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Hell and Gone Murder Line: Chaim Weiss · Hell and Gone: Murder Line

0:46
Speaker 1: School of Humans. Helen Gone Murder Line actively investigates cold
0:52
Speaker 1: case murders in an effort to raise public awareness, invite
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Speaker 1: witnesses to come forward, and present evidence that could potentially
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Speaker 1: be further investigated by law enforcement. While we value insights
1:02
Speaker 1: from family and community members, their statements should not be
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Speaker 1: considered evidence and point to the challenges of verifying facts
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Speaker 1: inherent in cold cases. We remind listeners that everyone is
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Speaker 1: presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.
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Speaker 1: Nothing in the podcast is intended to state or imply
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Speaker 1: that anyone who has not been convicted of a crime
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Speaker 1: is guilty of any wrongdoing. Thanks for listening.
1:31
Speaker 2: It was Friday night, October 31, 1986, Halloween night. It
1:37
Speaker 2: was also the start of Shabbat, the Jewish Sabbath. During
1:41
Speaker 2: the summer, massive crowds packed the local boardwalk. But in
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Speaker 2: the spooky season, Long Beach gets quiet. The young men
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Speaker 2: who lived in the dormitory of the Yeshiva, a Jewish
1:54
Speaker 2: school that focused on religious study, including the Talmud, Torah,
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Speaker 2: and Jewish law, had to follow a strict list of rules.
2:03
Speaker 2: This was a boarding school, and the young men's classes
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Speaker 2: were located about three blocks away. After finishing their daytime
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Speaker 2: courses and their mandatory one-hour evening study time, the young
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Speaker 2: men returned to the dorms, housed inside a sprawling converted
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Speaker 2: mansion at 63 East Beach Street. There were 45 young
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Speaker 2: men in that dormitory. Most of them shared their quarters
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Speaker 2: with roommates. But 15-year-old Haim Weiss was one of only
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Speaker 2: two students in the entire building who lived in a
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Speaker 2: private room, room 303. Because work is strictly prohibited on
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Speaker 2: the Sabbath, these students could not strike matches or turn
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Speaker 2: lights off and on, and it was dark in that mansion.
2:50
Speaker 2: To accommodate them, there were lights left on on the
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Speaker 2: third floor, and these lights had been left burning continuously
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Speaker 2: since Friday afternoon. Following their dinner and Friday night services,
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Speaker 2: Chaim had been up late studying under one of those
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Speaker 2: overhead lamps with a classmate. He read alongside his study
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Speaker 2: partner until somewhere between 12.45 and 1 a.m. in the
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Speaker 2: early morning hours of November 1st. Then, Haim went back
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Speaker 2: to his room. Haim was an exceptional student who specifically
3:24
Speaker 2: chose the yeshiva for its prestigious academic reputation. He spent
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Speaker 2: his days immersed in these religious texts, but he also
3:34
Speaker 2: enjoyed secular activities like chess and basketball. Haim had come
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Speaker 2: to the school the year before, in ninth grade. His father,
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Speaker 2: Anton Weiss, his mother, his 11-year-old brother, and his 7-year-old
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Speaker 2: little sister lived on Staten Island. Anton was a successful businessman.
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Speaker 2: He later told a Newsday reporter that Haim, whose name
3:57
Speaker 2: literally translates to life, had never been out of his
4:01
Speaker 2: sight before leaving for the boarding school. Anton told Newsday
4:06
Speaker 2: that he and his wife had openly cried the day
4:10
Speaker 2: they dropped their son off at the school for the
4:12
Speaker 2: first time. The autumn air was cold that night, dropping
4:16
Speaker 2: down into the low 40s. Sometime between 1.20 a.m. and
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Speaker 2: 6 a.m. on November 1st, while Chaim lay asleep in
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Speaker 2: his room, an intruder entered. At some point between around
4:30
Speaker 2: 7.30 and 8 a.m. later that morning, the students gathered
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Speaker 2: downstairs to start their morning prayers. But a faculty member
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Speaker 2: immediately noticed that Haim's seat was empty. The adult dormitory
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Speaker 2: supervisor climbed the stairs back to the third floor, walked
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Speaker 2: down the hallway, and opened the door to room 303.
