The Almost-Perfect Murder: The Stupid Mistake That Brought Down the Serial Killer Who Terrorized the Krayot

It started with a knock on the door. Sometimes he was an "authority man," sometimes a mailman who arrived with a registered letter. On the other side stood, each time, the same weak link: an elderly man or woman, alone at home, who did not know that the man they were letting in had come to take their money — and did not always intend to leave them alive. Within a few months, four apartments in Kiryat Ata became scenes of severe violence. Two women were murdered, two other elderly people survived only by a miracle. The doors were locked from the outside, the victims were left wounded, sometimes tied up, and in the Krayot, a feeling began to spread that someone was walking the streets and choosing their victims.

"The cluster of the four cases terrorized the entire Krayot," recalls today retired Chief Warrant Officer Meir Maman, who headed the special investigation team. "Rumors began to spread about a serial killer walking the streets. The residents fell into fear and panic." Along the way, the investigators did not yet know that one person was behind all the events. Only later, an innocent notebook found in the apartment, signs of writing that could not be seen with the naked eye, an electricity bill, ropes, and a cigarette butt would connect the pieces of the puzzle and lead to Roni Peretz.

On January 14, 2008, the Haifa District Court sentenced him to two life sentences and another 20 years in prison, consecutively, after he was convicted of two counts of murder and four counts of robbery under aggravating circumstances. The judges found very few softening words to describe the man who sat before them. On the contrary. They determined that Peretz "can easily carry on his forehead, like the mark of Cain, the fact of being a serial killer."

The elderly woman who opened the door to the "authority man"

The first incident occurred on September 30, 2005. At approximately 11:00, Peretz arrived at the home of an elderly woman on Semet Yair Street in Kiryat Ata. She was alone. He introduced himself as an authority man and convinced her to open the door. Inside, he began asking her about the property in the house. Very quickly, the questions turned into violence: he hit her, pushed her, and knocked her to the floor. The elderly woman suffered a fracture of the left hip joint and bruises on her body, hand, and neck.

Peretz took about 5,000 shekels that she had hidden in a headscarf on her body, tore a gold chain from her neck, and took two rings. Then he left her lying in the living room, took the key — and locked the apartment from the outside. She survived. This fact later became significant: the investigators had a person who could tell how the man who entered the house looked and what he did there.

Almost four months later, on January 26, 2006, he repeated the method. This time he arrived in the morning at the home of an elderly man on Semet Yirmiyahu Street. He said he had come to deliver a letter and asked the elderly man to bring his ID card. When the man took out his wallet, Peretz attacked him with punches and threatened that if he did not give him all his money — he would kill him.

When the elderly man resisted, he pulled out a knife and stabbed him in the upper body, including the head and neck. The victim fell to the floor and realized he had to make the attacker think he was already dead. He stopped moving. Peretz tied his hands and feet using ropes he had brought with him, dragged him from the living room toward the bedroom, and left him there. From the wallet, he took 400 shekels, various documents, and a wristwatch. In this case, too, he took the keys and locked the apartment from the outside.

That elderly man did not know then that details that seemed marginal — a police pensioner's ID card that was in the wallet, the amount of money, and the number of bills — would later be part of the details that would betray that the person who would confess to the acts indeed knows the scenes. The police already understood that something was happening in Kiryat Ata. Forces were increased, police officers patrolled the streets, and investigators went over reports, intelligence information, prisoners who went on leave, and the homeless. Nothing yet led to the breakthrough.

Four days after the attack on the elderly man — the first murder arrived.

Notebook and cover story

Frieda Weisel, of blessed memory, was 89 years old and lived at 50 Hugo Muller Street in Kiryat Ata. On January 30, 2006, toward 13:00, Peretz arrived at her home holding a notebook. This time he was a "mailman." He told Weisel that he had a registered letter for her. She opened the door. Inside the house, he hit her hard, caused her fractures to her ribs and breastbone, and strangled her. Weisel died. Afterward, he took her wallet, which was lying on a small dresser and contained about 800 shekels, left the apartment — and locked it again.

When her caregiver arrived and did not get an answer, she called her son. After opening the apartment, Weisel was found lifeless. An examination of her body revealed that she died from strangulation, injuries, or a combination of the two. For the investigators, another detail they already knew returned: the locked door.

Only two days passed.

On February 1, 2006, around 18:00, Peretz arrived at the home of Elena Naumbikin, of blessed memory, 80 years old, again in Kiryat Ata. This time he arrived equipped with a notebook, a knife, and ropes. She too heard the story of the mailman and the registered letter. After she opened the door, Peretz pulled out a knife and demanded money. He stabbed her four times, in her head and left shoulder, and injured her head and hand. Afterward, he dragged her from the living room to the bedroom, tied her hands and feet, stuffed a towel into her mouth, and tied it with a rope around her neck. He took a wallet containing about 400 shekels and left.

When police officers and Magen David Adom personnel finally broke into the apartment, they found Naumbikin in the bedroom, covered with a blanket and tied up. In the autopsy, it turned out she died from suffocation. On her body, there were also stab wounds on the nape and shoulder. Four victims. Two bodies. Two apartments where the victims survived. And the investigators still had to prove that all the threads lead to the same person.

"My name is Ron Peretz"

At a certain stage, the investigation team members at the Zevulun station sat in front of a table. Row after row, they entered the data. All four events occurred on weekends — on Thursdays or Fridays. In both cases where the victims remained alive, a similar description of the suspect was received. Again and again, the same signs appeared: entry to the apartment using a cover story, demand for money, severe violence, ropes, bedroom — and especially the door that was locked from the outside when the attacker left. The scenes were also close to each other.

