'Serial killer' not linked to terrorism
Former Israeli Elias Abuelazam caught after anonymous caller, identifying him as 'Elijah', tells police he did not show up for work at liquor store
After the suspect's full name was revealed, American intelligence agencies began looking into his background in order to examine the possibility that the acts were terror attacks.
Newsweek magazine reported Thursday night that federal counter-terrorism investigators and experts have been asked to become involved in the investigation because the name the man was using sounds stereotypically Arab or Muslim.
Initial indications, however, are that US officials cannot find the slightest trace of evidence or intelligence linking the man – a 33-year-old Christian who grew up in Ramla – to terrorism.
Most of the 20 victims in the affair were black men. He was arrested thanks to simple police work, with the help of 450 tips received from the public. An anonymous call to the Michigan police this week, according to which the suspect did not show up for work at a liquor store on August 1 but left for Virginia, apparently aroused suspicions among murder investigators in the state.
Abuelazam's house in Ramla (Photo: Dana Kopel)
The information from the public, received after his composite portrait was published, gave the investigators a relatively accurate picture of the attacker, the car he was driving and the clothes he was wearing.
The anonymous caller identified the suspect as "Elijah" and said he had not returned to work since the stabbing of a 49-year old man at the beginning of the month.
The store's manager Abdullah Farah, told the investigators who arrived there that his worker's name was Elias. FBI investigators and Michigan police officers raided the store on Wednesday and watched surveillance tapes of the man, who had worked at the store every day from 3 pm to 2 am since July 5.
On August 1 he said he was going to visit his sister in Virginia, and in the following days three people were stabbed in Leesburg, Virginia, where he used to live and where his sister resides.
Knife and a hammer found in car
The trail to Abuelazam began last week, when he was arrested in Arlington, Virginia, during a routine traffic stop. Arlington Detective Crystal L. Nosal said police realized he was wanted on a simple assault warrant in Leesburg, about 30 miles away, but a magistrate released him on personal recognizance.
Leyton said Arlington police found a knife and a hammer in Abuelazam's 1996 green and gold Chevrolet Blazer, which police returned to Abuelazam after briefly impounding it. The vehicle matched one described by some stabbing victims, and a hammer was used in one later attack in Virginia, on a 19-year-old man in a parking lot. Two other attacks - one in Leesburg and the one in Toledo - also occurred after the traffic stop.
"I gave them anything and everything they wanted," Farah said about the detectives. "Then, they catch him like 12 hours later. It's such a shock. He was so friendly to everyone. We had no indication."
Farah told the Detroit News that Abuelazam was introduced to him by another local merchant, saying "the guy needed a job, and I needed help."
Jessica Nimitz, an Arlington, Texas, woman who was married to Abuelazam from 2004 to 2007, said she was struggling to cope with the news.
"I'm shocked," she said in a phone interview. "I'm trying to figure out what's going on."
The couple married when Jessica was in her late teens, her father said. Jim Hirth said Abuelazam "seemed all right at the time but I haven't been with him day in and day out ... My whole family is shocked."
The Associated Press contributed to this report
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