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Speaker 2: The first thing he noticed was a shocking chill. That
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Speaker 2: room was freezing. This was a concerning detail because Haim's
5:00
Speaker 2: friends later told investigators that He had been feeling sick
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Speaker 2: and was actively taking antibiotics for a sore throat. So
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Speaker 2: they wondered why he would leave a window open in
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Speaker 2: freezing weather. The faculty member looked at Haim's bed and
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Speaker 2: saw his feet propped against the headboard. Then on the floor,
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Speaker 2: he saw something covered in blood. It was the rest
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Speaker 2: of Haim's body. His skull had been shattered by a
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Speaker 2: sequence of catastrophic crushing blows from delivered with immense velocity
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Speaker 2: and force. The attack was so precise and so violent
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Speaker 2: that it didn't just kill him. It severed his spinal
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Speaker 2: column at the base of the neck. I'm Katherine Townsend.
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Speaker 2: Over the past eight years of making my true crime podcast,
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Speaker 2: Hell and Gone, I've learned that there is no such
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Speaker 2: thing as a small town where murder never happens. I've
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Speaker 2: received hundreds of messages from people all around the country
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Speaker 2: asking for help with an unsolved murder that's affected them,
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Speaker 2: their families, and their communities. If you have a case
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Speaker 2: you'd like me and my team to look into, you
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Speaker 2: can reach out to us at our Hell and Gone
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Speaker 2: Murder Line at 678-744-6145. That's 678-744-6145. Or you can send
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Speaker 2: us a message on Instagram at hellandgonepod. This is Hell
6:14
Speaker 2: and Gone Murder Line. Within minutes after the horrifying discovery
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Speaker 2: of Haim Weiss's body, The peaceful, studious atmosphere of the
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Speaker 2: yeshiva of Long Beach was shattered. The police were called,
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Speaker 2: the students were corralled, and the peaceful Sabbath morning became
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Speaker 2: ground zero for one of the most terrifying, bizarre, and
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Speaker 2: intractable murder mysteries in the history of the state of
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Speaker 2: New York. When the detectives from Nassau County Police Homicide
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Speaker 2: Squad arrived at 63 East Beach Street, they found a
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Speaker 2: crime scene that seemed to defy logic. The school, as
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Speaker 2: we said before, was basically an old mansion that had
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Speaker 2: been refurbed and separated into dormitories. The layout of the
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Speaker 2: school will become extremely important later in solving this mystery.
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Speaker 2: Nothing was out of place in the room other than
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Speaker 2: the victim. It didn't look like there had been a fight.
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Speaker 2: There were no obvious signs of foul play. There was
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Speaker 2: also no obvious sign of a break-in. Since the window
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Speaker 2: was open, police wondered... Could the killer or killers have
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Speaker 2: come in that way? Because whoever came in must have
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Speaker 2: done so quietly. The medical examiner found no signs of
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Speaker 2: defensive wounds on Haim's hands or forearms and believed that
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Speaker 2: Haim had been attacked while he was asleep. Chaim was
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Speaker 2: found on the floor with his feet propped up against
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Speaker 2: the bed frame, which meant that the killer was probably
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Speaker 2: standing directly over him when the killer hit him with
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Speaker 2: what was described as a heavy bladed murder weapon. And
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Speaker 2: Chaim had been killed instantly. These were not the clean
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Speaker 2: cuts of a knife. They were wide crushing gashes that
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Speaker 2: indicated a sharp edged tool. Something more like a hatchet
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Speaker 2: or a fireman's axe or a heavy cleaver. Forensic pathology
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Speaker 2: indicated that the weapon left two distinct, huge fracture patterns
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Speaker 2: on Haim's skull. He was stabbed multiple times in the
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Speaker 2: face and the neck and the head and suffered a
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Speaker 2: laceration of the brain. Haim was still wearing his pajamas
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Speaker 2: and there was no sign of sexual assault. Nothing was
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Speaker 2: missing from the room, so there was also no sign
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Speaker 2: of robbery. But then came the forensic timeline. Investigators figured
9:34
Speaker 2: out that someone had returned to room 303 to move
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Speaker 2: Haim's body after the attack. They figured this out because
9:43
Speaker 2: although Haim was discovered on the floor, a detailed examination
9:48
Speaker 2: of evidence proved that his body had actually remained in
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Speaker 2: the bed for several hours after he was killed. Forensic
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Speaker 2: investigators figured this out because of studying the lividity patterns.
10:01
Speaker 2: When a person dies and their heart stops pumping, gravity
10:05
Speaker 2: causes the blood to settle into the lowest points of
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Speaker 2: the body. This creates a distinct purplish discoloration on the skin.
