Nassau County, NY – 31 years after his son was brutally murdered in his yeshiva dormitory, the father of the slain teen has finally given his first public interview in the hopes that someone will come forward with new information.
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As previously reported on VIN News (http://bit.ly/2mQD2Qt) 15 year old Chaim Weiss of Staten Island was bludgeoned to death on Halloween night 1986 in his room at the Torah High School in Long Beach.
Authorities said that Weiss’s body was moved from his bed to the floor after his death and that someone had lit a yahrtzeit candle in Weiss’ room, where a window had been left open despite the cold temperatures.
Weiss’s father, Anton, has revealed for the first time to PIX 11 News (http://bit.ly/2mPossB) that several unusual incidents had taken place in the months leading up to his son’s murder.
Chaim had called home from camp crying in July, saying that he wanted to come home, the first such call Chaim had ever made to his parents. Weiss said that just weeks later, yeshiva principal Rabbi Avrom Cooper called on two separate occasions, asking to speak to Chaim who was away in Europe visiting his grandparents. When Chaim returned home, his parents drove him to Borough Park to speak to Rabbi Cooper.
“He told us to send Chaim in, to wait outside,” said Weiss, who noted Chaim never shared details of the ten minute conversation with him.
When confronted recently by a PIX 11 reporter outside his Lakewood home and questioned why Weiss might have called home from camp, Rabbi Cooper said that he didn’t know anything. Asked about his meeting with Chaim later that summer in his home, Rabbi Cooper refused to respond, walking into his house and closing the door.
Weiss said that he had another disturbing encounter with Rabbi Cooper that took place during a lawsuit filed he filed charging the yeshiva with failing to adequately protect his son. According to Weiss, Rabbi Cooper suggested that perhaps Weiss’s bad deeds could have been the cause of the family’s misfortune.
“It shocks me to today,” said Weiss. “What do you think? I stole something? I did something? I killed something?”
Having ruled out a janitor who left the school shortly after the Weiss murder, a mentally ill drifter and the possibility that Chaim’s death could have been a Halloween prank gone horribly wrong, police believe that the murderer was someone associated with the school.
Rabbi Yeruchom Pitter, who was the yeshiva’s dean in 1986 and is still employed by the school, said that the Nassau County Police Department spent over a full year interviewing everyone who might have contact with Chaim. His wife Reena told PIX 11 that their family believed that the murderer was one of the janitors.
Former Long Beach student Eli Kushner said that Chaim appears to have been targeted. Chaim’s third floor room, where he was just one of two students in the yeshiva who had no roommates, was difficult to access.
“They must have known exactly where this kid was because you had to go through a lot of different rooms to find him and you had to pass a lot of kids to get to this kid,” said Kushner. “This wasn’t some Halloween prank. This was somebody trying to get back at the family or get back at the kid.”
Kushner recalled the chaos that ensued in the dormitory when Chaim’s body was discovered on that fall Shabbos morning.
“The dorm counselor found him,” said Kushner, who later passed a lie detector test administered by detectives investigating the case. “I remember him telling everyone, ‘Get out of here. We got to call the cops!’”
Kushner said that students were forbidden to talk to anyone until after Shabbos. The fact that no one has still come forward with any information has not gone over well with Nassau County Police Department.
“How could this happen and nobody hear or say anything? Somebody’s got a secret,” observed Captain John Azzata of the Nassau County Police Department at a 2015 press conference.
Weiss said that he is hoping that someone will come forward with new information in the case.
“His soul’s not resting until we know what happened,” said Weiss. “My heart cries for Chaim constantly.”
Detectives at the Nassau County Police Department did not immediately return calls for comment on the matter.
Anyone with any information on the Weiss murder is asked to call the NCPD at 1-800-244-TIPS.
Very sad story, its posible the killer is no longer alive either, who knows, but something smells rotten here between those Rabbis
Come on VIN we all know what happened . Let’s not play dumb. It’s sad but there are lots of stories like this one , it was just covered up
Something smells here!! It could be the rabbis or it could also be the rabbis protecting a guilty kid! They may even know who thew guilty party is and that is a shanda!!
