Thirty days after her murder, Shelly Dadon's family expresses frustration with police

The Dadon family fears that Shelly's murder may potentially go unsolved forever and that her killers will roam free for years.

By BEN HARTMAN
Shelly Dadon (photo credit: Courtesy)
Shelly Dadon
(photo credit: Courtesy)
Thirty days after 19-year-old Shelly Dadon was murdered in Migdal Haemek, her family unveiled her tombstone on Monday and expressed their frustration with the inability of police to solve the case.
"The police are optimistic but they haven't said if they have any leads, they don't update us and their optimism doesn't do anything for us", said Shelly's father Yaakov, at her graveside in Afula. He added that his family has been destroyed by the murder of Shelly, who was killed on the way to a job interview and found in the industrial district of Migdal Ha'emek.
Days after the killing, Public Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovich said there had been a "dramatic development" but almost a month later the case remains unsolved. In addition, though police initially said that the murder was most likely a "nationalist crime", i.e., a terror attack, they and Aharonovich have since backtracked and said that it can still not be determined what the motivation for the murder was.
Last Thursday, police obtained a 30 day extension on the gag order covering all details of the case. Speaking to the Jerusalem Post on Monday, Assaf Sarid, Shelly's cousin, said of Aharonovich "he told us there was a development and now after 30 days there's no leads, no info, they don't know if it was terrorism or not. In my opinion the minister spoke too soon, he made a promise to the family and now it's faded away."
Sarid added that he blames the state partly for Shelly's murder, arguing that the failure to give tougher penalties for murder has destroyed whatever deterrence the state could have towards potential killers. He added that the Dadon family fears that Shelly's murder may potentially go unsolved forever and that her killers will roam free for years.
Shelly Dadon was on her way to a job interview on May 1 when she vanished. Her parents contacted police, who launched a search and found her body hours later. Shelly's father Yaakov was then called to identify her body at the murder scene.
Since then, her family has held rallies in Afula and elsewhere, calling for police to catch the killers and for the state to adopt tougher policies towards convicted murderers.