Elias Abuelazam

Elias Abuelazam (الياس أبو العظام, אליאס אבו אל עזאם, born August 29, 1976), also known as Elias Abullazam, is an Israeli convicted murderer, and a suspect of serial killings and stabbings with a racial motive.

According to the State Department, Abuelazam changed his last name to Abullazam in March 1995.

Abuelazam married Jessica Hirth (also known as Jessica Nimitz and Jessica Abuelazam ) on July 30, 2004.

He reportedly subjected her to emotional abuse.

After they divorced in 2007, Abuelazam married again.

Jessica and her parents later expressed shock after he was accused of the murders and stabbings.

Until 2008, Abuelazam worked at Piedmont Behavioral Health Center, LLC, an adolescent psychiatric facility in Leesburg, Virginia (now called North Spring Behavioral Healthcare) as a mental health technician.

Leesburg Police have said Abuelazam is also a suspect in an unsolved homicide from March 2009.

He is suspected in a string of eighteen stabbing attacks from May to August 2010 which resulted in five deaths.

Most of the alleged attacks occurred in Genesee County, Michigan (particularly in and around Flint).

Five stabbings occurred elsewhere: three in Leesburg, Virginia, one in Toledo, Ohio, and one in his native home in Ramla, Israel.

All of his alleged victims were described as "small framed" (e.g. short, thin, non-muscular) men, most of them African Americans.

During the investigation, Michigan media dubbed Abuelazam the "Flint Serial Slasher" and the "Flint Serial Stabber".

He was 6 ft and weighed 280 lb at the time of his booking.

Abuelazam has been convicted in one of the murders, that of 49-year-old Arnold Minor, which occurred on August 2, 2010, in Flint.

He is currently serving a sentence of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole for that crime.

As a result, Genesee County prosecutors have announced Abuelazam will not stand trial for the other crimes in their jurisdiction, nor will authorities in Toledo or Leesburg try him.

After moving to Michigan, he worked as a clerk at Kingwater Market in Beecher from July 5 to August 1, 2010.

Most customers knew him as "Eli."

He was cited for giving alcohol to a minor July 29, the same day a 59-year-old man was stabbed in Flint.

Abuelazam's legal address is in Bradenton, Florida, according to the warrant.

He previously lived in Grand Blanc, according to state records.

Abuelazam most recently lived in a house belonging to his uncle on Maryland Avenue, on Flint's east side.

Police and prosecutors claim that between May and August 2010, Abuelazam would drive around late at night, approach small-framed men who were walking alone, ask for directions or help fixing his vehicle, a green-colored Chevrolet TrailBlazer, and then stab them, usually in the chest or stomach.

Abuelazam's alleged victims have been mostly black, and police in Leesburg suspect the attacks may have been racially motivated, since the population there is mostly white.

Genesee County prosecutors, however, have declined to speculate on his motive, while noting the population of Flint is mostly black.

Abuelazam is also suspected of having stabbed a friend in the face with a screwdriver while on a visit to his family in Ramla in early 2010.

Police did not pursue the case because the friend refused to press charges.

In Genesee County on August 4, 2010, it was announced that a series of stabbings dating back to May 2010 were the work of one man, and a multi-jurisdictional task force was set up to investigate.

The next week on August 9, 2010, police in Leesburg connected three hammer attacks against black men there via their victims' descriptions of the suspect, video surveillance footage of the attacks that matches his description and vehicle, and the similar mode of operation.

The next day Toledo Police claimed a stabbing of a black man there also matched the suspect.

Abuelazam was arrested August 5, 2010 in Arlington, Virginia, during a traffic stop.

He was taken into custody because he had a warrant out for his arrest for simple assault and later released on personal bond.

Abuelazam was arrested by U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers on August 11, 2010, at 10:00 p.m. ET in Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport, while preparing to board a Delta Air Lines flight bound for Tel Aviv.

On August 13, 2010, he waived his right to fight extradition to Michigan.

Abuelazam's family hired Lansing based attorneys Brian Morley and Edwar Zeineh.

He was flown to Flint on August 26, 2010, and lodged in the Genesee County Jail.

On May 2, 2017, Abuelazam confessed to a 2009 murder in Leesburg.

Abuelazam was born in Israel, to a well-to-do Arab Christian family.

As a child, he moved to the United States with his family after his mother remarried; he acquired a Green Card, but never gained US citizenship.