Police Find Contradictions in Alder Dayan Murder Case

Israeli police investigating the death of 23-year-old Eldad Yitzchak Dayan from Dimona have identified serious contradictions and timeline discrepancies in statements given by two primary suspects in the case, both of whom were close friends of the victim, Israel Hayom reported Wednesday evening.

Investigators are now focusing intensively on why the three men entered an open area near a gas station, and why, according to the suspects, they split up after abandoning their vehicle at the location. Contact with Dayan was lost immediately after they entered the area, and his body was later discovered at the same site.

According to the report, the suspects claimed in their interrogations that they fled into the open area because a police patrol car arrived at the scene. They said they believed officers had come to arrest them following their involvement in an earlier altercation with five young men from Petah Tikva. The suspects stated that in their panic, they ran, separated in the field, and when they couldn't locate their friend, returned home to Dimona using public transportation.

However, a thorough examination of the timeline reveals a completely different picture. Police records and field reports show that while a gas station employee did call police to report young men removing license plates from a vehicle and abandoning it, the patrol car arrived approximately half an hour after the three had already walked into the open area. This fact undermines the suspects' account and proves they could not have seen the patrol car or attempted to flee from it at the moment they entered the field.

Crime scene where the body was found (צילום: Avshalom Sassoni/Flash90)

Beyond the incriminating timeline gap, investigators have uncovered another significant contradiction regarding one suspect's mobile phone. In his initial interrogations, the suspect insisted he had lost his phone during the violent altercation or while walking through the open area.

However, in recent days the device was turned over to investigators by his attorney, after it emerged that it had been kept at his family's home the entire time. Law enforcement officials now suspect the elapsed time was used to delete critically important evidence from the device, in an effort to obstruct the investigation and conceal incriminating material.

In the coming days, investigators are expected to conduct direct confrontations between the two main suspects and the five young men involved in the altercation that preceded the tragic incident. Testimony collected so far from those young men paints an additional suspicious picture: even before the fight between the groups, one of the suspects smashed the vehicle's windshield and made death threats against the victim.

This constitutes a central element in strengthening the serious suspicions attributed to the two friends. Police recently completed the apprehension of all members of the group that fought with Dayan and his companions that fatal evening.

The complex investigation, being conducted by the Central Unit (Yama"r) of the Sharon District, continues to branch in new directions. Alongside the existing murder suspicion, investigators are also examining a potential charge of severe abandonment of Dayan while he was injured, as they assess whether his two suspected friends understood his serious medical condition but knowingly chose to leave him behind.

The combination of contradictory accounts, incriminating timeline gaps, the phone returned only after content deletion, and the threats heard that night—all of these elements form a complex picture placing the two friends at the center of the gravest suspicions.