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Stabbing suspect was bound for Israel

| August 13, 2010 9:00 PM

ATLANTA (AP) - Elias Abuelazam was about to board a plane for Israel when police arrested him in connection with a three-month stabbing spree that left five men dead, 13 others wounded and a Michigan city in terror. In the moments before the pudgy man in flip-flops and shorts was handcuffed, passengers saw him nervously talking on his cellphone, insisting he wasn't violent.

The Israeli citizen and legal U.S. resident was charged Thursday in just one case out of Flint, Mich., the battered industrial city where most of the stabbings occurred, but authorities said more charges are expected there and in Ohio and Virginia. At least 15 of the 18 victims were black, but it was unclear whether the attacks were racially motivated.

Flint residents hope the arrest ends their summer of fear. Roughly every four days since late May on average, the killer approached men on lonely roads at night, asking for directions or help with a broken-down car. Then he'd pull out a knife, plunge it into his victim and speed away; in one case he used a hammer. The youngest victim was 15; the oldest 67.

Abuelazam, 33, was arrested late Wednesday at a boarding gate at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport shortly before his plane to Tel Aviv was to take off. Officers seized him after he was paged over the intercom and told to report to a ticket counter. He was booked into the Fulton County Jail.

Passengers who took the Delta Air Lines flight said Abuelazam appeared tense at the gate. He was talking on his cellphone "about not being violent and different things like that," passenger Eugene Williams said after the plane landed in Tel Aviv.

Abuelazam's mother, Iyam al-Azzam, told Israel Radio she talked to her son by phone before he was supposed to board "and he sounded the same as usual, quiet and calm."

She added, "I do not believe these charges are true."

Abuelazam married twice and tried to settle down in Virginia, first in Fairfax County and then in Leesburg. Both marriages ended in divorce, and after the last one in 2007, Abuelazam's life became more nomadic. He bounced among Loudoun County, Michigan, Florida and Israel, friends and court records say. He was in the United States on a green card and had lived in Flint since May, authorities said Thursday.

In Ramla, Israel, a mixed Israeli Jewish-Arab working-class town between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, the shabby, two-story house where Abuelazam's mother and sister live was dark late Thursday. Neighbors, who refused to give their names, said the family is Christian.

In Michigan, Genesee County Prosecutor David Leyton said authorities don't know the motive for the stabbings. Killed were David Motley, 31; Emmanuel A. Muhammad, 59; Darwin Marshall, 43; and Arnold R. Minor, 49; all of Flint, and Frank Kellybrew, 60, of Flint Township. All died before Aug. 4, when Michigan authorities concluded the attacks were the work of one serial killer.

A tip late Tuesday led police to a market near Flint where Abuelazam had worked. Leyton said investigators talked to employees, and a store video showed that he matched the description of the man wanted by authorities.

Antwione Marshall, the victim of the July 27 stabbing in which Abuelazam has been charged, said he identified Abuelazam when the FBI visited him at 3 a.m. to show him a photograph of the suspect.