Plainfield Hate Crime Murder Trial Underway: Jury Picked

JOLIET — Joseph Czuba, the 73-year-old Plainfield landlord charged with first-degree murder and hate crimes, greeted about 60 potential members of his Will County jury pool on Monday by standing up in Courtroom 405 and telling everyone, "Good morning."

Monday marked the start of jury selection for Czuba, who faces eight felony charges in connection with the Oct. 14, 2023, fatal stabbing of 6-year-old Wadee Alfayoumi and injuring his mother, Hanan Shaheen. By late afternoon, the jury was picked, so the trial can start on Tuesday.

“As the trial begins, Hanan Shaheen continues the unimaginable fight for justice for Wadee," remarked nationally renowned civil rights and personal injury attorney Ben Crump in a press release issued Monday night. "No mother should have to endure such a violent attack and the unimaginable loss of her young son. Despite the grief and heartbreak, Hanan continues to pray for accountability and fairness in this process. We have confidence in the prosecution’s efforts to earn justice for Wadee and Hanan. We ask the media to respect Hanan’s privacy throughout this trial, as she focuses on honoring her son’s memory and getting him the justice he deserves.”

The lawyers for the prosecution will make their opening statements to the jury at 10:30 a.m. on Tuesday. The prosecution consists of Mike Fitzgerald, Christopher Koch and Christine Vukmir, three of State's Attorney Jim Glasgow's most experienced criminal trial lawyers.

Prosecutors contend Czuba tried to kill the young boy and his mother because they were Muslim.

The jury trial is in Courtroom 405 of Will County's longest serving judge, Amy Bertani-Tomczak. She said she expects the trial would be done by next Monday, March 3, or, this Friday, Feb. 28.

Potential jurors learned that Czuba faces three counts of first-degree murder, one count of attempted first-degree murder, two counts of aggravated battery and two counts of hate crime.

Will County Sheriff's Police and prosecutors argue that on the morning of Oct. 14, 2023, Czuba knocked on Shaheen's bedroom door — one of the two rooms she rented in a Plainfield Township house shared by Czuba and his wife — and began arguing with her over the war between Israel and Hamas. The argument turned physical, and Czuba proceeded to stab her about a dozen times before turning on her son, prosecutors argue.

Just eight days after celebrating his sixth birthday, Wadee was stabbed 26 times and pronounced dead at a Joliet hospital.

On Oct. 16, 2023, prosecutor Fitzgerald revealed in court that the murder defendant's wife, Mary, was not home at the time of the stabbings. She told detectives following the incident that her husband "listens to conservative talk radio on a regular basis" and reiterated that Hanan is Palestinian, according to Fitzgerald.

Joseph Czuba feared, his wife told sheriff's deputies, that Shaheen would gather her Palestinian friends or family to attack him and his wife, Fitzgerald said.

Fitzgerald outlined the following details during the October 2023 detention hearing:

• In the days leading up to Saturday's stabbings, Joseph Czuba had withdrawn $1,000 in cash out of fear that the United States' power grid would go down.
• Czuba talked to his wife about a “national day of Jihad” occurring on Oct. 13, 2023.
• "Joe told her there was an event that would occur on Oct. 14, 2023, but did not explain what that was," Fitzgerald remarked.
• Shaheen and her son, Wadee, had rented two rooms from Czuba for two years. They shared the house along with Czuba and his wife. Prior to the attack, Wadee's mother had not had difficulties with Joseph Czuba but said he was an "angry man," Fitzgerald said.

Back on Oct. 7, 2023, war broke out in Israel after the terrorist militant organization Hamas launched an assault on the Middle Eastern country.

When Will County sheriff's deputies found Czuba in his backyard at 16201 S. Lincoln Highway, he was lying on his back with a laceration on his forehead. He sat up and put his hands behind his back when deputies recovered a knife holster strapped to his body and several pocketknives near his feet, Fitzgerald revealed.

RELATED: Read Patch's coverage of the murder case

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