Amnon Cohen

Case record: Amnon Cohen

Timeline

• July 23, 1999 — A 43-year-old taxi driver burned his wife and two children, ages 4 and 2, to death in their Tel Aviv apartment.
• July 2000 — Amnon Cohen received three life sentences.

Background

Amnon Cohen was a 43-year-old taxi driver. He suspected his wife was having a “virtual affair” with someone over the Internet. Cohen and his wife argued frequently.

Cohen was in police custody at the time of the incident.

The offence

On July 23, 1999, Cohen murdered his wife, Suzanne Leah, and their children, Yair (four) and Yael (two), in their Tel Aviv apartment.

Cohen stabbed and strangled his family as they were sleeping. He then doused their bodies with turpentine and set them on fire.

Investigation

Neighbors reported that Cohen and his wife argued frequently and that he suspected his wife was having a “virtual affair” with someone over the Internet.

A computer technician who was hired by Cohen to access his wife’s e-mail correspondence because Cohen suspected her of having an affair was able to confirm Cohen’s suspicions.

Arrest

Cohen was lightly injured in the fire and was in police custody. He confessed and re-enacted the crime for police on Sunday, the morning after he stabbed and strangled his wife and their son Yair and daughter Yael in their sleep and set the flat on fire.

Firemen burst into the blazing flat and found the three bodies in flames.

Police had been called around midnight after Cohen phoned another cabby and sent a suicide note to two newspapers.

When firemen burst into the blazing flat, they found the three bodies in flames. The report said it was difficult to tell whether there were two of the children or one because the children’s bodies were burning.

Cohen was in the bathroom with a rope around his neck after taking 90 blood pressure pills.

Trial

A magistrate remanded Mr Cohen in custody.

At court, the defence lawyer Moshe Meroz suggested that the shock of Cohen’s wife’s betrayal had triggered memories of two traumatic experiences from Cohen’s own childhood. It was stated that when Cohen was six months old, his father accused his mother of infidelity; she responded by burning down their home and killing herself.

Sentencing

Cohen received three life sentences.

Outcome

Cohen was sentenced to three life sentences in July 2000.

Aftermath

The victims were buried.

Cohen wrote a suicide note attached to a computer printout of his wife’s online conversations with her virtual lover and photographs of his children. In the letter Cohen sent to newspaper offices—which arrived a half hour after the incident—Cohen wrote he intended to kill his family and commit suicide.

Cohen wrote:

“My wife has been behaving strangely for months,”
“It turns out she found a lover on the computer. I read what she wrote to him... Virtual infidelity is still infidelity.”

He also wrote:

“I did not want to leave my children in your cruel world. I grew up an orphan and I suffered indescribably. I know ... what it is like to grow up without parents or family.”

Other details

Suzanne Leah was 39.

Cohen strangled his son Yair (four) and daughter Yael (two) in their sleep and set the flat on fire. The case summary stated that Cohen “smothered his children in their sleep and murdered his wife in cold blood.”