Police are investigating leads in connection with Dov Tegar's triple-murder spree in Haifa on Monday which suggest the murders were romantically-motivated.
"He was a charming man from a charming family," said a relative. "He had no history of violence, no police records. He was a gentle soul, I would never imagine he'd hurt people or himself."
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Tegar, a 46-year-old security guard, murdered his spouse Hatuela Kuznetsov, 42, her son Alex, 17, and his friend Joseph Dov, a 52-year-old barber, later taking his own life.
Tegar's relative said that he returned to Israel following a sojourn in the United States .According to her, he was employed as an elevator technician and only started working as a security guard in the last few months.
Tegar (R), Kuznetsov (M) and Dov (L) (Photo: Ido Erez, Yvgeni Zrovinski)
In their last meeting, Tegar told the relative that is relationship with Kuznetsov was in trouble. "He said she is obsessed with him. He said he'd been dating her for two years and that she loves him but that they have a complicated relationship.
"He said he wanted to end it a few times, but that she didn't want to," the relative recalled.
Tegar and Koznitzov (Photo: Courtesy of Yvgeni Zrovinski, krayot.com)
The relative also recounted: "He told me 'Every time I think I managed to disengage from her she returns.' I guess that if he was with her for so long he must have loved her. It is a shock that he murdered her and killed himself."
- Scene of Joseph Dov's murder (Photo: Ido Erez)
Tegar's and Kuznetsov's neighbors told of a relationship that has lately gone downhill, with Tegar seen sitting in his parked car at the nights leading up to the murder.
One neighbor said that at 2 pm on Monday she heard furniture being moved in Tegar's apartment.
"That must have been when the murder happened," she estimated. "I heard many things falling and furniture being moved. If I would have heard yells I would have called the police."
Dov's closed barbershop (Photo: Ido Erez)
She recounted that around 7 pm Tegar's family arrived, saying that Tegar hadn't been answering calls for two days and that his mother is worried. "They tried to break into the apartment, called a locksmith, and then discovered the horror."
"I didn't have much to do with them," she added. "They didn't connect with people so much."
Friends and clients of Joseph Dov, the barber found dead in a Haifa office building, describe a generous, kind man.
"I have no words, it's very difficult," said Svetlana, a long-time client at Dov's Kiryat Yam barbershop. "You could talk to him about everything. He was everyone's psychologist. How can you do such a thing to such a kind man?"
"He was a saint," said Yoni Rosenberg, who owns a store adjacent to the barbershop. "You don't know how much he helped the poor, giving them food and money. We were surprised to hear he was murdered. I don't think he had enemies."
Ahiya Raved contributed to this report