Criminal penalty Life Role Serial Killer Victims 4 Convictions Murder | Country Israel Date apprehended May 29, 2005 Name Nicolai Bonner | |
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Born 1972 (age 42–43) Moldova Other names Haifa serial killerThe Homeless Murderer Span of killings February, 2005–May, 2005 Similar Elias Abuelazam, Yigal Amir, Ami Popper | ||
Nicolai Bonner (born 1972) is a Moldovan-born Israeli serial killer, convicted for the killing of 4 people in Haifa between February and May 2005. Bonner murdered four other immigrants from the former Soviet Union, was arrested in 2007 and received a life sentence.
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Bonner has been called Israel's first serial killer.
Background
Nicolai Bonner was born in 1972 and raised in the Moldovan SSR, Soviet Union, to non-Jewish parents, but was eligible to immigrate to Israel under the Law of Return because his wife was Jewish. Bonner and his wife had emigrated from Moldova to Israel under the scheme in 2000 and gained their citizenship. However, Bonner's wife died of tuberculosis in 2003, and after her death he developed severe alcoholism and his emotional state deteriorated rapidly.
Murders
In 2005, Bonner requested a leave of absence from his job at a pipe factory in Jaffa, during which he committed his first murder in February. The victim, Rita Wolman, had immigrated to Israel from Russia and invited Bonner into her home for unknown reasons, where he raped and killed Wolman, then set her corpse on fire. Over the next three months Bonner killed three more people: Alexander Levant, Alexander Kars, and Valeri Soznov, all of whom were homeless immigrants to Israel from the former Soviet Union, and former drinking partners of Bonner. The corpses of the men, who had been stabbed or beaten to death and then set on fire, were gradually discovered in an industrial area of Haifa. Police did not begin to suspect a serial killer until the third body, that of Valeri Soznov, was discovered, as in every case the bodies were beaten and bruised, and attempts had been made to set them on fire. Two months after his first murder, police began to link Bonner to the murders.
On May 29, 2005, Bonner was arrested, and on May 6, 2007 was sentenced to life imprisonment; 4 consecutive life terms for the four murders, and an additional 17 years imprisonment for other crimes: 5 years for attempted murder, 9 years for aggravated rape, and 3 years for other charges including aggravated assault and interfering with judicial proceedings.