CHICAGO — A Will County landlord will be sentenced Friday for the murder of 6-year-old Wadee Alfayoumi and attempted murder of the boy’s mother in October 2023, an attack a jury found to be a hate crime spurred by the war in Gaza.

Joseph Czuba, 73, faces up to life in prison for fatally stabbing the kindergartener, who was Palestinian-American.

A Will County jury deliberated for just over an hour in February before reaching a guilty verdict. Czuba, who did not testify during the four-day trial, displayed no visible signs of emotion when the verdict was read.

His sentencing will be a somber conclusion to a case that drew national attention to spiking Islamophobia against Palestinians and Muslims in the wake of the Israel-Hamas war. The war broke out about a week before Czuba attacked the boy and his mother, Hanan Shaheen, in the home they shared with him and his wife in Plainfield Township.

Czuba’s wife, who was not home at the time of the attacks, divorced him after his arrest and testified against him at trial.

Wadee spent the last morning of his life eating breakfast, helping his mother change the sheets on their beds and playing an educational cell phone game, according to his mother’s testimony. Then Czuba knocked on the door and pushed Shaheen when she opened it.

Shaheen testified during the trial that she believed she was dying during the attack, and locked herself in the bathroom to tell a 911 dispatcher “(Czuba is) killing my baby with a knife” as her son screamed in the next room.

The last words she heard him say were “oh no.”

Authorities found the 62-pound kindergartener lying on a bed with 26 stab wounds. Czuba had left the knife in his body.

Former President Joseph R. Biden named Wadee in a national address weeks after the war broke out, calling the boy “a proud American” and exhorting listeners not to “stand by and stand silent” when they witnessed Islamaphobic and anti-semitic behavior, which rose following the war’s outbreak.

Advocates hailed Czuba’s conviction as a welcome, expected punctuation to a case so wrenching it brought police to tears on the witness stand. But still, they warned, Wadee’s life and death proved the deadly consequences of “hate-filled rhetoric.” Though Wadee and his mother had lived with Czuba and his wife as tenants for nearly two years when the war began, Czuba only became hostile to them after becoming “heavily interested” in the war — telling Shaheen that her people were killing Jews and babies and likening his tenants to “infested rats” shortly after he was arrested.

Shaheen testified that she had no issues with Czuba until the Israel-Hamas war began. After the Oct. 7 attacks, he grew angry with her because she was Muslim and was from Jerusalem, she said.

She said Czuba told her “Muslims are not welcome here.”

He demanded she move out of the home, Shaheen told jurors. Czuba — who also withdrew $1,000 from the bank in case financial systems were affected by the war — said he needed to rent her rooms to a friend.

Shaheen said she assured him she was looking for a place. She also told him to “pray for peace.”

On Oct. 14, 2023, Czuba knocked on Shaheen’s door and physically pushed her after she answered, she said.

“I told you to move out of my home,” Czuba told her, Shaheen testified, adding he was screaming about the war.

She said he also climbed on top of her and tried to strangle her. He stabbed her multiple times in the chest, mouth, neck, across her cheek and near her eye, according to authorities.

At one point, Shaheen testified Czuba told Wadee that Czuba and his wife would raise him but that he could never tell anyone that Czuba killed his mom.

Shaheen said she fought back during the attack but believed she was dying. She wasn’t seeing clearly and was swallowing blood, she said.

She was able to lock herself in the bathroom and call 911. That’s when he began attacking Wadee, she said.

“He’s killing my baby with a knife,” Shaheen told the dispatcher, according to a recording played in court.

After Czuba attacked Shaheen, he turned his anger towards Wadee, prosecutors said, stabbing him 26 times and leaving the knife with its 7-inch blade in his body.

Police testified they found Czuba lying on the ground in the yard. After his arrest, Czuba was captured on a police camera saying Wadee and Shaheen made him fear for his life.

“I begged her to get out for three days,” Czuba says on the recording. “She would not leave.”

Wadee loved basketball, soccer and Legos, according to his family.

“I will always remember him with pride,” Wadee’s father’s said.

____

©2025 Chicago Tribune. Visit at chicagotribune.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.