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Speaker 2: When the medical examiner inspected Haim, the internal lividity patterns
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Speaker 2: did not match the exact posture in which he was found,
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Speaker 2: sprawled across the bed. It takes approximately two to six
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Speaker 2: hours for lividity to fix permanently in place. In Heim's case,
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Speaker 2: the blood had settled into a lying flat position, but
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Speaker 2: the body was found directly on the linoleum floor with
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Speaker 2: the feet awkwardly propped up on the bed frame, so
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Speaker 2: the feet were obliterated. the torso, which meant that someone
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Speaker 2: had come in and moved Haim's body in the middle
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Speaker 2: of the night. According to lead detective Dawn Daly, the
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Speaker 2: crime scene analysis indicated that Haim's body had been handled
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Speaker 2: and moved twice post-mortem. It was first moved from the
11:03
Speaker 2: bed to the ground, and then later shifted to another
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Speaker 2: position on the floor, roughly two feet away. And there
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Speaker 2: was also another strange detail. Someone left a lit candle
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Speaker 2: in the room. So, one of the first questions that
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Speaker 2: was asked is, was the killer someone from inside the
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Speaker 2: school or outside? And the second question was, who moved
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Speaker 2: that body? Was it the killer or someone else? Maybe
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Speaker 2: trying to help him, maybe to administer first aid, or
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Speaker 2: maybe just to confuse the crime scene. From the beginning,
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Speaker 2: detectives admitted that they were baffled by the circumstances of
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Speaker 2: this case. Detective Sergeant John Nolan told Newsday that it was, quote,
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Speaker 2: a very bizarre, motiveless crime and appears to be murder
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Speaker 2: for the sake of murder. Police did investigate the possibility
11:59
Speaker 2: that someone from the outside could have come up the
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Speaker 2: fire escape and climbed in the window, especially because it
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Speaker 2: was Halloween night. Detectives investigated reports that on that Friday night,
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Speaker 2: a couple of students at the school had been chased
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Speaker 2: and egged, but this was put down to just random
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Speaker 2: Halloween pranks. At the time, though, there was another killer
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Speaker 2: operating in Long Beach. there had been a series of
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Speaker 2: attacks by a hatchet-wielding assailant starting in the summer of 1986,
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Speaker 2: mainly targeting seniors living near the boardwalk. In February of 1987,
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Speaker 2: Detective Lieutenant Joe Morrison told Newsday that the first four
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Speaker 2: boardwalk attacks all had similarities. All victims were struck on
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Speaker 2: the upper body. None of the victims had signs of
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Speaker 2: sexual intent. And no property was stolen. But the detective
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Speaker 2: told the newspaper that police found no link between the
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Speaker 2: summer 1986 boardwalk bludgeonings and the Haim Weiss case. And
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Speaker 2: detectives began to focus more and more on the theories.
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Speaker 2: that the killer had an intimate familiarity with the school's
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Speaker 2: inner layout. Whoever came into the room did not seem
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Speaker 2: like someone who just stumbled in. Detectives believed they had
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Speaker 2: to know the layout of the school and that they
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Speaker 2: knew that they were entering one of only two private rooms.
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Speaker 2: This did not seem like a random crime of opportunity.
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Speaker 2: Detectives continued to say that they had ruled out anti-Semitism
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Speaker 2: as a motive. or any kind of sexual assault or robbery.
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Speaker 2: But I'm wondering how did detectives rule those possibilities out?
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Speaker 2: And if the motive was not robbery or sexual assault
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Speaker 2: or anti-Semitism, what was it? Another mystery was the murder weapon,
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Speaker 2: because police never found it. Police did find a knife
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Speaker 2: on school grounds a few hours after Haim's murder, but
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Speaker 2: they found no blood on it. and never confirmed that
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Speaker 2: it was used in the attack. In an interview with
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Speaker 2: Newsday in October of 1987, Heim's father said that he
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Speaker 2: was dealing with some friction with detectives because he admitted
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Speaker 2: he inserted himself into the investigation. But he said that
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Speaker 2: he didn't care. He just wanted to find his son's
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Speaker 2: killer and believed that the killer had outsmarted the police.
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Speaker 2: Another really big mystery in this case was the open window,
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Speaker 2: because detectives could not figure out why that window would
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Speaker 2: have been left open on a freezing November morning. But
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Speaker 2: consulting with scholars in traditional Jewish customs provided a chilling
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Speaker 2: alternative explanation. In certain traditional Orthodox circles, it is an
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Speaker 2: ancient custom to immediately throw open the window of a
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Speaker 2: room where a person has died. This is supposed to
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Speaker 2: allow the soul to depart the physical space and return
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Speaker 2: to the heavens. It was also reportedly customary for the
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Speaker 2: body to be moved to the lowest and coolest point
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Speaker 2: of the room, which in Heim's case would be the floor.
