The terrorist was caught by chance, and then the investigator remembered the mysterious unsolved murder: "There's a match here"
The murder of Yehuda and Tamar Kaduri in Jerusalem's Armon Hanatziv neighborhood in 2019 remained unsolved for three and a half years. The breakthrough came after the murder of a foreign worker in 2022, when an investigator identified a match between a figure documented at the new scene and old materials. The terrorist, Wasim Assaed, an ISIS operative, was arrested by chance two days after the first murder but was released from administrative detention. A tiny drop of blood found on a shoe in his mother's home storeroom led to his identification as the murderer.
The murder of Yehuda and Tamar Kaduri in the Armon Hanatziv neighborhood of Jerusalem in April 2019 remained unsolved for three and a half years. Two investigation teams from the Jerusalem District Police worked in parallel, various leads were examined and ruled out, and suspects were arrested and released, including family members. The dramatic turning point came from an unexpected source: the murder of a Moldovan foreign worker, Ivan Tirnovsky, in March 2022. The investigator who looked at a figure documented in the new case and a figure from old materials identified a match. The terrorist, Wasim Assaed, an ISIS operative, was arrested by chance two days after the Kaduri murder by the Shin Bet due to his affiliation with the organization, but not for the murder. He was held in administrative detention for about three years, and just a week after his release, he committed another murder. The decisive evidence was a tiny drop of blood found on a shoe in his mother's home storeroom, identified as the blood of Yehuda Kaduri. Prosecutors Amir Cassentini and Shira Kani Tal describe the moment they received the test result as "golden evidence" and "an incredible closing of a circle." Assaed gave a detailed confession, describing the apartment layout, the couple's location, the food Yehuda ate before being murdered, and an apple he ate after the murder. The court ruled that he acted from a nationalist and ideological motive to murder Jews.