A Brooklyn judge has overturned the decades-old conviction in the murder of Rabbi Dovid Okunov Hy”d, declaring the man imprisoned for his killing “actually innocent” in a rare ruling four decades later. In a 49-page decision, the judge vacated the indictment of the man who served 30 years in prison for the crime, citing clear and convincing evidence that he was not the shooter.

This brings renewed attention to the heartbreaking tragedy that shook Crown Heights to its core.

On Thursday morning, Daled Cheshvan, 5740, the 68-year-old chossid was brutally shot on his way to the morning shachris on Montgomery Street. The attacker shot him from close range and fled with his blue velvet bag containing his tallis and tefillin. The entire community was in a state of shock, and over 3,000 chassidim attended his levaya later that day.

At the Motzai Shabbos farbrengen of Zayin Cheshvan, the Rebbe delivered the maamar “Va’yarach Hashem es rei’ach hanichoach” and spoke painfully about the horrifying loss of Reb Dovid’s life. During the maamar and the sicha that followed, the Rebbe’s holy voice choked with bitter tears.

The Rebbe questioned how, after the length of the golus and the terrible decrees and destruction, such dark and incomprehensible events could still occur. Noting that Reb Dovid was on his way to shul, the Rebbe categorized him as a shliach mitzvah. The Rebbe cried that he was a man who sacrificed his life in Russia, succeeded in escaping to this free land, only to be murdered on his way to do a mitzvah.

To channel the immense grief into a vessel of Torah, the Rebbe announced that a yeshiva would be built over his grave, specifically a Jewish day school dedicated to serving the needs of boys from the Soviet Union. A group of anash and family members gathered the next day and established the institution, in conjunction with the FREE organization, Beis Rivkah, and Tomchei Temimim Ocean Parkway. The Rebbe chose the name Yeshivas Ohel Dovid, and the mosad operates to this very day.

The tragedy of his death stood in stark contrast to his noble history as a lifelong fighter for Yiddishkeit. Born in Ukraine in 1911, the story of Reb Dovid is the story of a chossid with irrepressible mesiras nefesh. At age 13, he mounted a hunger strike until his parents finally relented and allowed him to study at the underground Tomchei Temimim. He became a talmid chochom, a melamed, and a staunch Lubavitch chossid, teaching Jewish children under the Soviet regime at great personal risk.

In 1947, after the KGB discovered his ties to the Rebbe, agents arrived at his door to arrest him. Warned just in time, he fled and was forced into hiding. Even under the watchful eye of the Communist authorities, he maintained a secret correspondence with the Rebbe. In a 1964 letter, to bypass Soviet censors, the Rebbe signed off as “M. Zeide” to his “dear grandson Dovid” so as not to endanger him.

After finally managing to leave the Soviet Union and arriving in America, Reb Dovid immediately threw himself into community work. He assisted the Ezras Achim organization and worked tirelessly on behalf of Russian Jews still locked behind the Iron Curtain.

Now, 46 years after his life was brutally cut short, the conviction of the man originally jailed for the crime has been entirely vacated. With the suspect officially cleared of all wrongdoing, the heartbreaking murder of Reb Dovid Okunov, a chossid who risked his life to preserve the Torah under Soviet oppression, remains officially an unsolved case once again.