Father sentenced to 2 life terms for murdering, slashing throats of his 2 children

Levy’s murdered children were named Yishai, 11, and Sarah, 10.

By YONAH JEREMY BOB
Updated: JUNE 6, 2016 00:18
Gavel [Illustrative] (photo credit: INIMAGE)
Gavel [Illustrative]
(photo credit: INIMAGE)
Avi Levy was sentenced to two life terms in prison on Sunday by the Lod District Court for murdering his two children by slashing their throats in June 2014.
He was also ordered to pay NIS 512,000 to the children’s mother, his ex-wife Keren, a dual US-Israeli citizen.
The children were Yishai, 11, and Sarah, 10.
Avi and Keren were married in the years 2002-2006. They divorced due to violence on his part.
In 2009, Keren fled with the children to a battered women’s shelter where she hid from him for an extended period.
She eventually obtained a court order to take the children to the US, while agreeing to a shared custody arrangement in which the children would periodically visit Avi in Israel.
In 2013, Avi became angry when the children’s visits became less frequent and decided to murder them to take revenge on Keren.
When he picked them up at the airport during their June 2014 visit, he had already purchased a 20-cm. knife to murder them.
Avi took his children to his house and convinced them to bind their hands, cover their eyes with bandannas and to bend down toward their knees.
Once they were completely defenseless, he slit their throats.
He then drove to the police station and turned himself in for the murder.
Before he was sentenced, his sister tried to plead for leniency with the court, claiming that Keren’s failure to honor the shared custody arrangement had driven him insane, and that normally he loved his children.
But the court concluded that he was sane when he perpetrated “two separate brutal acts which he undertook using force against his two children.”