{{short description|Convicted Moldovan-Israeli serial killer}} {{Infobox serial killer | name = Nicolai Bonner | image = | image_size = | caption = | alt = | birth_name = | other_names = "The Haifa Homeless Killer" | birth_date = {{Birth year and age|1972}} | birth_place = Moldavian SSR | death_date = | death_place = | cause = | conviction = Murder (4 counts)<br>Obstruction of justice (3 counts) | sentence = Life imprisonment | victims = 4 | beginyear = February 9 | endyear = May 1, 2005 | country = Israel | states = Haifa | apprehended = May 29, 2005 | imprisoned = | native_name = ניקולאי בונר | native_name_lang = he }}
'''Nicolai Bonner''' ({{langx|he|ניקולאי בונר}}; born 1972), known as '''The Haifa Homeless Killer''' ({{langx|he|רוצח ההומלסים}}), is a Moldovan-born Israeli serial killer who killed four people in Haifa between February and May 2005. For these crimes, he was sentenced to life imprisonment.<ref name=":0">{{Cite news|date=May 6, 2007|title=The homeless killer was given four life sentences|language=he|work=Ynet|url=https://www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-3396089,00.html}}</ref>
== Early life == Nicolai Bonner was born in a village in the Moldavian SSR in 1972, the third of four children. His mother was busy working at a factory, while his father was an alcoholic who paid little attention to his children. At the age of 9, Bonner's mother died, and he was sent to a boarding school to complete his education.<ref name=":1">{{Cite news|last=Esti Aharonovitch|date=August 2, 2005|title=To be burned|language=he|work=Haaretz|url=https://www.haaretz.co.il/misc/1.1033356}}</ref>
While at the boarding school, Bonner began to drink vodka to ease his feelings of loneliness. After graduating, he returned to live in his parental home and began working as a shepherd on a local farm, but quit after some time, opting to work menial jobs in Ukraine and Russia to earn an income.<ref name=":1" /> A year into his travels, he was convicted of theft and sentenced to a yearlong incarceration. When he served it out, Bonner returned to Moldova, where he soon met and married an 18-year-old girl. In 2000, the couple decided to immigrate to Israel; while Bonner wasn't Jewish, he was still eligible via the Law of Return as his wife was.<ref name=":1" /> They moved into a rented apartment in Haifa, with Bonner taking on jobs in the construction industry, most notably spending two years as a pipeline manufacturing plant in Acre. According to his employer, Yossi Ben-David, Bonner was considered a diligent and respectful worker who performed his tasks without any complaints.<ref name=":1" />
In January 2003, his wife died suddenly from tuberculosis, causing Bonner to indulge in alcoholism even further, which impacted his work performance.<ref name=":1" /> Eventually, he quit and began moving around the country in search of labour-intensive jobs, but eventually returned to Haifa and began living on the streets with the homeless. Over the following months, he befriended an older homeless man, Simon Ariri, and even found himself a new girlfriend, often visiting the former's house to drink vodka together.<ref name=":1" /> In September 2004, Bonner moved in with his sister in Tel Aviv, but after she was deported from the country, he moved to Emunim moshav, where he worked in construction. In December, he was fired from the job and then returned to Haifa.<ref name=":1" />
== Murders == On February 9, 2005, Bonner offered to help escort 52-year-old Rita Wolman back to her apartment on Hussein Street. Wolman, a fellow immigrant and former bar singer who suffered a leg injury from a car crash, invited him for a drink in her apartment.<ref name=":1" /> The two drank and smoked until the late evening, with Wolman offering Bonner to stay over. Taking this as an offer for intimacy, the half-drunk Bonner asked Wolman to have sex, but she refused.<ref>{{Cite news|date=April 27, 2016|title=The first serial killers in Israel|language=he|work=Ynet|url=https://www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-4796662,00.html}}</ref> Enraged, he slapped her twice, before Rita retaliated and slapped him back. At that point, Bonner hit her on the head and knocked Wolman unconscious, before he proceeded to rape her. After he finished, he noticed that she had stopped breathing, and in order to dispose of the evidence, he set her bed on fire with a lighter.<ref name=":0" />
About a month later, on March 11, Bonner went to the home of 34-year-old Russian immigrant Alexander "The Chechen" Levant, a former soldier in the Russian Armed Forces who had fought in the Second Chechen War.<ref name=":1" /> The two men were acquainted from the nearby marketplace and were drinking buddies, but when Levant fell asleep, Bonner attempted to steal a bottle of alcohol.<ref name=":1" /> However, Levant awoke and warned him to leave it. In response, Bonner began beating him, killing his friend in the process. After he had killed Levant, he grabbed several matches and lit the corpse on fire.<ref name=":1" />
In late April, Bonner wandered into an abandoned kindergarten on Gush Halav Street, which was notorious for being a gathering place for alcoholics and drug addicts. There, he met with 32-year-old Valeri Soznov, a fellow alcoholic with whom he started a fire to keep themselves warm. For unclear reasons, the pair began arguing, after which the drunken Bonner beat Soznov to death, kicking his body into the fire and then fleeing the scene.<ref name=":1" />
