The man who killed his 9-year-old son during a supervised visit Sunday apparently did so to spite the boy’s mother, authorities said.
54-year-old Muni Savyon was meeting with his son Joshua and a counselor at the YWCA in Manchester, New Hampshire when he brought out a hand gun and shot his son several times before turning the weapon on himself. The counselor escaped unharmed.
‘There’s a lot of sadness and also anger on the part of everyone involved that a father would take his son’s life for no other reason than apparently to spite his mother,’ New Hampshire Assistant Attorney General Jeffery Strelzin told the Boston Herald.
The boy’s mother had dropped Joshua off at the YWCA around 9:30am and was not in the building when the shooting happened.The organization is open on Sundays for supervised child visitation and custody exchanges.The couple’s marital status wasn’t clear: Savyon’s rabbi said the couple were divorced while law enforcement officials said the two were separated.
Muni, a software engineer, sent an email to a friend suggesting he was suicidal before the shootings. He had a troubled relationship with the boy’s mother and threatened to kill them and himself before.
‘She had reservations which is why he was having supervised visits,’ Strelzin said.
Savyon also recently lost his younger brother who suffered a heart attack in their home country of Israel.
His rabbi, Levi Krinsky of Chabad Lubavitch, said the man was depressed when he returned from Israel to bury his brother but that no one expected he was capable of killing his own son.
‘He was just very broken, which I thought was directly related to his brother’s passing,’ Rabbi Krinsky told the Boston Globe. ‘Did I think he was suicidal? No. Did I think he was dangerous? Not in the slightest. Apparently this is what he was thinking. End it all.’
Savyon’s ex-wife Ellen Vig – not the boy’s mother – got a copy of the suicide email written in Hebrew which she says spells out his intentions and what he wants done with his property.
‘He was non-violent. He would try to help anyone he could. He was a really nice guy,’ she said from her home in North Billerica, Massachusetts.
Savyon was active in Libertarian causes, Vig said, and was a twice-defeated candidate for the New Hampshire Legislature, most recently in February.
Current New Hampshre State Representative Peter Sullivan said Savyon was a political hopeful in years past
‘Muni Savyon was my opponent in the special election a few years back,’ Sullivan, who easily beat Savyon, wrote on his Facebook Sunday. ‘He was a gracious opponent. I am utterly stunned at the news concerning this morning’s horrific events.’
The YWCA issued a statement late Sunday saying its ‘thoughts and prayers go out to the families and friends of all those involved in this incident.’
Perhaps most tragic is that the incident could have been prevented if the organization had enough money to hire security officers – something they’ve done in the past.
‘There wasn’t any security in place other than the fact that there was a counselor in the room,’ Strelzin said. ‘They’ve had security in the past and were able to hire police officers, but because of budget cuts they haven’t been able to do that recently.
[MailOnline]
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