblehub, at Genesis 31:49, which reads, "May the Lord watch between you and me, when we are out of sight of each other." To me, this verse out of context could be read as a prayer for the dead, since obviously Chaim is "out of sight" of all of us. In context, it relates to a pact made between Jacob and his uncle Laban, using a mound of stones, and this word was carved by the mound of Chaim's grave.

But—and this may be farfetched—Genesis 31:49 would have been in the last section of the Torah portion read on the Sabbath closest to Chaim's (secular) 13th birthday, after his bar-mitzvah.

According to this article, Chaim was buried on Sunday, November 2, 1986, " just two weeks short of his 16th birthday." This means he would've been born in mid-November 1970. Now, granted, the bar-mitzvah ceremony is calculated according to the Hebrew calendar, not the secular. But is it a coincidence that this verse appears in the final Torah portion read near his 13th secular birthday, and this article says "it is traditional for the bar/bat mitzvah to read the final portion" during the ceremony?
 
JSolt1210 said:
Also—according to one account, on the night of the murder, a student reported that his door was opened and then closed in the middle of the night.

Most of us, myself included, have interpreted this to mean that the killer was looking for Chaim's room. He opened the door, realized it was the wrong room, and moved on. This then suggests someone unfamiliar with the layout of the dorm.

But what if we have it backwards? What if the door opening happened after the murder? What if the killer, after murdering Chaim, heard movement from another room and feared someone else had heard him commit the murder?

One reaction, of course, would be to just leave as quickly as possible. But let's say you fear that you won't have time to leave before a student opens their door and sees you. In that case, a good option is to just confront the situation, go into the room you heard the noise from as a kind of "Oh, don't worry, it's just me checking up on you guys!" And this then would suggest not only someone who knows the layout, but someone the students would know.
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What if Chaim opened the other student's door to get away from whomever might have been ''paying him a visit", infuriating the perp. who then pulls Chaim back into his room and angrily murders him?
speculation, imo.
 
dotr said:
What if Chaim opened the other student's door to get away from whomever might have been ''paying him a visit", infuriating the perp. who then pulls Chaim back into his room and angrily murders him?
speculation, imo.
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That's certainly possible. But I imagine there would have been more noise and struggle. Depending on how heavy of a sleeper the other student was, though, he may not have heard that.

However, the medical examiner's office "declared Weiss died instantly in his sleep" so I think that's the simplest explanation as to why nothing was heard.
 
Fukiyama said:
The comments on that article are pretty interesting.
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Yeah, especially the one from November 3, 2019 from someone allegedly close to the family and the authorities.

It claims that they're within six months of solving this case (so, May 2020?), that a prominent person from the Orthodox community is involved, and that the repercussions will be destructive—the largest desecration of God's Name in the last century.

That's certainly quite a confident claim!
 
JSolt1210 said:
Yeah, especially the one from November 3, 2019 from someone allegedly close to the family and the authorities.

It claims that they're within six months of solving this case (so, May 2020?), that a prominent person from the Orthodox community is involved, and that the repercussions will be destructive—the largest desecration of God's Name in the last century.

That's certainly quite a confident claim!
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JSolt1210, thanks so much for your informative comments. This case has puzzled myself and many others for a long time. Thanks for your insight into Chaim's faith and the clues related to the Torah, etc. I do hope the family gets some answers soon and will be watching for new developments.
 
The Chaim Weiss UM segment (S04 finale) was especially difficult to watch. CW seemed to be killed while sleeping, and probably never even saw it coming. Very cowardly on the part of the killer.

It seems very plausible that the person (probably not more than one) who committed this crime was part of this community, and was almost certainly someone that CW knew. I just don't see someone coming off the street & doing this.

Going along with this, I don't see that CW would have had a lot of contact with "outsiders". I.e., other than those in his yeshiva & his family members, who else did he know?! This teen lived in & went to school in this close-knit community/area. So, someone that was this angry with him - to the point that they wanted to kill him - would almost have to be someone he knew.

And, as has been noted - this community's rituals/traditions in regards to the deceased were followed here, i.e. opening the window (even on a cold night), putting the body on the floor, etc. It sounds like the killer may have been familiar with the religious practices here & did this after the murder. However, if someone in the community did this after finding the body, why didn't they just admit to doing this - unless they were afraid of incriminating themselves re: contaminating the crime scene?!

The only other very unlikely possibilities are that a stranger went into the school & decided to kill CM due to prejudice - or because they were insane. Possible, yes - but not probable - especially because it seems that CM was specifically targeted.

Several side-notes:

-Though the circumstances were completely different, this crime reminded me slightly of the way Bob Crane (the actor) was killed in 1978; i.e., he was also bludgeoned to death while sleeping - with a blunt object.

-When I first started watching the segment, I thought that Chaim & another teen in the school were fighting over a girl, and that the murder may have been the result of this. However, after watching the entire segment & doing research on the case - this seems extremely unlikely.
 
To add to my last post (too late to edit this), I just saw the local news report from that area re: the case (from 2017). I had forgotten that there had been at least one incident during Summer camp (the summer before the murder) in which Chaim had called his father & was upset about something. There were also apparently other incidents that occurred. Also, there was a meeting the parents had with the school about 6 weeks before Chaim was killed - probably in regards to the way he was being treated at the school?!