I am exactly Chaim Weiss’s age so when the story became public and there were rumors that it might have been somebody from the yeshiva I didn’t really understand how that could happen and brushed aside that possibility. However, now that I am older and have dealt with many yeshivas I’ve learned that humans are fallible and thats why we have the Torah. My heart goes out to the Weiss family there are no words to describe their pain…may you be comforted among the mourners of Zion.
a few points
headline is deceiving
the article does not give any new clues this case was intensly worked on for a year.
the unimaginable pain of the parents is real , but because of a lack of good answers doesn’t chas veshalom mean foul play . can anyone remember ever a bochur getting killed thru a member of hahnahla. 15 yr old wanting to come home from camp ( horim was a heavy learning camp , and a bochur away in europe and a mashgiach calls to see how he is makes sense. as far as the police being frustrated 30 years ago things were diff in the frum world, one can only imagine the horror and panic of some bochurim making a gruesome discovery alone in a dorm thats a house on shabbos so messing up the crime scene was temimus of putting the niftar on the floor opening window….lastly nistarim darkei hashem and the neshomoh is at piece bginzei meromim thei nishmoso tzerurah ..
The dorm counselor took a lie detector test. Did anyone else? I hope the truth will some day soon come out.
Outsider police have a difficult time in an insular community.
The boy was holding in information that disturbed him. He was murdered so that he could no longer talk and incriminate that person. He was most likely killed by an adult who worked in the Yeshiva, and most likely several people know who the main suspect is, but they chose not to fill in the police on it.
There are a lot of fools who don’t know the halachas of mesira. In general it is not an issur of mesira to give the police info on a suspected Jewish murderer. The people who had info are actually guilty of Al tamod al dom reacha. Because the murderer most likely went on to harm more people. The murderer needed to be stopped.
This is a double or triple tragedy. The main tragedy that he was murdered. The second tragedy that the murderer wasn’t caught. And the likely third tragedy that the murderer was covering up.
It seems obvious that Chaim Weiss was a witness to something untoward either in the camp or in the school or both. My guess is either he witnessed or was the victim of homosexual behavior or molestation, by a rebbi or student, or he was a witness to illegal drug use,or he was a witness to possession of pornographic material which in a yeshiva would be grounds for expulsion. Therefore someone decided to silence him in order to protect themselves. Thus my title the witness has been silenced. This would seem to be a rather easy case to solve and the fact that the Nassau County Police have been unable to solve it has to raise the question of official corruption and whether they may have been paid off to not solve it. The alternative is that they are just incompetent which is also not a far stretch. The question I have is why the yeshiva or one of its alumni never hired a private eye to get to the bottom of this. Don’t you want justice for Chaim and his family?????? We also have to wonder if there is any connection between Chaims murder and the supposed suicide by hanging in the shower a few years prior by another student in the same school in that schools dorm.
You got to feel bad for the father poor dad.does Rabbi’s are dirty
I would like to suggest a possible angle of investigation that may not have been tried in the past .
It is almost certain this could not have happened had Chaim been in a room with other boys as opposed to the single person room he was in .
I wish we can hear from the person responsible for assigning rooms that semester .
Was it happenstance that he was assigned to that room or was there a specific reason for it . Was there any directive from any member of the Hanhala regarding the choice of room .
I wish one of the kindhearted philanthropists in Klal Yisroel would offer a substantial award for information leading to the solving of this case .
It can be set up anonymously through the local crime stoppers .
That may be the bit that’s needed to persuade anyone who knows to talk .
Aside from it being a personal tragedy for the family it is also a national trauma to all of Klal Yisroel . We all need closure ,which cannot come until the case is resolved .
Unfortunately, the Youtube video has been removed. Please see the video titled, “Dad of 15 year old killed in Long Beach Yeshiva Dorm….” The asinine behavior of the rabbonim who were at the school back then won’t escape you! Please repost the video. The community has a right to know who are rabbonim and mechanchim are!