On May 1, Bonner was squatting in an abandoned apartment with another homeless immigrant, 39-year-old Alexander Kars, whom he had befriended the day before. While the pair were drinking, Kars made an off-hand comment about Bonner's mother, which insulted the latter. Noticing a large stick nearby, Bonner grabbed it and started hitting Kars, knocking him to the ground. After incapacitating him, he strangled Kars to death with a TV cable.<ref name=":1" />
== Arrest, trial and imprisonment == Twelve days later, Bonner was walking on the streets in Haifa when he came across 42-year-old Sergei Bluestein, a fellow homeless man he had known for two years.<ref name=":1" /> To celebrate Bluestein's birthday, the two men went to the abandoned kindergarten to drink vodka, but in a drunken stupor, Bluestein asked Bonner whether he had ever stolen something from the marketplace. Suddenly, Bonner became enraged and started shouting that everybody hated him, stunning his friend. Before he could calm him down, Bonner severely beat Bluestein, strangling and stomping on him repeatedly. After he finished, believing that his friend had died, Bonner left. Miraculously, Bluestein survived his injuries, and on the next morning, he managed to drag himself onto the street, where he was found by passers-by and transported to the nearest hospital.<ref name=":1" />
Bluestein spent three days in the emergency room recovering from his injuries. After he was released, he unsuccessfully tried to find Bonner, whom he wanted to take revenge on. Instead, he was arrested as a potential suspect in the murder of Valeri Soznov, as he frequented the kindergarten where the latter was found dead.<ref name=":1" /> At the interrogation, Bluestein told the police about his violent drinking buddy, whom he knew only by the name 'Nicolai'. Deciding to look further into his claims, police officers dressed up as vagrants and mingled among the population to gather more information about the mysterious man. By doing this, they confirmed Bluestein's claims, as numerous of the homeless people repeatedly claimed that a violent man named Nicolai frequently torched buildings where they often drank alcohol.<ref name=":1" /> Eventually, his identity was revealed after authorities checked in with local hospitals - it turned out that a day after Rita Wolman's murder, a man named Nicolai Bonner had arrived at Rambam Hospital with a severe head injury.<ref name=":1" />
Bonner wasn't arrested immediately, since the investigators had no evidence connecting him to any of the recent murders at the time. He was kept under surveillance until May 29th, when he was arrested at his mother-in-law's home and brought in for questioning.<ref name=":1" /> At the interrogation, Bonner confessed to all four of the murders, recalling what he was able to remember while committing them and why. When asked if he felt any remorse for the acts, he simply replied 'No.' and then burst into tears.<ref name=":1" />
Shortly after his arrest, Bonner was brought to trial for the four murders, in addition to being charged with aggravated rape, three counts of arson and three counts of obstruction of justice.<ref>{{Cite news|last=Eli Levy|date=November 7, 2006|title=The serial killer from Haifa was convicted|language=he|work=Mako|url=https://www.makorrishon.co.il/nrg/online/1/ART1/502/025.html}}</ref> A few weeks into the proceedings, he recanted his confessions, claiming that the police officers had pressured him into signing them while he was drunk, and when he refused, they threatened to kill his daughter and girlfriend.<ref name=":0" /> This claim was supported by his attorney Ofer Cohen, who maintained that his client had been deceived into signing without being properly explained what the paper read, as he wasn't a fluent speaker of Hebrew; in addition, he was asked for a lesser sentence on the grounds of insanity, claiming that Bonner had been diagnosed with paranoid personality disorder by psychiatrists.<ref name=":0" /> This explanation was rejected by the judges, who subsequently convicted Bonner on almost all charges, only acquitting him of the aggravated rape. As a result, he was handed down four life sentences, the harshest sentence ever delivered in a Haifa court to this day.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":1" />
As of 2021, Bonner is still alive and remains behind bars.
== See also == * List of serial killers by country == References == {{reflist}} {{DEFAULTSORT:Bonner, Nicolai}} ==External links== * [https://supremedecisions.court.gov.il/Home/Download?path=HebrewVerdicts\07/170/054/e20&fileName=07054170.e20&type=4 The State v. Bonner] Category:1972 births Category:21st-century Israeli criminals Category:Israeli people convicted of murder Category:Israeli people convicted of rape Category:Israeli prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment Category:Israeli serial killers Category:Living people Category:Male murderers Category:Moldovan emigrants to Israel Category:People convicted of murder by Israel Category:People convicted of obstruction of justice Category:People with paranoid personality disorder Category:Prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment by Israel Category:Violence against homeless people Category:Violence against women in Israel