A Chicago Muslim mother described to jurors on Tuesday how she hid in a locked bathroom and called emergency services after her landlord brutally attacked her with a knife and then fatally stabbed her young Palestinian American son in another room.
Hanan Shaheen was the first witness to give evidence at the murder and hate crime trial of Joseph Czuba, 73.
He is charged with wounding Ms Shaheen and killing Wadee Alfayoumi, six, in October 2023.
Authorities said Czuba targeted the family because of their Islamic faith and as a response to the war between Israel and Hamas that erupted on October 7 2023 with a Hamas attack on southern Israel.
Prosecutors played the emotional 911 call Ms Shaheen made to report the crime that happened just days after the war started.
Wadee Alfayoumi’s father, Oday Al Fayoume, seated right, and his uncle Mahmoud Yousef attending a vigil for Wadee in 2023 (Nam Y Huh/AP)
“The landlord is killing me and my baby!” she screamed to the dispatcher multiple times, according to a recording of the call played in court. “He’s killing my baby in another room!”
Czuba has pleaded not guilty to three counts of first-degree murder, one count of attempted murder and other charges. Czuba did not speak as he watched the proceedings.
One of his public defenders, 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,” she 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 Plainfield, nearly 40 miles (65km) from Chicago.
Prosecutor Michael Fitzgerald told jurors they would hear explicit details about the crime including how Czuba removed a knife from his belt holder and attacked the family. Mr Fitzgerald described each of the 26 stab wounds to the boy’s body.
“He could not escape,” Mr Fitzgerald said during opening statements. “If it wasn’t enough that this defendant killed that little boy, he left the knife in the little boy’s body.”
Ms Shaheen gave evidence at the court in Joliet, about 45 miles (72km) from Chicago, that she 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.
Then 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 Ms 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 Ms Shaheen.
Defence lawyer George Lenard asked detailed questions about conversations she had with police at the scene and while she was in the hospital, but Ms Shaheen said she did not remember specifics.
After the attack, Ms 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.
Yelling could be heard on the background of the call, which Ms Shaheen said was her son. As the roughly 15-minute recording played in court, Ms Shaheen put her head down, clutching a tissue paper in her hand. Lawyers showed photos of her bloodied face at the hospital.
“She seemed shocked, very quiet,” Sean Kozak, a Plainfield police officer who was the first at the scene said in evidence. “She was trembling and kind of staring.”
The boy — whose name was initially spelled Wadea Al-Fayoume by authorities — was later pronounced dead. Ms Shaheen had more than a dozen stab wounds and it took her weeks to recover.
The attack on the family in Plainfield renewed worries of anti-Muslim discrimination in the Chicago area’s large and established Palestinian community. The proceedings also come amid rising hostility against Muslims and Palestinians in the US since Hamas attacked Israel in October 2023.
Separately, Wadee Alfayoumi’s father Oday Al Fayoume, who is divorced from Ms Shaheen and did not live at the home, has filed a wrongful death lawsuit. He attended the court proceedings on Tuesday along with an uncle.