Replying in general to the comments here, it seems that the body was discovered Saturday (01-nov-1986). Even if in shock, it is clearly very unlikely that those who found the body would have lit a yahrzeit candle (aside from being Shabbos, who carries a yahrzeit candle around?)
Thus that alone is more than just suspicious (and then add the other things – body moved and window open on a cold November Day, etc).
There were members of the staff that other researchers have uncovered. As example, one alleged (at the time young) member of the staff was later allegedly arrested (in 2014) for possession of child pornography.
clearly someone on the inside killed or approved of him getting killed, no question about it. unfortunately due to people saying mesira and loshon hora nobody speaks and the actual murder is actually literally getting away with murder.
Too many of you are just Yentas, that are totally clueless, I was friendly with Chaim z’l and know everyone who was in MLB at the time. Including the layout of the 63 dorm. Every buchur was polygraphed even though the polygraph is not scientific and means nothing at all. it has no standing in court.
I do criticize the cops for wasting time assuming it was an “inside job” rather than following up on other possible clues which have since gone cold.
Their lack of understanding of our culture was blatant, and they refused to involve the FBI from the start. But all of you that are claiming that the Hanhala did it are total idiots that know nothing about the people involved.
Wow all the chachomim and arm chair detectives here! Extremely unlikely anyone in the faculty or yeshiva did it. Rather it was unfortunate bad luck that the killer looked and found a room with only one occupant and killed him. It happened on hollowen by someone outside the school. The candle was put there to throw people off. This is presumably what’s happened. But who really knows. The family should no no more pain.
This article provides no new information and is just trying to paint Rabbi Cooper in a negative light. I know him very well and I know he would never say anything to the father that it was because of his sins! It shows the whole article is made up. He is one of the greatest people I know and I am so grateful to have him as a mentor and as my Rabbi!
Why would the Yeshiva continue right after a murder?? Weren’t the students and the administration afraid that the killer was loose and could strike again?? Something here just doesn’t add up!
It was probably the rosh yeshiva because chaim found out he was really the head of a mafia family running the business under cover of the yeshiva actually the whole hanhala were part of his mafia family and the police were being bribed to make it look like a yeshiva and cover up the obvious mafia murder they killed him there because they forgot to bring the cement shoes to throw him in the east river
From the interview and and article is not so clear the circumstances of the calls and meeting and the trip to Europe . If anyone out there can elaborate please do .
Was the trip taken during Bein Hazmanim or at a time when school was in session ? If it was during session was it taken with knowledge and permission of the school ? Can it be that the principals call was simply to get the meaning of the of the unexplained absence ? If so why a second call after the father already explained ? Additionally there is no mention regarding circumstances and the lead up and to the meeting. If the school is in Long Beach how is it that Chaim was meeting in Brooklyn ? Was this after he returned from Europe but before he went back to school . Who’s initiative was the meeting ? If it was initiated by the principal how did he frame it during the presumed phone conversation requesting the meeting ? Was the meeting a condition before he can return to school ?
here some more details to this case:
First off there were a few murders in this same way in Long Beach that summer
2. Chaim did have a run in with that fired janitor who moved to poland and has died since
3. A year earlier a different boy commit suicide
4. It was also Halloween night
5. Chaim was butcher with kne strong blow to the head
6. Only one boy heard a noise, someone had opened his dorm room and shut it
7. Is it possible a mofia enemy?
8. A yeshiva boy was allegedly walking on the beach at 7:30 am
He was never identified
9. why was chaim in a room alone
10. There was blood everywhere
Its weird that not one drop inrest of the bldg? This was a professional criminal who knew what he was doing
11. And the freakiest clues of all
Chaims body was on the floor and the window open
12. The room was sealed off but yet a week later, a lit yarzeit candle( no finger prints?)
13. Why wasnt the yeshiva anxious to help?
14. Were there any teachers later found to be molestors?
15. Someone engraved backwards hebrew letters on chaims grave
16. Someone sent a very freaky easter joke card about death
I honestly think it was the janitor
They didnt get along
The janitor was fired
And right before he left to poland
….,,,,,