Grafton Thomas, the suspect accused of stabbing multiple Jewish people with an 18-inch machete at a Monsey, New York rabbi’s home during Hanukkah celebrations, left behind journals containing anti-Semitic references, comments about Adolf Hitler and references to the Black Hebrew Israelite group, authorities say.
The attack, which unfolded in Rockland County, New York, was the latest in a series of attacks against Jewish people in New York. The suspects in the earlier mass shooting at a kosher supermarket in Jersey City also showed interest in the Black Hebrew Israelite movement.
Thomas’s former stepfather, Joe Kennedy, told Heavy in an interview that, through the time he knew him, until 2014, Grafton had grown increasingly aggressive and unstable, even attacking him with a fire extinguisher. He believes Thomas is mentally ill and also provided some biographical details, saying that Thomas had previously served in the military, was born in America to a family with roots in Guyana, once worked on a chicken farm, and identified as Muslim.
