The Haifa District Attorney submitted a formal indictment against 26 year-old Moldovan immigrant Fyodor Beizhneri on Monday, on charges of murder, rape, and arson.
Beizhneri is accused of raping and murdering a 60 year-old woman on June 14, 2013, then setting her apartment alight. The victim lived in the defendant’s neighborhood at the time, just 200 (656 feet) meters from his home, next to his wife’s parents.
The defendant strangled his victim with her own shirt, the indictment reveals, after she told him that if he left the house, she would not report him to police. He then set her bed alight with her body in it and left the building.
“After the murder, he intentionally destroyed evidence to obstruct the investigation,” the indictment states. “The accused lit a fire in her bed, burning her body and causing the fire to spread to the apartment.”
Beizhneri is also accused of murdering a Ukrainian prostitute in Ashdod earlier this year, after she stopped answering his phone calls. Using a different cell phone and the code name “Dima,” he posed as a new client and offered her 400 shekel ($105) for her services. He then took rides with friends to Ashdod, bringing a mattress with him. He also strangled her to death and then lit the mattress on fire to hide her body.
Serial killer?
Despite being charged with just two murders, Beizhneri is strongly suspected of being involved in four rapes and murders, police stated last month – as well as dozens of arsons and sexual assaults.
On September 25, 2013, a woman in her seventies was found dead in her apartment, one floor above the Beizhneris. There was no suspicion of foul play at the time, but the defendant was suspected of being the perpetrator after the current court case was announced; files have not been charged formally against Beizhneri for the crime.
Beizhneri was also linked to the death of a young girl in south Tel Aviv on January 10, 2015, but police similarly did not have enough evidence to prosecute.
Neighbors have since painted Beizhneri as unpredictable and violent, having threatened two separate men after both complained about barbecues the latter held over the past year.
Unprecedented cooperation
The seriousness of the case has been such that police took an unusual step: exhuming the body of one possible victim and testing it for traces of Beizhneri’s DNA.
In another unusual step, three separate police branches have been cooperating on this case.
Police suspect that dozens of victims have not reported their run-ins with Beizhneri to law enforcement, and published his details to encourage women to come forward.