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Speaker 2: But this part is what I don't understand because I
15:29
Speaker 2: did a deep dive into Jewish law. Admittedly, I am
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Speaker 2: not an expert in this area, but I did do
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Speaker 2: quite a bit of research, and it seems like moving
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Speaker 2: the body in this way would actually violate Jewish law,
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Speaker 2: not follow it, because you're not allowed to move a
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Speaker 2: body on the Sabbath. Jewish law does allow a body
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Speaker 2: to be moved under certain circumstances, but these are very
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Speaker 2: extreme circumstances, such as protecting it from being destroyed by
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Speaker 2: an active fire or keeping it from being eaten by
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Speaker 2: wild animals. None of these conditions applied in Haim's room.
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Speaker 2: A local rabbi spoke to the Jewish star, and he
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Speaker 2: told that publication that he believed that whoever moved the
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Speaker 2: body and lit the candle was acting out of what
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Speaker 2: they perceived to be respect, but that, quote, lighting a
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Speaker 2: candle for the dead does not override the laws of Shabbat,
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Speaker 2: end quote. The candle is more complicated. because the candle
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Speaker 2: would have been a direct violation if it happened before
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Speaker 2: Saturday night. But then I looked at a lot of
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Speaker 2: historical newspaper reports, and a lot of them said that
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Speaker 2: a rabbi had asked permission to light that candle. And
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Speaker 2: the reports don't specify a time frame for that. So
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Speaker 2: that could have happened after sundown. Music Maybe the killer
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Speaker 2: was a fellow student, someone who panicked and wasn't thinking
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Speaker 2: about following Jewish law. Initially, police had assumed that whoever
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Speaker 2: moved Haim's body was trying to render first aid or
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Speaker 2: trying to follow some maybe misguided Jewish custom. But all
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Speaker 2: of the students were interviewed and all of them insisted
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Speaker 2: no one touched Haim. So were they just scared to
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Speaker 2: admit that they had moved him? Or could someone have
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Speaker 2: been covering up for the killer? The candle continued to
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Speaker 2: confuse investigators over the years, and it turned out there
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Speaker 2: wasn't just one mysterious candle, there were two. As we mentioned,
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Speaker 2: it turned out the first candle wasn't actually a mystery.
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Speaker 2: At some point, a rabbi asked permission from police to
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Speaker 2: light a traditional seven-day memorial candle inside room 303, which
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Speaker 2: the police agreed to. before the room was sealed and
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Speaker 2: taped shut with crime scene tape. But then, on November 2nd,
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Speaker 2: when detectives went to the room to perform a perimeter check,
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Speaker 2: they found a second burning memorial candle sitting directly next
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Speaker 2: to the first one. But no one ever admitted to
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Speaker 2: lighting it. And Detective Daly later noted the deep frustration
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Speaker 2: of this moment. He publicly said that if someone had
18:15
Speaker 2: lit that second candle out of a genuine gesture of
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Speaker 2: sympathy or love for Chaim, there was no logical reason
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Speaker 2: for them to hide it from the homicide squad. From
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Speaker 2: the beginning, there seemed to be a clash of cultures
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Speaker 2: that hindered this investigation. Because it was Shabbat, the school's
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Speaker 2: administration and the rabbis famously informed the detectives that they
18:36
Speaker 2: could not fully cooperate. They couldn't write down timelines or
18:40
Speaker 2: do interviews with secular authorities until the Sabbath officially ended,
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Speaker 2: which would have been after sundown on Saturday night. So
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Speaker 2: this created a 10-hour investigative delay that was heavily frustrating
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Speaker 2: for the homicide squad. Another question I had was, Why
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Speaker 2: was Chaim assigned the single room? And could that have
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Speaker 2: had something to do with his murder? Chaim's father told
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Speaker 2: Newsday that he had asked a rabbi this question, and
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Speaker 2: he had been told that Chaim had been assigned to
19:12
Speaker 2: the single room because his interaction with the other boys
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Speaker 2: wasn't good. That's a quote from the newspaper article. This
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Speaker 2: was because, according to Anton, Chaim's father, Chaim wore secular
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Speaker 2: clothes and he was described as immature. which Anton said
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Speaker 2: made his stomach turn. But the rabbis didn't give a
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Speaker 2: reason publicly for the single room. They never said anything
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Speaker 2: publicly about problems with Haim in the school. In fact,
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Speaker 2: they said he was a good student with a lot
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Speaker 2: of promise. But maybe Haim had a conflict with another
19:47
Speaker 2: student or a faculty member, one that his dad wasn't
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Speaker 2: aware of. In 1992, Unsolved Mysteries filmed an episode about
19:56
Speaker 2: this case. And Nassau homicide detective Don Daly told the
20:00
Speaker 2: TV program that a jogger told police that they had
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Speaker 2: seen someone who appeared to be a yeshiva student on
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Speaker 2: the boardwalk about 15 minutes before Haim's body was found.
