A Double Murder in Jerusalem // It took putting the killer back on the street to solve the case

Thursday passed. Friday passed, too. Then Shabbos and Sunday went by, and Sheri Hileli still had not heard from her parents. She was worried. It was so unlike them not to answer her calls, especially before Shabbat. Sheri’s parents, Yehuda and Tamar Kadouri, lived in southern Jerusalem on Mordechai Alkahi Street, a quiet road in the Armon Hanatziv neighborhood overlooking the Old City and the Har Habayis. Yehuda was a well-known and respected 71-year-old accountant

He grew up in a religious family, but distanced himself from religion. He studied accounting and married Tamar, who came from a family of Holocaust survivors. After his father died, Yehuda’s outlook shifted and he became a middle-aged baal teshuvah. He sent his children to study in chareidi institutions and began dividing his time between Torah study and managing his successful accounting firm. Tamar worked at the Ministry of Tourism until she experienced a terror attack. After that, she suffered from anxiety and rarely left her home.

“It was not enough that the anxieties of the Holocaust never left her alone,” says Sheri’s brother Nitai. “The attack added to her anxiety and she almost never left the house.”
Sheri adds, “My father was devoted to her and was always there with her, giving support.”

A Horrifying Scene
When several days passed and her calls continued to go unanswered, Sheri reached out to her two younger brothers, Rav Nitai and Rav Matan, both bnei Torah who live in the Ramot area in the north of the city. Neither of them had heard anything from their parents since Thursday.
Next, Sheri called one of her parents’ neighbors and asked them to knock on the door. There was no answer. The neighbor reported that the door was locked and that there were no sounds coming from inside. The children decided to contact the police.
On Sunday, January 13, 2019, a group of police officers and firefighters were dispatched to the Kadouri home. They repeatedly tried to open the locked front door before managing to gain access through the balcony. They entered and found a horrifying scene.
In the living room of the apartment was the body of Yehuda Kadouri, lying in a pool of blood. He had been stabbed and there were signs of a struggle. Next to him was an empty shopping bag. It appeared that he had been in the middle of unpacking groceries when he was attacked. In the bedroom, they found Tamar’s body, also covered in blood.
Sheri was contacted and she immediately called her two brothers, uttering words she could have never imagined herself saying: “Someone murdered Abba and Ima.”
Thus began a long road filled with grief and torment.
“The police immediately sealed the area and did not let any of us enter,” says Matan. “We were in shock and overwhelmed with trying to arrange the funeral.”
The Kadouris’ bodies were taken to the medical examiner and released after a number of hours. The double funeral was held on Har Hamenuchot and was attended by family members and hundreds of acquaintances. One speaker was Rav Shlomo Yedidya Zafrani, who had mentored Yehuda Kadouri since his return to Torah. “We are all shocked, and we all share in the terrible disaster that befell this family,” he said before the crowd. “The holy souls of Reb Yehuda and Tamar have now ascended to shamayim in a heavenly storm. Who among us will be able to withstand this profound test?”
The family sat shivah in the home of Rav Nitai, who is known for the shiurim he gives at the historical Moussaieff shul in the Bukharian Quarter of Jerusalem.
“My father was my teacher,” he says. “He was a righteous, pure-hearted man, a wise and supportive student of Torah. He used to say that one can learn how to behave from watching others. We learned how to behave from watching him. He was very kind. He supported us and helped us in our Torah learning. He encouraged his business clients to attend shiurim and even gave a discount to those who did so!”
Matan shares, “Abba was very God-fearing. He took great joy in davening; it was his whole life. For him, life was about tefillah and emunah. He always said ‘Ein od milvado,’ there is none other besides Hashem. It was his way of life. When there were hard times in the office, and he wondered how he would be able to pay his employees, he would smile and say, ‘Ein od milvado.’

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