Fardoussa Omar Abdillahi appears in a Stearns County, Minn. Sheriff’s Office booking photo.
A 28-year-old Minnesota mother who allegedly told the authorities she slit the throat of a three-month-old baby then stuffed his body in a garbage bag and tossed it into a dumpster outside of her apartment building has been found competent to stand trial for the horrific slaying by her doctor. In a letter to Stearns County District Court Judge Sarah Hennesy, a forensic psychologist deemed that Fardoussa Abdillahi had “the requisite skills and abilities for trial competency,” according to court documents reviewed by Law&Crime.
The letter, written by Dr. Jodi Blaszyk, says the determination on Abdillahi’s mental state came after she was recently evaluated pursuant to Rule 20.01 Subd. 7 of the Minnesota Rules of Criminal Procedure. Under that statute, the court will hold a hearing and if the court agrees with Dr. Blaszyk’s determination, Abdillahi’s criminal proceedings must resume. Judge Hennesy has scheduled an omnibus hearing on the matter for Feb. 13, 2023, according to court records.
A Stearns County grand jury in December 2021 indicted Abdillahi on charges of first-degree premeditated murder and second-degree intentional murder (without premeditation). The penalty for premeditated murder is life in prison; the penalty for second-degree murder is up to 40 years in prison.
As previously reported by Law&Crime, officers with the St. Cloud Police Department arrested Abdillahi after a 911 caller tipped them off that the defendant’s baby was dead. The male caller said “a baby was missing” and that the baby’s mother had told him “she had thrown the baby in the dumpster,” according to the probable cause statement.
The caller learned of the situation because the “defendant had called her mother, who lives out of state, in the early morning hours of November 28th” and reported the same; the mother appears to have tipped off others who went to the defendant’s apartment to see what was wrong.
“Responding witnesses were acquainted with the defendant and were told that she claimed to have killed [the child] and put him in the dumpster behind the apartment,” the probable cause statement continues.
The man who called 911 “and other witnesses went to look for [the child] but could not locate him,” the document goes on. “Witnesses were unsure at the time if the defendant was being truthful and called the police when they could not find the baby.”
The witnesses “went to help and found the defendant crying and alone in her apartment,” the document continues. “The defendant repeatedly stated that she had killed her baby and thrown him away.”
The baby boy was a little less than four months old, the probable cause statement indicates. The “defendant lived alone” with the victim in an apartment, it also states.
Here’s how the police described their involvement; the authorities referred to the victim in police reports as “Child A”:
Officers arrived on scene and spoke to the defendant. Officers observed children’s furniture in the residence, but no child present. Officers asked the defendant where Child A was located. The defendant stated Child A was in the dumpster behind the building. As officers were searching the dumpster, the defendant stated that she stabbed Child A and put him in a black plastic garbage bag before putting him in the dumpster. At the same time, officers located the deceased body of Child A within the dumpster. The defendant was placed under arrest and the scene was preserved.
Later, the police read the defendant her Miranda rights; she agreed to talk. She told her interrogators that she started suffering from “headaches and feelings of worry and fear” after the birth of the baby. The infant’s father was also “denying” that the baby was his, she said, according to the probable cause statement.
Again, from the document:
The defendant stated she was looking at Child A wondering how she was going to get help. The defendant admitted she stabbed Child A with a knife from the kitchen. The defendant stated Child A was crying prior to her stabbing him. The defendant demonstrated that she cut Child A across the throat. The defendant stated she put Child A into a black bag with baby clothes and put the bag into a trash bin in her apartment. The defendant stated she brought the bag out to the dumpster about five minutes after she stabbed Child A. The defendant stated she called her mom about twenty minutes later and told her mom what she had done.
The defendant was booked on Nov. 28, 2021, at 8:20 a.m., according to records at the Stearns County Sheriff’s Office.
An autopsy revealed that the baby suffered a “circumferential sharp force injur[y] to [the] neck,” the probable cause statement revealed. “The manner of death was ruled homicide.”
After a few months of legal wrangling and a mental health assessment, a Judge Hennesy ruled in February that Abdillahi was not competent to stand trial.
A subsequent Feb. 14, 2022 document indicated that the defendant had been “committed” by judicial order to an inpatient mental treatment facility.
Abdillahi’s bond remains set at $2 million without conditions and $1 million with conditions.
[Image via Stearns County Jail]
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