Among the events was a case that initially seemed almost unimportant. A resident of Kiryat Ata noticed a stranger standing next to his neighbor's house. The man explained to him that he had brought an electricity bill. The neighbor replied that the tenant was not at home and asked him to leave the bill under the mat. The neighbor was a former police officer. He had already heard about what was happening in the city.

Instead of touching the bill as usual, he put it in a bag so as not to damage fingerprints and brought it to the police. He even tried to identify the man in photos and chose two people — but it turned out that both were behind bars at that time. The direction was ruled out. The electricity bill remained. And it would return.

After Naumbikin's murder, Maman made an unusual decision: not to return the apartment to the family immediately. The scene was re-locked using a locksmith. A few days later, Chief Sergeant Roman Kantor was sent to perform another search. And then the phone rang. It was a notebook. On the first page, it was written: "Letters received by hand 1.2.2006" — the day Naumbikin was murdered. On another page, her authentic signature appeared. She signed for the receipt of the mail minutes before her death.

The notebook was sent for a "pressure writing" test: writing marks that remain on the pages below the page on which the original text was written. And there the breakthrough arrived. The investigators found in the notebook the names of two victims. A notebook found at one scene suddenly connected several events. And then another sentence was found, in English: "My name is Ron Peretz. I live in Kiryat Ata. My friend is Mazal Lavi."

Now the investigators already had a name. They turned to the intelligence coordinators and asked to check: who is Ron or Roni Peretz? Is there a woman named Mazal Lavi connected to him? At the same time, the labs continued to work. On the ropes from two scenes, DNA samples of a man were found. On the electricity bill that the former police officer brought, a fingerprint of Roni Peretz was found. The investigators turned to the Prison Service and received documents he wrote during previous prison terms, for the purpose of handwriting comparison.

There, too, a match was found. Fingerprints, DNA, handwriting, the ropes, and the notebook were closing in on him. And yet, Maman wanted more. The then-commander of the Haifa District, Brigadier General David Siso, demanded to carry out the arrest. Maman opposed. He wanted to reach Peretz only when the police had enough evidence even if he chose to remain silent. Siso asked him a simple question: "And what will happen if tonight he murders someone else?" Maman received 24 hours. Within this window of time, it was decided to use a ruse. Peretz was summoned to the station, received a drink and a cigarette, and the investigators collected what he left behind to produce DNA. The match arrived, and so did the arrest.

"I was a monster"

Peretz denied for days. The investigators were careful not to reveal to him the names of the victims, the addresses, or details from the scenes. They wanted that if he confessed — the information would come from him. Maman even told him that he did not need his confession. According to him, he told Peretz that if he were in his place, he would keep the right to remain silent, as part of an attempt to undermine his confidence.

Peretz was returned to the cell. About two hours later, he asked to come back up. For about eight hours, with breaks for food, drink, and the bathroom, he told the whole story. He confessed to all four events, provided hidden details — including the police pensioner's ID card, the number of bills, and the amounts of money stolen — and later reconstructed the acts and led the investigators to the scenes.

At a certain stage, Maman told him: "Roni, you know, not all the victims died." Peretz was surprised. "I was sure everyone died," he replied. In his interrogation, he explained that from his point of view, these were "robberies that went wrong." According to him, he entered the houses to take what he wanted and leave, and claimed that he attacked the victims out of fear that gripped him during the events.

But he also had other words. "Even if I sit for 100 years, it will not compensate," he told his investigators. The choice of the elderly he formulated with chilling simplicity: "You go to the weak link with the goal of taking money." And about what he did to Elena Naumbikin, he said: "There I was a monster."

At another stage, he asked to speak outside the interrogation room and claimed that he would agree to tell about all the events on the condition that he could meet his daughter. Maman clarified that it was not in his authority to guarantee this and turned to the district investigation officer, Colonel Yaakov Gefen, of blessed memory. The prosecution refused the request. Peretz confessed and reconstructed even without the condition being met.

"Mark of Cain"

In court, Peretz changed direction. He denied the evidence against him and claimed investigative failures. But before the court stood not only the things he said to the investigators but also the fabric of evidence collected against him. In the prosecution, they described the two victims who survived as those who "got out by the skin of their teeth." According to them, although "they were lucky" and the defendant "only" injured them severely and did not bring about their death, the injuries left their mark on them.

The Haifa District Court panel, headed by Judge Yosef Elron, was much sharper. "Not every day do we encounter crimes as serious as the crimes of the defendant before us," the judges wrote, and described how he injured his victims until two of them "breathed their last under his blood-stained hands." Peretz, they determined, "can easily carry on his forehead, like the mark of Cain, the fact of being a serial killer."

"Few are the files that reach the court's doorstep in which not even one mitigating circumstance is found in favor of the defendant," they wrote. "Such is the file before us." The judges described how he acted out of greed against "weak elderly people," who innocently responded to a knock on the door. After he took their money and harmed them, he left them helpless, sometimes tied up, bleeding, and unconscious — and then locked the apartments from the outside.

Even when he entered this murder spree, Peretz was no longer a stranger to the criminal system. Since 1986, a heavy criminal record had accumulated against him, including convictions for fraud, drugs, property, violence, crimes against police officers, and armed robbery. He served actual prison terms and even committed one of the robberies during a period when he was a prisoner on license. On January 14, 2008, the legal circle closed: two life sentences and another 20 years in prison, consecutively.

Almost two decades after that investigation, Maman still remembers the small details — the ropes, the notebook, the electricity bill, the phone call from the scene, and the 24 hours when he asked not to arrest the suspect yet. But one thing he asks not to be forgotten: this was not his story alone. "This is not Chief Warrant Officer Maman's file, not at all," he says, and mentions Chief Warrant Officer Roman Kantor, Chief Warrant Officer Danny Solomon, and Chief Warrant Officer Meir Kandro, of blessed memory. "We all as a team led to the cracking of the case."