Help Find the Murderer of Chaim Weiss

Chaim Weiss HY”D

This is reposted from the website, Protect Jewish Kids with the consent of its owner, Eric Aiken. Others also have permission to do the same.  See my comments at the end on why I find it plausible that there is a sex abuse angle. Let’s do what we can to finally find his murderer – Yerachmiel Lopin

The murder of
Chaim Weiss

Last week I was contacted by Detective Captain John Azzata from the Nassau County homicide department regarding the murder of Chaim Weiss. Chaim was a 15 year-old student at the Torah High School on Long Beach, Long Island. He was brutally bludgeoned to death as he slept in his dorm room bed on Friday night, November 1, 1986.

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/investigation-continues-1986-halloween-murder-article-1.2417285

The murder has never been solved. No one was willing to furnish the police with any useful leads. In a yeshiva with 140 students that ate, studied, prayed and socialized together, not one person admitted to seeing anything, hearing anything or knowing anything about Chaim’s murder or murderer.

When police entered Chaim’s room, his body had been moved, a yahrzeit candle had been lit (on Shabbos) and the window to his room had been opened on a frigid November night. (Opening a window is in accordance with the Orthodox custom for the deceased.)

The case was so profoundly disturbing that it was featured on Unsolved Mysteries and written about by the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Daily News and numerous other publications.

Body of Kidnapped Menachem Stark Identified

Police have confirmed that Menachem Stark, whose Williamsburg kidnapping was reported on Friday was found dead in a Long Island dumpster. His brother, Yaakov Yosef Stark is the well known cantor, heard here, singing El Molei Rachamim on the 80th anniversary of the death of Yossele Rosenblatt. Menachem Stark, also known as Max Stark, was a major real estate developer and landlord embroiled in prolonged bankruptcy and default negotiations and lawsuits with creditors.

Update- 1/5/2013: See accounts in New York Post of Stark’s alleged financial scamming which left him with a long list of aggrieved enemies. Also includes allegations of sex abuse by Stark of a teenage girl.

Father of Chaim Weiss Appeals for Help In Solving Murder of His Son, Chaim Weiss, at Long Beach Yeshiva

Detectives ask anyone with information about this crime to contact Nassau County Crime Stoppers at 1-800-244-TIPS. All callers will remain anonymous. You can also contact them at http://nassaucounty.crimestoppers.web.com/ or text using codeword NCCS plus your tip to 274637 or call Rabbi Shmuel Goldin (President, Rabbinical Council of America) at (201) 568-5860.  

According to Associated Press Wire services as posted on Huffington Post,

Flanked by the victim’s father, county officials announced Tuesday they were increasing the reward for information leading to the arrest of Chaim Weiss’ killer from $5,000 to $25,000……

Interest in the case has faded in the more than quarter century since. NBC’s “Unsolved Mysteries” featured it in the early 1990s…..

Weiss … was found bludgeoned to death in his room at a religious school in Long Beach, a Long Island community east of New York City, after he failed to show up for morning prayers……

It was later revealed that the victim’s body had been moved to the floor from his bed, where he is believed to have been slain with a sharp, blunt object. Also, a window in the dormitory room was left open despite late autumn temperatures that hovered in the low 40s. Some have suggested the moving of the body and the opening of the window were somehow related to the young man’s religious faith.