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Speaker 2: The detective said that that would have been unusual to
20:14
Speaker 2: come out to the boardwalk and hang out there before
20:16
Speaker 2: morning prayer. So he wanted to find out who that
20:20
Speaker 2: person was. But to my knowledge, detectives have never identified
20:25
Speaker 2: that person or even positively confirmed that there was a
20:29
Speaker 2: student out on the boardwalk that morning. Could a killer
20:33
Speaker 2: have come in from the outside? Police said the killer
20:36
Speaker 2: could have accessed the room in a few ways. A
20:39
Speaker 2: fire escape door leads to the same stairwell as the
20:42
Speaker 2: bedroom door of Heim's room. And the stairwell leads down
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Speaker 2: to an old service entrance. The Nassau County Police Department
20:51
Speaker 2: realized very quickly that that they were not just fighting
20:54
Speaker 2: a killer, they were fighting what they perceived to be
20:57
Speaker 2: a wall of silence. The yeshiva of Long Beach was
21:01
Speaker 2: a closed ecosystem. The young men who attended school there lived, ate, slept,
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Speaker 2: and breathed the Torah. They had minimal contact with the
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Speaker 2: secular world outside. They didn't watch television or read local newspapers,
21:15
Speaker 2: and they didn't really participate in the secular culture of
21:18
Speaker 2: Long Beach. the detectives set up an interrogation room inside
21:22
Speaker 2: the school. They called in every single student who lived
21:26
Speaker 2: on the third floor, along with the rabbis, the teachers,
21:29
Speaker 2: and the maintenance staff. Students claimed that they had not
21:32
Speaker 2: heard anything going on in Haim's room or seen anything
21:36
Speaker 2: weird on Halloween night. Again, the politics of the school
21:40
Speaker 2: made the investigation more complicated because in many ultra-Orthodox communities,
21:45
Speaker 2: there is a deep-seated historical distrust of secular authorities, And
21:50
Speaker 2: there's also this belief in the community that internal matters,
21:54
Speaker 2: no matter how severe, should be handled within the community
21:58
Speaker 2: rather than by the secular courts and the secular police.
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Speaker 2: There's also an additional complication. There's another piece of Jewish law.
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Speaker 2: It's a strict prohibition against derogatory speech or gossiping about
22:11
Speaker 2: fellow Jews. So, viewed this way, to point a finger
22:15
Speaker 2: at a classmate or a rabbi, even in the context
22:18
Speaker 2: of a brutal murder investigation, would be viewed by some
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Speaker 2: people within the walls of the yeshiva as a profound
22:26
Speaker 2: spiritual betrayal. So, frustrated by the lack of local progress,
22:31
Speaker 2: Nassau County detectives went to the FBI. They asked for
22:35
Speaker 2: assistance from the Behavioral Science Unit from Quantico. The FBI
22:40
Speaker 2: came back to the local detectives and told them something
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Speaker 2: that turned the investigation on its head. The Bureau said
22:46
Speaker 2: straight up that they did not believe that an outsider
22:50
Speaker 2: had committed this murder. They said the likelihood of a
22:53
Speaker 2: random killer entering a highly secure, locked religious facility on
22:57
Speaker 2: Halloween night, then navigating a maze of unfamiliar corridors to
23:02
Speaker 2: the third floor selecting one specific boy out of dozens
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Speaker 2: of unlocked rooms, brutally hacking him to death, then moving
23:10
Speaker 2: the body in that way, this kind of misguided attempt
23:13
Speaker 2: to follow orthodox death rituals, and leaving without a blood
23:17
Speaker 2: trail or without taking anything was extremely unlikely. The behavior
23:24
Speaker 2: profiler from the FBI believed that the killer was an insider.
