Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Breaking News

Killer of Baltimore’s Esther Lebowitz Rejected in Bid for New Trial

The convicted murderer of an 11-year-old Jewish girl in 1969 will not receive a new trial, a Baltimore judge ruled.

Circuit Judge Edward Hargadon in his ruling last week on the appeal by Wayne Stephen Young said jurors who found Young guilty of killing Esther Lebowitz in 1972 were adequately advised of how to try the case, the Baltimore Sun reported.

Attorneys for Young, 68, 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. Young’s attorney said she would appeal the ruling.

Young was sentenced to life in prison for the murder and has been denied parole 12 times. He claimed during his trial that he was temporarily insane.

Esther 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.

Her family has since moved to Israel and did not attend a hearing on the case last month. About 200 Baltimore Jews protested the hearing.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

With your support, we’ll be ready for whatever 2025 brings.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.