JOLIET, Illinois – An Illinois man has been convicted of fatal stabbing and mother injuries to a 6-year-old Palestinian teenager.
Joseph Chuba was murdered on October 14, 2023 for the murder of Wadi Alphayoumi, who was stabbed 26 times, and the injury of her mother, Hannan Shaheen, who was stabbed at more than a dozen times in Chicago’s suburbs.
The ju judges deliberated for more than an hour.
The mother and son rented two rooms from their then wife in Plainfield Township, located in Plainfield Township, about 40 miles southwest of downtown Chicago.
Shaheen, 33, testified that Chuba, 73, turned on her shortly after Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, 2023. She was the first witness for the prosecutor.
Shaheen and Chuba’s ex-wife, Mary Connor, also testified about the prosecutors, but said that in the week leading up to the stab wounds, Tuba was furious at the Israeli-Hamas war. Shaheen said he began talking about Muslims because he hated him. Shaheen testified that Chuba told her “your people” were killing Israeli Jews and babies, Muslims said they were not welcome in his house and she needed to move in.
“I told him, ‘I pray for peace,'” Shaheen testified.
A few days later, Shaheen said Chuba had pushed his way into her room, held her down, stab her with a knife, and tried to break her teeth as her son Wadi watched in horror. At one point, she said she managed to get a knife and a stabbing Chuba before he grabbed it from her.
She said when she went to the bathroom to call 911, Czuba had moved to Wadee, where she had just celebrated his birthday. She said she could hear him screaming, “Oh, no, stop it!”
The 7-inch blade knife that prosecutors endured to show ju apprentices multiple times during the closing discussion was still in Waddy’s body when the first responder arrived and was later removed. Shaheen was hospitalized and received 19 stitches in her face and staples on the back of her head.
The killing of Wadi and the attack on Shaheen attracted international attention and scared many people in Illinois’ great Muslims and Palestinian communities. Heena Musabji, Cair Chicago’s legal affairs director, said Friday that it is “the most heinous hate crime in recent history to affect Chicago’s Muslim community.”
Czuba, who did not testify at his trial, will be declared on May 2nd.
In court documents, prosecutors said he was obsessed with war in the Middle East.
“This happened because the accused feared that a war that began in half the world in the Middle East on October 7, 2023 would come to his gateway,” Prosecutor Michael Fitzgerald, a lawyer for Will County Aides, told the ju judge in his opening statement. “This happened because Hanan and Wadi were Muslims.”
Ex-wife Connor testified that Chuba became paranoid about his personal safety and believed that their lives might be at risk for Shaheen. She said they both have a good relationship with Shaheen. Czuba will try to make the house more enjoyable and sometimes bring home toys for Wadee, she said. A few days after Hamas’ attack, Chuba retreated and she said Shaheen wanted them to move out of their home.
“Hannan needs to move because her friends can come and do harm to us,” Connor testified that Tuba told her.
However, Connor, who had been married to Czuba for 30 years, said she opposed. She believes they should comply with Shaheen’s lease terms and notifies her of the 30-day move and informs Czuba that Shaheen never had a guest in the house.
“I was mad,” Connor testified. “In my opinion, there was no reason for her to move.”
She also spoke about the upcoming “Jihad Day” and said that Czuba has withdrawn $1,000 from her bank account because she fears that the US banking system will fail.
The prosecutor had a conversation with Tuba and Will County Sheriff’s Sergeant for the ju apprentice.
“What do you do when the mouse situation arises? You eradicate them. And that’s what he did that day,” prosecutor Chris Koch said in his final discussion on Friday. “That was his thought process.”
During his final argument, George Leonard, one of Czuba’s lawyers, summoned OJ Simpson’s trial lawyer, Johnny Cochran, to inform the ju judge that he had handed down the verdict in the Chuba case.
Leonard also questioned why Shaheen retreated to the toilet, some locations of her wounds, and evidence from the scene, which appeared to suggest that Shaheen had financial interest in the case. Shaheen filed an illegal death lawsuit against Chaba and his ex-wife, which is still pending.
“I know this is a half-hearted case that the prosecution is giving you,” he said.
He urged the ju judges to “have the courage” and to think that Czuba is innocent.
Prosecutor Christine Vukmir rebutted his argument, calling for the suggestion that Shaheen stabbed Wadi and then put the tuba into a “quirky” plague.
“That’s the plot he’s presenting to you,” she told the ju judge. “That’s ridiculous.”
When deputies arrived at the house, Chuba was found outside on the ground.
The ju apprentices heard from police officers, firefighters and other first responders, as well as from the assistants of doctors who treated Shaheen in the hospital. They also heard Shaheen’s call to 911 police, but they could hear the wadi’s screams and she repeatedly told the dispatcher “He’s killing my baby.”
One Will County Sheriff’s deputy discovered Wadee’s body screamed on the stands, yelled as the ju-deputy saw footage from a camera with its body decorated. Some of the footage and images were so graphic during the trial, Judge Amy Bertani Tomzack granted the defence request that the courtroom television monitors would move away from the gallery where only the ju apprentice could see it.
Wadi’s father, Odai Alphayoomi, told Will County Court in Joliet that she felt “the decision was a little too late.”
“I don’t know if I should cry or laugh, if I’m happy or angry,” he said in Arabic through a translator. “People are telling me to smile. If I were one of you, I would be laughing. But I am the father of a child and I have lost a child.”
“I hope this loss, this meaningless loss is the last thing we see and that there is no child my beloved little wadi had to go through,” he continued.
Ahmed Rehab, executive director of Cair Chicago, who translated his remarks, said Shaheen was too difficult and did not exist when the verdict was announced, but she wanted him to tell him that he would pray for peace and love only.
Selina Guevara reported from Janelle Griffiths of New York from Joliet, Illinois.