So, was Chaim being bullied/harassed by a class-mate at the school, who ultimately ended up killing him?! Or, did an adult at the school kill him?! Was this in revenge for something the family had done or thought to have done?! The killer being someone associated with the school sounds like a strong possibility. As was said in the news report & the UM segment, Chaim was isolated in a room by himself at the end of a long hall. And, someone would have to know exactly where he was to go to his room - this definitely wasn't random. Going along with this, was Chaim placed in a room by himself because he was having problems with other students?

In typical fashion, the school sounds like they covered this up & were very uncooperative with the authorities who were trying to solve this crime.
 
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I am loosely follpwing this horrid case. Since I am an Orthodox Jew, too and cases like that are rare in our communities, I am interested in it.

Re the comments that the yeshiva was not really cooperating with authorities, that is not terribly unusual. Our communities usually create their own taskforces and investigation teams (also e.g. if somebody is missing) and try to solve and settle the matter internally, including involving religious courts before secular authorities are being involved.

I think it has to do with a quite deeply rooted mistrust in state authorities (though of course it is mandatory to follow the state laws, too) stemming from thousands of years of persecution, misunderstanding and injustice towards Jews. You can find a similar phenomenon among other minorities such as the African American community and some Muslim communities.
Occasionally in the past, sexual abuse cases have indeed been covered up by some institutions or persons, but there is a growing awareness for abuse within even the most strict orthodox communities during the last decade or more and the victims have learnt to speak up and raise their voice.
There are orthodox organizations that help uncovering and solving such cases. Just like other communities such as the Catholic Church and also secular institutions that unfortunately had abuse cases such as scouting clubs, sports teams, schools etc. have started to bring justice to the victims.

Overall, it is a very positive development.

As for the murder case, I am totally clueless. I mean I am sure it was someone with some degree of insider knowledge but it could have been anybody. Plus, the type of community Chaim was part of is not super insular.
My best guess is since it happened on Shabbos and the murdered lit a candle (!) which is categorically forbidden on Shabbos itself (and even a killer would strictly follow those fundamentals of observant judaism if he was religious!) it was nobody from the orthodox community.
It is a detail that matters to any orthodox jew but to an outsider it is unknown. If you are not observant or not jewish, you may have heard about observant Jews having the custom to light a candle near the head of a deceased to guard the body, but dont understand that you cannot do that on shabbos.
I really believe that would point towards someone nonobservant or nonjewish as perpetrator who was nevertheless familiar with some customs but happened to get the details wrong. Id guess it was someone who knew the layout of the yeshiva (though plenty of similar cases where it was just random, like the Girl Scout Murders..).
Maybe someone outside saw Chaim still being up at a late hour and reading by the light in the hallway and then snuck in the building and killed him.
I mean schools with dorm situations sadly are sometimes magnets for abusers.
 
Susikatze said:
Id guess it was someone who knew the layout of the yeshiva (though plenty of similar cases where it was just random, like the Girl Scout Murders..).

Maybe someone outside saw Chaim still being up at a late hour and reading by the light in the hallway and then snuck in the building and killed him. I mean schools with dorm situations sadly are sometimes magnets for abusers.
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I still find the possibility of a stranger just coming off of the street & murdering Chaim for no reason extremely improbable. As the fellow student (now an adult) who was interviewed in the 2017 clip stated, Chaim's room was hard to get to - and you would have to know exactly where it was to get there. A stranger seeing the light from the street & thinking Chaim was up would still have had to navigate the interior of the school once he/she got in there. So, I do think it was someone who knew the layout of the school ahead of time & specifically targeted Chaim.

Also, the concerns that Chaim voiced to his parents in the months leading up to the murder are suspicious, and raise red flags. I.e., obviously Chaim was worried/distressed about something going on at the school, or he wouldn't have complained to his parents about this. And, the parents did meet with the school administration about 6 weeks before Chaim was killed. These incidents make me believe the murder was connected to the problems Chaim was having. I.e., it seems evident there were events leading up to Chaim's death. Again, due to this - I don't see the murder as a random crime.
 
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I've been haunted by this case since unsolved mysteries.To me it always felt like it was done by another student who may have been bullying Chaim.I always felt like other students and teacher know who killed him but are either protecting the other student or don't want to get involved with police.
 
Susikatze said:
As for the murder case, I am totally clueless. I mean I am sure it was someone with some degree of insider knowledge but it could have been anybody. Plus, the type of community Chaim was part of is not super insular.

My best guess is since it happened on Shabbos and the murdered lit a candle (!) which is categorically forbidden on Shabbos itself (and even a killer would strictly follow those fundamentals of observant judaism if he was religious!) it was nobody from the orthodox community.

It is a detail that matters to any orthodox jew but to an outsider it is unknown. If you are not observant or not jewish, you may have heard about observant Jews having the custom to light a candle near the head of a deceased to guard the body, but dont understand that you cannot do that on shabbos.

I really believe that would point towards someone nonobservant or nonjewish as perpetrator who was nevertheless familiar with some customs but happened to get the details wrong.
Click to expand...

This is interesting, and not something I knew before - Thanks for the insight. However, despite these details - I still believe the crime was perpetrated by someone in the community.

tara83 said:
I've been haunted by this case since unsolved mysteries.To me it always felt like it was done by another student who may have been bullying Chaim.I always felt like other students and teacher know who killed him but are either protecting the other student or don't want to get involved with police.
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Agreed. I think it was a either a fellow student, or possibly an adult at the school.....but more likely a student.
 
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