Police have detained a German immigrant to Israel and known drifter in the murder of 62-year-old Rachel Gano, a flower shop owner, on Tuesday. David Mordechai Schwartz, a 27-year-old German citizen who did work for Gano in her flower store and later in her home on Ibn Gvirol Street in central Tel Aviv, has confessed to police of murdering the woman. His apparent motive was that she caught him trying to steal money from her purse. On Tuesday afternoon, Gano's neighbors alerted the fire department to a smell coming from her apartment. When firefighters arrived and broke down the door, they found Gano lying on the floor with stab wounds and choking marks. She was still alive and was rushed to The Tel-Aviv Sourasky Medical Center, but she died later from her wounds. Police investigators from the Tel Aviv Hayarkon branch, headed by Chief Superintendent Dudy Bar, immediately began gathering testimonies from Gano's neighbors and friends. Some claimed that a man had been hanging around the area helping Gano to clear out her recently-closed store. "A few hours later, we met a man who told us that he knows a friend of the suspect and he led us to his house, where we arrested him," Bar explained. The suspect told investigators that he studied nutrition in Germany and worked in health food stores. When he hit a rough spot and ran out of money, he used the fact that he has a Jewish father to immigrate to Israel. With no solid job, he worked temporary gardening or moving gigs and wandered Tel Aviv, often sleeping in public parks. According to investigators, Schwartz met Gano three weeks ago and she allowed him to help her clean and disassemble her flower store, which she had recently sold. Ten days ago, she asked him to come to her house to fix her refrigerator and later noticed that NIS 1,000 ($275) was missing from her wallet. Family members chastised her for letting a stranger into her home, but according to testimonies, she told them that missing money was an "atonement for her sins." On Tuesday, Gano again let Schwartz into her home to fix another electrical appliance. She left him alone in her living room and came back to discover him trying to steal thousands of shekels from her purse. She yelled in English, "I will call the police." Schwartz then began attacking Gano, first hitting her and strangling her with a rope, then stabbing her in the chest. Hoping to cover his tracks, he then set fire to the apartment and fled. After he confessed to the crime, a remand hearing was held for Schwartz on Wednesday at a Tel Aviv court. Gano's family, shocked that he could respond to generosity with murder, waited for him outside the court. Many lunged at him and yelled, "You took away our family!" "She wanted to help him with money so she gave him some work," one family member said on Wednesday. "She had a heart of gold. We intend to be present at every part of the trial, to look him in the eyes and tell him what we think of him." Judge Daniela Shrizley extended Schwartz's detainment by an additional eight days and ordered Schwartz to undergo a psychiatric examination to determine whether or not he is fit for trial. Gano will be buried on Thursday in the Morashah Cemetery in Ramat Hasharon, a suburb bordering Tel Aviv.
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