JOLIET, Ill. — A Palestinian American woman whose 6-year-old son was fatally stabbed in an attack that prosecutors say was motivated by hate for Muslims described Tuesday how her son watched in fear as their landlord stabbed her more than a dozen times before he turned the knife on the young boy.
Hanan Shaheen was the first witness to take the stand in the trial of Joseph Czuba, 73, who is charged in the fatal stabbing of Wadee Alfayoumi and the wounding of Shaheen on Oct. 14, 2023. Authorities said they were targeted because of their Islamic faith and as a response to the war between Israel and Hamas that erupted on Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas attacked southern Israel.
Shaheen testified she and her son had been renting two rooms for $300 a month from Czuba and his wife at the residence in Plainfield Township, a suburb about 40 miles southwest of downtown Chicago. Shaheen said they had lived there for about two years and had not previously had any issues with the Czubas, who shared a kitchen and a living room with them.
Shaheen testified that she had told the Czubas she was Muslim and from Jerusalem when she met with them before she rented the space.
After the war started, she said, Czuba told her she needed to leave because he wanted to rent the room to a friend. She said she told him she was looking for a new place to live, and Czuba told her Muslims were not welcome in his home.
“I told him to pray for peace,” she testified.
On the day of the attack, she said, Czuba was angry that she was still there.
Shaheen, 33, recounted in graphic detail how Czuba forced his way into her room, held her down and stabbed her more than a dozen times. At one point, she said, Czuba put his fingers in her mouth and tried to break her teeth. As she struggled to fight him off, Shaheen said, she pulled Czuba’s white hair, while he shouted: “You must die!”
Shaheen said Wadee stood in the corner of a room and watched fearfully as Czuba stabbed her. She testified that Czuba yelled, “Wadee, I will take care of you. I will raise you,” and “don’t tell people I killed your mom” as he stabbed her.
She said she remembered thinking: “It’s the moment, it’s the day I am dying.”
She said that she was eventually able to break free and that while she was unable to see clearly, she ran to a bathroom to retrieve her phone to call 911. She said Czuba followed her with his knife and tried to gain access to the bathroom, so she locked herself inside.
Shaheen repeatedly told the dispatcher, “He is killing my baby,” according to a recording of the call that was played in court.
Shaheen testified that while she was on the phone with a dispatcher, she could hear Wadee shouting, “Oh no, stop!”
Shaheen kept her head down the entire time the recording of the 911 call was played at the Will County Courthouse in Joliet. She testified that she did not leave the bathroom until police were outside the door.
Shaheen was stabbed more than a dozen times, and Wadee, a kindergartner, was stabbed 26 times. He was pronounced dead at a hospital. He had just celebrated his birthday. Jurors were shown graphic images of Shaheen’s wounds that were taken at the hospital.
Some evidence from police body cameras was so graphic that a judge said only jurors would see it. At least one juror appeared to be holding back tears when an officer testified she found Wadee’s body and was unable to find a pulse as he lay on the bed.
Prosecutors have said Czuba had been listening to conservative radio coverage of the Middle East war in the days before the attacks.
“This happened because this defendant was afraid that a war that had started on Oct. 7, 2023, a half a world away in the Middle East, was going to come to his doorstep,” Michael Fitzgerald, a Will County assistant state’s attorney, told jurors in his opening statement. “This happened because Hanan and Wadee were Muslim.”
“If it wasn’t enough that this defendant killed that little boy, he left the knife in the little boy’s body,” Fitzgerald also told jurors. He said they would hear a conversation between Czuba and a Will County sheriff’s sergeant in which Czuba compared Wadee and Shaheen to “infested rats.”
Czuba, who was dressed in a suit and tie in court, is charged with murder, attempted murder, aggravated battery and two counts of a hate crime. Wadee’s father, Odai Alfayoumi, who did not live at the home, attended the court proceedings Tuesday.
Kylie Blatti, an attorney for Czuba, said in her opening statement that “there are holes in the state’s case.” She asked jurors to carefully examine the evidence.
Shaheen mostly testified in English, but under cross-examination by one of Czuba’s attorneys, George Lenard, she sometimes turned to an Arabic translator for clarification. While the jury and Shaheen were outside the courtroom, Lenard accused her of “embellishing” her testimony and suggested she had impeached herself.
Prosecutors in turn said Lenard was trying to use the language barrier to confuse Shaheen and ask her about word-for-word statements.
Lenard questioned her about what she told police after the stabbings, as well as about whether she had filed a civil lawsuit seeking monetary damages, all in an apparent attempt to discredit her. Lenard asked her whether she had hired civil rights attorney Ben Crump and whether she had met with former President Joe Biden after her son’s killing, which drew objections from the prosecution that Judge Amy Bertani-Tomczak sustained.
In an interview Tuesday, Johnny Simon, an attorney for Shaheen, who has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Czuba and his wife, said, “We’re looking forward to the justice system doing its job and holding Mr. Czuba accountable for the heinous actions that he took on that day.
“We’re not looking for an apology,” Simon said. “We’re looking for justice.”
A panel of 12 jurors and three alternates was selected Monday. The jury of nine men and three women from Will County, a suburb of Chicago, includes a teacher, a mechanical engineer, a finance auditor, a commercial pilot and a retired construction manager. Almost all of them said they had heard or read about the case. The judge has instructed them not to read or watch news about the case.
The trial is expected to last about a week.
Selina Guevara reported from Joliet and Janelle Griffith from New York.
