Baltimore Fifth-Grader Esther Lebowitz’s Killer Dies in Prison
Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
The convicted murderer of an 11-year-old Jewish girl in 1969 in Baltimore has died in prison.
Wayne Stephen Young, who had been sentenced to life for the murder of Esther Lebowitz, a fifth-grader at a Jewish school, was awaiting a retrial in the case over a technicality. He was denied parole 12 times.
READ: The Forward’s Past Coverage of The Case
Young, 69, died in prison on Dec. 23, the Northwest Citizens Patrol said in a statement posted Monday on the website of Baltimore Jewish Life, a news website of the Baltimore Orthodox Jewish community, citing the state’s attorney in the case.
Attorneys for Young had requested the new trial based on a 2012 ruling by the Court of Appeals of Maryland, the state’s highest court, which found that many convictions before 1980 are invalid because jurors were given unconstitutional instructions.
Lebowitz, who attended the Bais Yaakov School for Girls, was missing for two days before her body was found about a half-mile from her Baltimore home. She died from 17 blows to the head.
This is a moment of great uncertainty. Here’s what you can do about it.
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news this Passover. All donations are being matched by the Forward Board - up to $100,000.
This is a moment of great uncertainty for the news media, for the Jewish people, and for our sacred democracy. It is a time of confusion and declining trust in public institutions. An era in which we need humans to report facts, conduct investigations that hold power to account, tell stories that matter and share honest discourse on all that divides us.
With no paywall or subscriptions, the Forward is entirely supported by readers like you. Every dollar you give this Passover is invested in the future of the Forward — and telling the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
The Forward doesn’t rely on funding from institutions like governments or your local Jewish federation. There are thousands of readers like you who give us $18 or $36 or $100 each month or year.
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