23:28
Speaker 2: Once the insider theory was officially established, the focus of
23:32
Speaker 2: the investigation shifted heavily toward the faculty and the internal
23:37
Speaker 2: dynamics of the school. And that is when the first
23:41
Speaker 2: cracks in the school's pristine reputation started to appear. Anton
24:02
Speaker 2: Weiss told police that during the summer of 1986, just
24:06
Speaker 2: months before his death, Chaim had been attending a summer
24:09
Speaker 2: camp run by the Yeshiva Network. While he was there,
24:13
Speaker 2: Chaim had gotten super upset and cried during phone calls
24:16
Speaker 2: to his dad, begging his father to let him come home.
24:20
Speaker 2: But Chaim never told his father what was upsetting him. Then,
24:25
Speaker 2: while Chaim was visiting his grandparents in Europe, Rabbi Avram Cooper,
24:30
Speaker 2: the principal at the Yeshiva, called the Weiss family home
24:33
Speaker 2: and he asked to meet with Haim. Records indicate that
24:37
Speaker 2: as soon as Haim arrived back in New York, his
24:40
Speaker 2: parents drove him directly to Rabbi Cooper's private residence in
24:43
Speaker 2: Borough Park, Brooklyn. Anton Weiss stated that the principal instructed
24:48
Speaker 2: the parents to wait outside in their car while he
24:51
Speaker 2: talked to the 15-year-old inside his house. That private meeting
24:56
Speaker 2: between Rabbi Cooper and Haim lasted about 10 minutes. According
25:00
Speaker 2: to Haim's father, When his son returned to the car,
25:03
Speaker 2: he appeared visibly upset, but he refused to discuss what
25:07
Speaker 2: happened during that conversation. When investigative journalists later confronted Rabbi
25:13
Speaker 2: Cooper regarding the nature of the 1986 meeting, the principal
25:17
Speaker 2: declined to provide an explanation. In a recorded 2017 broadcast
25:21
Speaker 2: interview with Pix11 News, When asked directly about that encounter,
25:27
Speaker 2: Rabbi Cooper stated, I have no answers, before walking away
25:32
Speaker 2: from reporters. The police did polygraph tests, many members of
25:37
Speaker 2: staff and the student body, but there were no suspects
25:41
Speaker 2: developed as a result of that. The Nassau County Police
25:45
Speaker 2: Crime Lab searched every square inch of room 303 for
25:49
Speaker 2: a definitive piece of biological evidence that could break the
25:52
Speaker 2: case wide open. but the lack of physical evidence turned
25:55
Speaker 2: out to be a serious problem for detectives because not
25:59
Speaker 2: only had the killer been strong, they had been clean.
26:02
Speaker 2: There were no bloody palm prints on the white walls,
26:05
Speaker 2: no latent fingerprints on the frame of the open window,
26:08
Speaker 2: and no traces of foreign blood or tissue that could
26:12
Speaker 2: later be tested for DNA anywhere. And police searched that
26:16
Speaker 2: school from top to bottom, including draining the plumbing fixtures,
26:20
Speaker 2: ripping open the ventilation shafts, and searching the roof spaces
26:24
Speaker 2: and the boilers underneath the building. They even sent divers
26:29
Speaker 2: into the Atlantic Ocean just a few blocks away, sweeping
26:32
Speaker 2: the surf line for any sign of a discarded iron
26:35
Speaker 2: tool or a hatchet. But they never found one. They
26:40
Speaker 2: did find one potentially explosive piece of evidence, a single
26:45
Speaker 2: strand of hair found on Haim's bedding near his neck.
26:50
Speaker 2: preliminary microscopic analysis confirmed that this hair did not belong
26:54
Speaker 2: to Haim Weiss. Now, we don't know a ton about
26:57
Speaker 2: this hair. Remember, this was back in 1986, so DNA
27:01
Speaker 2: testing was in its absolute infancy. Back then, the polymerase
27:06
Speaker 2: chain reaction method, this is the method that lets forensic
27:10
Speaker 2: science replicate tiny amounts of DNA to create a profile,
27:14
Speaker 2: was not yet a tool that investigators could use. Which meant,
27:18
Speaker 2: back then, if investigators had tested the hair using the
27:22
Speaker 2: methods available to them, the hair could have been completely destroyed.
27:26
Speaker 2: And if the test result was inconclusive, which is highly
27:29
Speaker 2: likely given the technology of the time, The only definitive
27:33
Speaker 2: piece of physical evidence detectives had from that room would
27:37
Speaker 2: have been lost forever. So the investigator in charge decided
27:41
Speaker 2: not to test the hair. They decided to store it
27:44
Speaker 2: in a climate-controlled vault. Meanwhile, Haim's father, Anton, refused to
27:50
Speaker 2: let his son's memory be buried. He went public, speaking
27:54
Speaker 2: to reporters about what he called the school's lack of cooperation.
