It was the first of two key hearings for Elias Abuelazam, an Israeli citizen who is accused in a series of brazen attacks that shook the Flint area last summer.
A judge will also decide whether he stands trial for the fatal stabbing of a 60-year-old man. Richard Booker testified that he was stabbed by Abuelazam on July 19 while stopping to help him open the hood of a vehicle around midnight. He said he somehow fought the attacker off and made it to his home in Genesee Township, outside Flint.
“I almost lost my life. ... God carried me home or something. I walked or ran,” Booker told 67th District Court Judge Richard Hughes, who found probable cause for a trial.
Surrounded by six deputies, Abuelazam, 34, often conferred with his lawyers during the testimony.
Fourteen people were stabbed — five fatally — in the Flint area last summer.
Abuelazam is charged with three counts of murder and five attempted murders in Michigan, and an attempted murder in Ohio. He is suspected in attacks in Leesburg, Virginia.
Abuelazam was arrested in August in Atlanta while trying to board a plane to Tel Aviv.
The victims were alone at night, and some of those who survived said they were asked by their attacker for help or directions before being stabbed.
The second hearing Friday involves the death of Frank Kellybrew, who was killed on July 30 after buying snacks at a store in the middle of the night.
Authorities said his DNA was found on blood-stained shoes seized from Abuelazam’s luggage.
It was Kellybrew’s death that convinced police that a serial killer was likely on the loose.
The stabbing “was something that got law enforcement to say, ‘Hey, we’ve got something here,’” Genesee County Prosecutor David Leyton said recently.
