Joseph Czuba, the Illinois landlord who murdered a 6-year-old Palestinian-American boy and wounded the boy’s mother, died in the custody of the Illinois Department of Corrections on July 24, Kevin Hedemark, the public information officer at the Will County Sheriff’s Office in Joliet, Ill., told JNS.
Hedemark referred questions about the cause of death to the Illinois Department of Corrections.
Czuba, 73, was sentenced in February to 53 years in prison for murder, attempted murder and hate-crime charges relating to the attack, which occurred on Oct. 14, 2023—a week after the Hamas-led terrorist attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7.
At the time of Czuba’s arrest, the sheriff’s office stated that he targeted Wadea Al-Fayoume and his mother, Hanaan Shahin, who were tenants in an apartment building that he ran, due to their Muslim faith “and the ongoing Middle Eastern conflict involving Hamas and the Israelis.”
