Hill of Secrets: An Israeli Jewish mystery novel (28 page)

"I wanted to be normal so much… for years I felt like I didn't belong to the human race and I thought that if I started a family, then my life would be much simpler, that I’d be busy with routine life. It was very hard for me to approach girls; most of them immediately sensed that something wasn’t right with me. Even if I managed to get through the first two or three dates, I couldn't fake enthusiasm, which is necessary at the beginning of a relationship."

"So how did you manage to do it with Dina?"

"When I met Dina I was already twenty-four and she was barely twenty. She was very young and inexperienced and I felt as if I was a hundred. I think Dina liked me from the start. She was looking for someone quiet, and I practically took a vow of silence. Dina didn't give up on me. She misinterpreted my lack of enthusiasm that distanced other girls so much."

"How could you tie your fate with a girl that you didn't even love?"

"I’ve no idea how many people marry out of love. I can tell you that I'm certain that a considerable number of couples don't marry out of love. Apart from the sexual issue, Dina and I were a great match. We had a good life together. I don't know how to call it, love or concern, but I definitely care very much about that woman."

"Weren't you afraid that you would become part of an incest situation?"

He took a deep breath and exhaled loudly. "If you only knew how stressed I was about the pregnancy! I prayed… I just prayed day and night that I would have girls."

"Why?"

"I've never been attracted to girls—not women and not girls. I was afraid that if I had a little boy in the house I wouldn't be able to contain myself."

"You have three girls."

"Thank God." Tears came to his eyes again.

"Why? It sounds like you managed to control yourself for years. Did you do anything during that time?"

"Nothing. I never harmed a child."

"And what happened then?"

"The internet—that's what happened. I know it's very superficial to blame the Internet for something that was in me, but until I was exposed to child pornography online, I didn't truly release my most secret desires."

"How exactly did the internet free you?"

"Like most people—especially men—that started surfing the net, I immediately looked for pornography. As time went on, the Internet became more open and it was easier to find what you were looking for. At first, it was hard to find child porn. I would make do with pictures and homosexual movies where one of the actors is very young or looks very young. Later, I got pictures and movies of children."

"How did you feel downloading these movies?"

"I can't say I felt great, but I'd be lying if I told you I felt bad. First of all, I wasn't the one who shot these films."

"You didn't feel like an accomplice?"

"No, quite the contrary. The fact that there’s so much material and so many views of it encouraged me. For the first time in years I felt like I wasn't alone in the world—that there were other people who felt like me. The Internet encouraged me in that sense. I sometimes went on legitimate gay and straight portals because I was interested to see what other people were watching and I discovered that movies where one or both of the participants looks like a young boy or girl—I mean, much younger than their real age—were the most watched. I think there's a lot of hypocrisy about it. People denounce pedophilia but are curious about it."

"And at some point, did you move on from passively watching to actively playing it out?"

"Yes." He answered plainly.

"Will you elaborate on that?"

"The movies I watched online really aroused me. I walked around in a daze, I thought about children all of the time. I felt like I had no life, that my perversion was controlling me. And then I went on a long weekend in Prague with Dina. It was about six months before Noga, our youngest, was born. I was far from home—I felt like I couldn't take it anymore and that if I was succumbing to the urge I might as well do it somewhere where it would be harder to find me out. I think I knew I was going to do it as soon as we got on the plane. I was lucky. Dina wasn't feeling well and I had quite a bit of time to walk around alone. My father's father is from Czechoslovakia. All of his family, including a wife and three kids, perished in the Holocaust, so I felt like this was my small revenge."

I was amazed at how Yigal managed to morally justify his horrible actions.

"Anyway, in one of my wanders through the city I passed by a playground. I managed to lure one of the kids there with candy and an electronic game. It was a boy of about eight."

"How did he even understand you?"

"I told you, my grandfather is from there, I knew a bit of Czech from home. I managed to get him to come behind the bushes with me."

"And what did you do?"

"I raped him." He said in a strangled voice. 

"And how did you feel?"

"Amazing… since that romance in twelfth grade I hadn't experienced that kind of sexual release."

"And didn't you feel for the boy?"

"I managed to distance myself from it, especially because he was Czech and I felt like it was revenge."

"And what happened after this? Did you continue to rape kids?"

He started crying. He couldn't calm down.

After a long while he sobbed and said, "I couldn't do anything else, it was stronger than me."

Thursday, 6.4.2009

Yigal’s confession lasted hours. He began it on Wednesday afternoon and finished the next day. A significant part of the time, he was crying and trying to excuse his acts with the fact that his tendency was stronger than him and he had no real control over his actions. He compared himself to homosexuals a number of times, in the sense that they’re born with that sexual tendency, like him.

I didn’t argue with him. I didn’t even try to explain to him that his inherent tendency was hurting children and was missing the element of consent that exists in sexual relations between same sex adults. I didn’t tell him that although he was born with this tendency, like any innate tendency that harms a person and his surroundings, he should have gotten treatment and not let it control his life.

