(25 Feb 2025)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Joliet, Illinois – 25 February 2025
1. Various of Odai Alfayoumi, father of slain 6-year-old Wadee Alfayoumi, smoking outside court building during a break from trial
2. Various of Odai Alfayoumi walking to court building
3. Odai Alfayoumi departing court building during lunch break from trial
4. Various of Odai Alfayoumi and family members walking outside court building
5. Odai Alfayoumi walking in to court building
6. Various exterior shots of court building entrance
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Archive: Joliet, Illinois – 30 October 2023
7. STILLS various of Joseph Czuba, 71, during his arraignment at the Will County, Ill., courthouse
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Joliet, Illinois – 25 February 2025
8. Wide of flags outside court building
9. Med of U.S. and Illinois flags
10. Close of U.S. flag
11. Wide of court building entrance
STORYLINE:
A suburban Chicago landlord took a knife from a belt holder and attacked a Palestinian American woman before fatally stabbing her young son 26 times, prosecutors alleged Tuesday during opening statements in the trial for a 2023 murder and hate crime.
Joseph Czuba, 73, is charged in the death of six-year-old Wadee Alfayoumi and the wounding of Hanan Shaheen on Oct. 14, 2023.
Authorities said the family was targeted because of their Islamic faith and as a response to the war between Israel and Hamas that erupted on Oct. 7, 2023 with a Hamas attack on southern Israel.
Prosecutor Michael Fitzgerald, a Will County assistant state’s attorney, told jurors they’d hear an emotional 911 call, detailed witness testimony, along with police footage and explicit crime scene photos as he described each of the stab wounds to the boy’s body.
“He could not escape,” Fitzgerald said facing jurors. “If it wasn’t enough that this defendant killed that little boy, he left the knife in the little boy’s body.”
Czuba has pleaded not guilty to three counts of first-degree murder, one count of attempted murder and other charges.
He wore a suit and tie to court, his greying hair falling past his shoulders.
He did not speak as he watched the proceedings.
Will County Public Defender Kylie Blatti urged jurors to consider each piece of evidence carefully because key parts were missing.
“Go beyond the emotions to carefully examine the evidence,” Blatti said during opening statements. “It is easy to get lost in the horror of those images.”
The family had been renting two rooms from Czuba and his wife, who also lived at the home where the murder happened in suburban Plainfield, nearly 40 miles (65 kilometers) from Chicago.
Shaheen was the first witness and recounted the events leading up to the attack.
She said they had not previously had any issues in the two years they had rented from the Czubas.
They shared a kitchen and living room with the Czubas in the home.
After the start of the war, Czuba told her that they had to move out because Muslims were not welcome. She urged him to “Pray for peace.” Later, he confronted Shaheen and attacked her, holding her down, stabbing her and trying to break her teeth.
“He told me ’You, as a Muslim, must die,” said Shaheen, who mainly testified in English but had an Arabic translator on standby in her primary language. She occasionally turned to the translator for clarification on questions or to translate for her.
After the attack, Shaheen said was scared and locked herself in the bathroom, noting blood all over her body and the room. She called 911 when she heard her son screaming in another room.
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