27:58
Speaker 2: He appeared on local television programs. He wrote letters to
28:01
Speaker 2: community leaders. He was begging for someone to break the silence.
28:06
Speaker 2: Three years after Haim's murder, Anton Weiss filed a massive
28:10
Speaker 2: $ 15 million civil lawsuit against the yeshiva of Long Beach,
28:16
Speaker 2: accusing the school of severe negligence for failing to maintain
28:20
Speaker 2: basic physical safety and security measures to protect his 15-year-old son.
28:25
Speaker 2: The civil suit was eventually settled out of court. Meanwhile,
28:29
Speaker 2: the school was in turmoil. After Haim's murder, the students
28:33
Speaker 2: were scared that there could be a killer living among them,
28:36
Speaker 2: and parents started pulling their teens out of school. Court
28:40
Speaker 2: records obtained by Newsday showed that on December 16th, so
28:43
Speaker 2: six weeks after Haim's brutal murder, the Yeshiva's five trustees
28:48
Speaker 2: voted to sell the school. A group of Jewish residents
28:52
Speaker 2: in Long Beach ended up filing a lawsuit against the school.
28:55
Speaker 2: They were trying to block the move, They said the
28:58
Speaker 2: school was a critical asset for Jews in that community. Now,
29:02
Speaker 2: the timeline of this sale is interesting because it's disputed.
29:06
Speaker 2: A lawsuit filed by Orthodox Jewish community members alleged that
29:10
Speaker 2: officials at the school started engaging in what they called
29:15
Speaker 2: clandestine and fraudulent transactions and alleged that school officials had
29:20
Speaker 2: been trying to take control of the school since early
29:23
Speaker 2: in 1986, so months before Haim's murder. the school's administrators
29:28
Speaker 2: completely denied that there was any thought of selling the
29:31
Speaker 2: school before November 1st. They said that the pending sale
29:35
Speaker 2: was a direct result of the murder and the fear afterwards.
29:39
Speaker 2: In the end, the school was sold for $ 2 million,
29:42
Speaker 2: which Newsday reported was considerably less than its open market value.
29:47
Speaker 2: It was sold to a holding company owned by a
29:49
Speaker 2: former student, who the newspaper reported had been a trustee
29:53
Speaker 2: but had resigned shortly after Heim's murder. It's not clear
29:58
Speaker 2: what happened next because both sides in the lawsuit agreed
30:01
Speaker 2: to move future conflicts to a Beth Dean, a private
30:05
Speaker 2: Jewish arbitration court, so any court records after that would
30:09
Speaker 2: not be public. But police did confirm to Newsday that
30:14
Speaker 2: the homicide detectives were examining the lawsuit for any leads
30:18
Speaker 2: that they could use in investigating the murder. But so far,
30:21
Speaker 2: none have come to light, at least not publicly. Haim's
30:26
Speaker 2: father continued his own investigation. He offered a $ 100, 000 reward and,
30:31
Speaker 2: with his civil suit, had been trying to get a
30:34
Speaker 2: lot of the questions we've asked in this podcast answered,
30:37
Speaker 2: starting with, why did Haim have his own room? Was
30:42
Speaker 2: it a random lottery or had he requested that? Was
30:45
Speaker 2: he being bullied by someone or could he have been
30:49
Speaker 2: bullying someone? As part of this civil lawsuit, Anton got
30:55
Speaker 2: a court order to get names and addresses of his
30:57
Speaker 2: son's classmates. There were rumors at one point that police
31:02
Speaker 2: did have a person of interest, a janitor who had
31:05
Speaker 2: worked at the school. Some people in the community said
31:08
Speaker 2: that they had heard this janitor left his position at
31:11
Speaker 2: the school after the murder and moved back to his
31:14
Speaker 2: home country, Poland, and that police had actually traveled to
31:18
Speaker 2: Poland to interview him. But no suspect was ever announced.
31:22
Speaker 2: No one was ever arrested or charged. We still don't
31:26
Speaker 2: know who opened the window, who moved the body, or
31:30
Speaker 2: who left that second candle burning in Haim's room. Nassau
31:34
Speaker 2: County have remained pretty quiet on the details of the investigation.
