It was on late Wednesday, March 17, 2021, when police were called to a villa in the Israeli community of Kiryat Gat following a frantic call from a woman reporting that her husband was stabbing their 14-year-old son. Though the father fled the scene before the arrival of security forces, emergency rescue personnel attempted to resuscitate the victim before evacuating him to Barzilai Hospital in Ashkelon in critical condition. The doctors soon declared him dead and police launched a manhunt for the father on the charge of suspected murder. He was later found after an extensive search in the woods behind his home.
According to testimony provided by the boy's mother, the father, who cannot be named by news media, reportedly arrived home in a belligerent mood and soon became violent. He then began attacking the 14-year-old while he was sleeping in his bed with his other brothers in the same room. While his wife and 13-year-old daughter attempted to stop the suspect, they could not physically overpower him and he stabbed the boy fourteen times before fleeing. While the father had not worked for a year at his business due to pandemic restrictions, neighbours were still shocked by the actions of someone they described as a loving father and good businessman. Aside from reports earlier in the day that he had been seen responding to voices and dancing in his office yelling: “Moshiach is coming,” he had no history of mental health issues.
But attention soon shifted to the treatment he had been receiving from a hypnotherapist and alternative practitioner he had been consulting for depression. The practitioner, who also cannot be named for legal reasons, has a history of providing proscribed drugs to his patients despite not being licensed to treat mental health conditions. “His hypnotherapist gave him a pill recently and immediately afterward he said he was suffering,” the suspect’s brother said. “He really likes mysticism and the hypnotist gave him a pill to make it easier to hypnotize him.” He has since been arrested and given six charges for criminal offenses of the export, import, trade, and supply of dangerous drugs.
According to testimony gathered from other clients, police determined that the therapist would often leave MDMA or other drugs on the table in the room where he treated his clients. The clients would take the drugs during the sessions, often paying thousands of shekels in return. It is not clear at present whether the drug taken by the murder suspect was MDMA or some other psychoactive agent.
The attorneys representing the father were also quick to blame the therapist as part of their legal defense. Attorneys Yehudah Fried and Tal Gabay, who are representing the father, stated publicly that "today it is now clear that it is the practitioner, who drugged the father under the guise of medical treatment, who is guilty of the horrible murder. These drugs caused the father to suffer a severe psychotic attack which led to the horrific result of a father murdering his son due to delusions and hearing voices.”
At a recent hearing at the Ashkelon Magistrate’s Court, the district psychiatrist stated that the father is not capable of following legal proceedings, adding that the unnamed drugs that were presented by his therapist as a natural remedy led to a significant change in his mental state. While his fate remains undecided at present, his attorneys are seeking an extension of his detainment with another hearing to be held in the near future.
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