After the eventful visit to Czechoslovakia, Yigal began performing indecent acts on children. It started out as small, covert masturbation in playgrounds, continued on to using kids to help him reach climax through masturbation and oral sex and ended at fully sodomizing children. In the beginning of his life as an active pedophile, he was overcome with guilt and decided to give back to the community to pay for his actions. He began volunteering in children’s oncology units as a clown and magician.

What started off as a volunteer activity, mostly to ease his conscience, became a paid hobby when he began receiving invitations to entertain at birthday parties. What started off as an activity to ease his conscience quickly became an excellent platform for his perversion. The kids in the neighborhood knew and trusted him.

In those hours Yigal told me of about twenty-five boys who fell victim to his acts in the past nine years. Some of them were already legally adults. He liked them at about nine years old, although there were a few slightly older boys and even some younger ones. A substantial number of the boys were from his neighborhood and they were repeated victims. Others were random, one-time victims. Horridly, two of the children from the oncology unit were also on the list of victims.

He remembered or knew only some of the children’s names, but chillingly, remembered his actions. He testified that he only performed indecent acts on most of the children. Four children, who were repeat victims of his, he sodomized on a routine basis. Since he was experienced in the world of children, he could recognize those who would keep his secret. He carefully selected his victims, buying their trust with gifts and flattery, and even threats.

*

His testimony was enough to serve an indictment, but we knew that in order to get to a conviction, we would have to get to the victims as well. After Yigal was through with his confession, three teams of youth investigators accompanied by social workers began talking to the victims.

I joined the first team that went to the Katz family in Givaat Shmuel. Their sixteen-year-old son, Boaz, was a victim of Yigal's, about six years earlier. Boaz was one of the four kids who were routine victims of Yigal's.

We arrived at the Katz home in the early afternoon. Boaz, a tenth grade student in the Ramat Gan Yeshiva high school, had not yet come home. Boaz's two younger siblings, boy and girl twins, nine-years-old, were playing a video game when we knocked on their door and turned their world upside down.

Nava Katz opened the door and was shocked to face two police officers and a social worker. After we calmed her by saying that everything was okay and there was no accident, we asked to speak to her in private.

Asaf, the youth investigator and Tzila the social worker waited in the living room while Nava and I went into Boaz's room. At first she had no idea why we had entered her house and life like this. When she sat across from me on Boaz's sofa bed, she sat tall and rigid, and within seconds lost control of her body, which folded as if I had punched her.

The truth is, she was probably hit much harder than a punch.

I don't, and probably never will, have children, but I can't imagine a pain more terrible than that when a parent discovers their own child has experienced such horrible abuse. A few minutes earlier Nava Katz had four allegedly happy children, and suddenly she discovered her second child, so introverted and beloved, was the victim of a dangerous pedophile. After crying for a long while, she looked at me with an angry, red glare and demanded to know who this horrible monster was.

I explained to her that right now I couldn’t disclose his name and identity, but later on in the investigation his identity would probably be revealed. We went to the living room. Nava drank some water and calmed down. Maybe she was hoping this was all a mistake and that her son was nobody's victim. She sat between the twins and caressed their heads.

Boaz came home about forty-five minutes after we had arrived, a slim and handsome young man, a thin mustache over his upper lip. He was no longer attractive to Yigal, who admitted he had stopped contacting Boaz about four years earlier. The abuse had gone on for two years.

He stood in the living room; a large backpack was on his shoulders, looking bewildered at Tzila, Asaf and me.

His mother got up slowly from the couch, went to him, helped him take the backpack off his back and told him almost in a whisper that there were police officers here that wanted to talk to him.

Tzila and Asaf went into Boaz's room with him, while Nava and I waited anxiously in the living room.

A few moments later, we heard heart-wrenching crying. It was Boaz. Nava immediately jumped to her feet and I stood up beside her, keeping her from going into the room. She put her head on my shoulder and cried hysterically.

Her life had been changed forever in that moment.

*

Boaz’s interrogation was relatively simple and easy. Although he was among the kids who’d experienced more serious abuse, he was already relatively mature and easier to question. He was also not an active victim of Yigal’s, so his trauma wasn’t as recent and painful as in the case of younger boys who were interrogated.

All of the children we spoke to were brought to the police station and all of them identified Yigal with certainty as the one who had his way with them. At first, we didn’t disclose Yigal’s identity. Even the outraged parents, who wanted to know his identity, were kept in the dark. We wanted a clean indictment, and releasing Yigal’s name and picture before a standard line-up could hurt the chances of conviction. The parents and children were requested not tell anyone the story of the abuse. Some of them realized this was a serial rapist.
None of them had any intention of exposing any of it. The wounds were far too personal and painful.

Tuesday, 6.9.2009

Five days later, all of the boys Yigal remembered and knew their identity, most of them residents of Givaat Shmuel, had interrogated and identified Yigal. We had four rape victims and another ten victims of repeated or one-time sexual abuse. According to Yigal there were other boys, whose names he didn’t recall or know.

