Yelena Gerenberg, 27, was identified as the woman murdered on Thursday in Rishon Lezion. Her suspected killer, identified as 29-year-old Jason Blaze, tried to take his own life with pills before police showed up at his house. He was taken to the Shamir Medical Center in Tzrifin for care as Israel Police opened an investigation.
Gerenberg's body was found in an orchard by a passerby, but police suspect that she did not die where she was found but that she was brought there after she was killed.
הותר לפרסום: ילנה גרנברג היא הצעירה שנרצחה היום ברחובותלידיעה המלאה >> https://t.co/SXnyzSWDPUשימוש לפיי סעיף 27א לחוק זכויות יוצרים pic.twitter.com/6dyKjICdVi
— עכשיו 14 (@Now14Israel) August 25, 2022
"I drove in with my lights on and saw a girl lying on the ground," the man who found her told N12. "I thought she was high. I honked my horn and saw that she wasn't moving. I looked closer and saw blood stains on her pants and on the ground, so I understood that something isn't right, and I called the police."
Medical officials pronounced her dead upon arriving at the scene.
"Yesterday, we were supposed to meet with our big brother in the evening, and I said I would cook something," said Gerenberg's sister Nadia.
She added that Blaze was supposed to come too.
"They were good friends, and he was in love with her. He would drive her everywhere." According to Nadia, her sister wanted the two to remain friends and they would fight often because Blaze was frustrated and wanted a romantic relationship with her.
"She was late, and then she told me she was held up because she wasn't feeling well. She said they stopped at the side of the road and he cried."
Nadia said she was sure Blaze stabbed her sister after she saw the body with signs of violence.
A hearing was held at the Magistrate’s Court on Friday from which Blaze was absent because he was still in hospital, and his arrest was extended until Sunday. Police are conducting several investigative operations in the Rehovot area and its surroundings, collecting forensic evidence.
The funeral was set to take place on Friday at 2 p.m.
Israel Police officials comment on the incident
Rehovot Station Commander Ch.-Supt. Dodi Miron said police received the first report about the discovery of the body at around 5 a.m. on Thursday.
“Rehovot Police arrived at the scene, began an investigation, and it was decided that it would later be assigned to the Central Police Unit,” Miron said.
"Rehovot police arrived at the scene, began an investigation, and it was decided that it would later be assigned to the Central Police Unit."
Chief Superintendent Dodi Miron
After a situational assessment by Central Police District head Asst.-Ch. Avi Biton, it was determined that the investigation would be conducted by the Central Police Unit as a top priority, a police statement said.
"I am brokenhearted about Yelena Gerenberg, another victim of the gender terrorism that is running wild," wrote Transportation Minister Merav Michaeli in a tweet on Friday. "Security is the fight against all forms of terrorism including that in which women are murdered by the men who are closest to them. My deepest condolences to the family. We will not stop the fight until we uproot this terrorism."
It's heartbreaking that once again a young woman has been murdered by an obsessive man who refused to accept her wish not to be in a relationship with him," said Chairwoman of the Organization for Families of Murder Victims Lara Zinman. "All the signs of the danger he posed were on the surface: The obsessive want to win the affection of the object of his love, his despondent mood and threats to commit suicide."
Zinman added that "these murder incidents join the number of murder cases in which young women who never experienced any violence from their partners which is why they weren't scared of meeting with them and were sure that they could support and ease the obsession and soften the parting."