What happened to Jacob and Rachel Sperber? Elderly couple brutally killed in Borough Park stabbing incident

Jacob and Rachel Sperber, a 75-year-old Jewish couple, were fatally stabbed multiple times by their 46-year-old troubled son inside their home in Borough Park in Brooklyn, New York, on Saturday, January 20, 2024, the New York Post reported.

The publication reported that the gruesome incident unfolded on Saturday evening. Police responded to a 911 call at 1158 45th St. in Borough Park around 5:20 pm, after a neighbor who heard a disturbance from the apartment above alerted Hatzolah, the Jewish volunteer emergency service, which then rushed the elderly victims to Maimonides Medical Center where they were pronounced dead upon arrival, as per CBS.

The suspect, identified as the couple’s 45-year-old son, reportedly barricaded himself inside the apartment after the gruesome incident. He was later transported on a stretcher to a hospital with visible scratches on his head.

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Jacob and Rachel Sperber's son was living in their Borough Park home at the time of the attack

While the police has not formally identified the man behind the brutal stabbing, neighbors reportedly told The Post the suspect was the couple’s son, who suffered from mental health issues.

Borough Park resident, Shlomo Antin, described the couple’s son as a “weirdo":

“He was sometimes depressed, sometimes high … he was kind of [a] weirdo.”

Another neighbor concurred with the assessment, adding that the suspect struggled with mental health issues throughout his life.

“He’s a disturbed guy. He’s awkward. He’s also very quiet and to himself. He’s had issues in his life.”

While authorities have yet to disclose a motive behind the killing, a Borough Park resident, Shmial Weiss, told CBS a man seemingly suffering from mental health issues killed his parents:

"A Jewish person killed his parents. This has nothing to do with us. Everyone is shaken. Every human person is shaken by such a story. No one stands for such a story. We have a lot of mental health. We have a lot of, you can just go down the block, you can see the help. But not everyone wants to be helped."

Meanwhile, witnesses at the scene described Jacob and Rachel Sperber as innately kind and polite people who were beloved in the community. Shlomo Antin described Jacob Sperber as a kind person who would feed hungry people in the neighborhood.

In a Facebook post, Ysoscher Katz, a teacher at Yeshivat Chovevei Torah Rabbinical School in New York, said Jacob Sperber, who attended his class for 9 years, was a quiet and polite man with a loving twinkle in his eye.

In the post, Katz confirmed Jacob and Rachel Sperber were tragically stabbed to death by their “mentally unwell child,” adding the world was a much darker place without the couple.