At noon we held a press conference, the objective of which was to release Yigal’s identity in order to reach more children. This was not necessarily for the indictment, but so they could then be helped to get over their trauma, and those around them could be made aware that they had gone through such experiences. We knew we would have no choice but to also expose Meir’s extortion. Yigal and Meir lived near one another, so it would be too strange a coincidence if, three weeks after Meir killed his entire family and committed suicide, we revealed that another resident of that same neighborhood was a serial sex offender.

This was my first press conference. I decided to play it safe and wore my uniform. That way my mother wouldn’t have anything to say about my outfit. The press room was packed. They knew they were finally going to get some answers about the Danilowitz case and what their neighbor had to do with the case. They didn’t imagine this was only part of what I would be telling them.

I sat in front of the cameras and the dozens of reporters crammed into the small hall. The station’s media officer quieted everyone down.

Alon, who was standing beside me approached the microphones and said that in recent days the Danilowitz family murder case has taken a turn. He presented me and called me to the mic.

I got up from my seat. I was shaking all over, excited by the occasion and what I was about to say.

“Hello everyone,” I said in a slightly hoarse voice. I cleared my throat and went on. “Three weeks ago we found the bodies of the Danilowitz family: Meir, Hanni and their three small children, Ariel, Galit and Noa, shot in their apartment in Givaat Shmuel. All of the immediate suspicions led us to the unequivocal conclusion that Meir killed the other family members and then took his own life. The investigation of the case focused on ruling out the possibility of an external killer, and to discover as well as we could, the motive for this extreme act.

“During the investigation, we discovered the couple was facing financial hardship, which led to Mr. Danilowitz’s desperate act. As most of you already know, last week we arrested another resident of the neighborhood, Mr. Yigal Einav. I want to clarify that Mr. Einav has no connection to the horrid murder and that all signs still point to the fact that Mr. Danilowitz is the one who took the lives of his family, and then his own. During our investigation we discovered that due to severe financial problems, Mr. Danilowitz began extorting Mr. Einav, after discovering that he is a sex offender.”

I stopped and looked at the crowd of reporters. They were looking at me with shocked gazes.

“This week, Mr. Einav has been interrogated and has admitted his actions. According to his confession, he has raped and performed indecent acts on over twenty children, aged nine to twelve, in the last nine years. Ten of these children have been questioned and have identified the suspect this week.”

There was whispering among the crowd of reporters and the media officer had to quiet them down so I could finish.

“In order for us to be able to reach as many of his victims as possible, we have decided to reveal the story and the suspect’s identity. In the next few days, psychologists and social workers will visit schools in the appropriate residential areas. The police and social services will do everything in their power to help the victims and their families overcome this trauma.”

I nodded in the media officer’s direction and the moment he turned to face the crowd of reporters, the room was filled with loud yelling. There were a lot of questions and everyone wanted their voice heard.

I had dropped an atom bomb.

When the press conference was over, I returned to my office and my cellphone rang.

It was Shira.

“What’s up?” I asked, trying to sound nonchalant although I still felt the adrenaline pumping through my veins.

“What’s up? What’s up, she asks me…”

“So what’s up?”

“Apart from the fact that I discovered there was a dangerous pedophile in our neighborhood and that my
own sister
exposed him, everything’s fine.”

“How was I?” I smiled to myself.

“You were excellent. At first I could see you were very nervous, but all in all, you were pretty cool.”

“And what do you say about what we put out today?”

“First of all, good job. I’m really proud of you, you achieved a big thing.”

“Thanks.” I said bashfully.

“And besides that, this whole story is a giant shock. About Meir and Hanni – there was talk about financial troubles almost from the start, but actually you didn’t say much about it at the press conference. Everyone in the neighborhood knows Meir’s parents are pretty well off, so there was talk about all sorts of entanglements with shady businesses and the black market. Is that true?”

“Shira, as much as I love you, you have to understand that you can’t know more than what it says in the paper, but I would also recommend that you don’t believe everything that the paper says.” 

“Okay,” I could sense her smile. “But the amazing story is Yigal – just horrible.”

“Did you know him?”

“Sure. I mean, not well, but I knew him from the neighborhood, from the synagogue. I was even at a birthday party he performed at.”

“And what did he seem like to you?”

“Actually, I never gave him more than two seconds of thought. He wasn’t a bad clown, I can tell you. That’s just the thing; he seemed so ‘ordinary’, so ‘normal.’ You can just never know what’s going on with people behind closed doors.”

“His wife didn’t even know,” I said and immediately regretted it. It wasn’t really a secret detail of the investigation, but it’s not exactly something we publicized.

“Wow.” She was amazed.

“But don’t tell,” I immediately warned her and knew she was happy with the fact she was so close to the information database.

“Of course.”

“What are the reactions in Givaat Shmuel?” I was curious.

“I have no idea. I haven’t left the house today yet. I’m going to the playground soon, I’ll let you know.”

She called me that afternoon to fill me in. Givaat Shmuel was in a flurry. They were in a flurry anyway after the Danilowitz murders, but things were starting to settle down and now I’d thrown a tornado into the middle of their neighborhood.