31:39
Speaker 2: But one thing that they and the FBI have said
31:41
Speaker 2: publicly was that they believe this is someone familiar with
31:45
Speaker 2: the school and that the layout of the dorm rooms
31:48
Speaker 2: and the killing was deeply personal. The Nassau County medical
31:52
Speaker 2: examiner described the attack as a frenzy-type killing. The students
31:58
Speaker 2: who were on the floor that night moved on. They
32:00
Speaker 2: graduated and spread into different communities across the United States
32:05
Speaker 2: and Israel. In 2013, 27 years after Haim Weiss was murdered,
32:11
Speaker 2: the Nassau County Police Department made a dramatic announcement. The
32:15
Speaker 2: Homicide Squad officially reopened the case file. They assigned a
32:20
Speaker 2: new team of cold case detectives to reexamine every single
32:24
Speaker 2: lead from the 1986 files. And they announced an increased
32:28
Speaker 2: reward of $ 25, 000 for any information leading to an arrest
32:33
Speaker 2: and conviction. While police have never officially brought internal charges
32:39
Speaker 2: or named any staff member in connection with the crime,
32:42
Speaker 2: the passage of decades has allowed some former students to
32:46
Speaker 2: speak more openly about their personal experiences within the institution.
32:52
Speaker 2: Following an investigative report by PIX11 News, a former student
32:57
Speaker 2: who attended the high school in the late 1970s stepped
33:00
Speaker 2: forward on the record. This student publicly alleged that during
33:04
Speaker 2: his time at the school, a decade prior to the murders,
33:08
Speaker 2: the environment suffered from what he called instances of harsh
33:12
Speaker 2: physical discipline by individual staff members. Though police have never
33:16
Speaker 2: explicitly tied these misconduct allegations to Haim's death, they have
33:21
Speaker 2: stated over the years that they believe this was an
33:23
Speaker 2: inside job. I can't help wondering about those months before
33:27
Speaker 2: the murder. Was there something else going on at school?
33:31
Speaker 2: Was that why Haim was crying on the phone to
33:34
Speaker 2: his dad? His father has indicated that he doesn't believe
33:38
Speaker 2: that his son was killed in a random dispute over
33:40
Speaker 2: schoolwork or petty teenage rivalry. He believes that this was
33:44
Speaker 2: someone who knew Chaim very well and that this was
33:47
Speaker 2: very personal. Maybe it's something the police have missed. And
33:51
Speaker 2: if they have, it might be down to those former
33:54
Speaker 2: students or maybe even their children or grandchildren to come forward.
33:59
Speaker 2: The FBI experts believe that the killer was an insider,
34:03
Speaker 2: someone who was willing to break Jewish law on the
34:07
Speaker 2: Sabbath due to feeling an immense wave of guilt. Haim's father, Anton,
34:13
Speaker 2: told Newsday in 1987 that he believed that the police
34:18
Speaker 2: were doing their best, but that in his opinion, quote,
34:21
Speaker 2: I feel maybe someone's pulling the wool over their eyes,
34:25
Speaker 2: end quote. After operating for 50 years at its Long
34:29
Speaker 2: Beach location, the school moved to a more modern campus.
34:34
Speaker 2: But there may still be secrets buried inside that old
34:39
Speaker 2: converted mansion. I'm Katherine Townsend. This is Hell and Gone
34:45
Speaker 2: Murder Line. Hell and Gone Murder Line is a production
34:48
Speaker 2: of School of Humans and iHeart Podcasts. It's written and
34:51
Speaker 2: narrated by me, Katherine Townsend, and produced by Edelise Perez.
34:55
Speaker 2: Special thanks to Amy Tubbs for her research assistance and
34:59
Speaker 2: James Wheaton for legal review. Noah Cameron mixed and scored
35:03
Speaker 2: this episode. Our theme song is by Ben Salit. Executive
35:07
Speaker 2: producers are Virginia Prescott, Brandon Barr, and L.C. Crowley. Listen
35:11
Speaker 2: to Helen Gone ad-free by subscribing to the iHeart True
35:14
Speaker 2: Crime Plus channel on Apple Podcasts. If you are interested
35:18
Speaker 2: in seeing documents and materials from the case, you can
35:21
Speaker 2: follow the show on Instagram at HelenGonePod. If you have
35:25
Speaker 2: a case you'd like me and my team to look into,
35:28
Speaker 2: you can reach out to us at our Helen Gone
35:29
Speaker 2: Murder Line at 678-744-6145. That's 678-744-6145.
35:44
Speaker 1: School of Humans.