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Father arrested for murder, arson in South Seattle house fire that killed teenage son

by KOMO News Staff

SEATTLE — Police arrested a father Tuesday for arson and murder in connection to a South Seattle fire that killed his teenage son.

Authorities arrested Mohamed Abdi, 38, on suspicion of murder and arson for an early morning Jan. 22 fire at a home in the 9300 block of 39th Ave. South.

Firefighters arrived to find four people who had made it out immediately report there was a fifth person still inside the home.

Firefighters raced inside and found the 15-year-old boy gravely injured inside a second-story bedroom and carried him outside as flames raced up the stairwell. The teen died at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle four days later.

A private insurance company said there were no signs of electrical failure, electrical combustion or accidental combustion that caused the fire.

Abdi's brothers confirmed that surveillance video captured the suspect walking north on Carkeek Drive at 4:01 a.m., less than two minutes before firefighters initially arrived to the home.

Authorities found two plastic gas cans on the patio that were partially melted. One of the cans was missing its cap, police said.

A police report from 2018 said Abdi threatened to kill everyone inside and burn the house down. Family members told police his behavior was becoming increasingly erratic and he often yelled in the garage, where he lived.

Family members and hospital staff tried multiple times to contact Abdi to update him on his son's condition as he battled injuries, but all efforts were unsuccessful, according to his arrest report.

Investigators arrested Abdi Tuesday and told him his son died in the fire.

"He showed no reaction and did not respond to investigator's questions except to ask for water, cigarette and a Coke," according to the arrest report.

Adbi is scheduled to return to court for a bail hearing on Thursday afternoon.

• Law & Justice

Seattle man charged with murder, accused of setting house fire that led to teen son’s death

King County prosecutors Friday charged a 38-year-old Seattle man with first-degree murder domestic violence, accusing him of deliberately setting a house fire that claimed the life of his 14-year-old son .

Mohamed Abdi was arrested Tuesday in Shoreline and remains jailed in lieu of $2 million bail, jail and court records show. The King County Medical Examiner’s Office identified Jabriel Isaq as the boy who died.

“The defendant set fire to his own residence in the middle of the night when multiple members of his family were asleep in their beds,” including his son, who died from inhalation injuries, Senior Deputy Prosecutor Terence Carlstrom wrote in charging papers. “He walked away from the engulfed residence while his family scrambled to escape and kept walking even as fire and police vehicles drove past him en route to his residence.”

Abdi is to be arraigned Feb. 17. Court records do not yet indicate which attorney is representing him.

According to the charges, Seattle firefighters responded to a house fire in the 9300 block of 39th Avenue South just before 4 a.m. Jan. 22 and found the residence engulfed in flames. Five of the house’s seven residents were outside in their nightclothes when firefighters arrived. The family told firefighters a 14-year-old boy was trapped inside.

Firefighters carried the boy out and he died four days later at Harborview Medical Center, the charges say.

Investigators found evidence that an accelerant was used to start fires on the house’s first floor, and two partially melted gas cans were found on the patio outside a sliding-glass door, say the charges.

Video-surveillance footage from the neighborhood showed a man later identified as Abdi walking north on Carkeek Drive South, just southeast of the house, less than two minutes before the first Seattle Fire Department trucks arrived, according to charging papers.

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Va. teen detained in Kuwait returns to U.S., reunites with family

A Virginia teenager who was placed on the no-fly list and barred from returning home to the United States from Kuwait arrived at Dulles International Airport on Friday morning for an emotional reunion with his family.

Gulet Mohamed, a 19-year-old U.S. citizen from Alexandria, entered the arrivals terminal nearly two hours after his United Airlines flight landed. His attorneys said he had been kept after the flight by U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents.

As he emerged from the gate around 8:40 a.m., his brother Abdi Mohamed, 28, sprinted over and hugged him, shouting "Gulet!" repeatedly.

A sea of media then engulfed the teenager, even before he had a chance to embrace his mother. Mohamed - dressed in a worn hooded sweat shirt and sweat pants, his baby face framed by a fuzzy beard - smiled and pulled his hood over his face.

"My voice has been heard," he said moments later. But "there's other Muslims and non-Muslims that are still being tortured."

Mohamed was detained in Kuwait last month at the behest of the United States, according to his attorneys. They allege that Mohamed was beaten by Kuwaiti officials who questioned him about his travels in Yemen and Somalia after he left the United States in March 2009.

After Mohamed's family sued the government over the no-fly order, U.S. officials said the teenager would be allowed to leave Kuwait and fly to Washington. Mohamed arrived on United Airlines Flight 981 shortly before 7 a.m.

His attorneys said they tried to get immediate access to Mohamed, but were told by customs officials that the teenager was being questioned by the FBI.

The attorneys protested, saying Mohamed did not want to be asked anything without a lawyer present. After about 30 minutes, the lawyers said that customs agents told them Mohamed was not being questioned, but was being processed for his reentry into the United States.

Mohamed's relatives, bearing flowers and balloons, were visibly distraught. "We're so upset about this," said his sister, Zahra Mohamed, 26, who was fighting back tears. "We were so happy for him to come. Just give him to us."

Laster, as he left the airport in a taxicab, Gulet said in a brief interview that "it feels great to be back."

"I feel great. I feel wonderful," he said. Asked whether he was scared during his time in Kuwait, he said, "Of course I was scared. I'm still scared."

Mohamed's family has said that said he went overseas to study Arabic and Islam, stayed only a few weeks in Yemen, and then lived with relatives in Somalia and Kuwait. They said he has no connection with extremists.

Gadeir Abbas, a staff attorney with the Council on American-Islamic Relations who is representing Mohamed along with Nadhira al-Khalili, said FBI agents in Kuwait also tried to question the teenager despite the fact that he told them he wanted his American attorneys present for any interrogation.

Civil liberties groups allege that Mohamed's case is part of a pattern in which American citizens are barred from flying to the United States so they can be questioned by U.S. agents while overseas and without counsel.

Mohamed's attorneys sued Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III, Terrorist Screening Center Director Timothy Healy and their respective agencies in federal court in Alexandria. They alleged that Mohamed's 14th Amendment right to reside in the United States and to reenter the country from abroad was being violated. And they asked U.S. District Judge Anthony J. Trenga to order the government to allow Mohamed to return home.

Justice Department lawyer Paul Freeborne told the judge that Mohamed would be taken from a Kuwait detention center Thursday and allowed onto the flight from Kuwait to Washington.

The judge said he did not need to issue an order, given the government's statement, but said he would hold a hearing Friday if Mohamed was not allowed to leave.

Mohamed is the youngest of seven children in a family that fled Somalia when he was a baby. He became a U.S. citizen about five years ago, family members said.

Abbas said he might sue the U.S. government for violating Mohamed's rights by orchestrating his detention and attempting to question him without an attorney present.

A State Department spokesman said this month that Mohamed was not detained at the behest of the United States.

Staff writer Tara Bahrampour contributed to this report.

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StarTribune

Somali american running star abdi bile is a world-champion mentor.

In Mohamed Abdi Mohamed's childhood, Abdi Bile was like a folk hero.

"My mom told me all these stories," says Mohamed, 26, who was born in Somalia and grew up in a refugee camp. "She told me there's a Somali who went to America and basically conquered America."

Bile was a world champion runner, dominating the 1,500-meter race in the late 1980s. He's also a national legend and the most decorated athlete in the history of Somalia, where a certain make of pickup truck has been dubbed the "Abdi Bile" for its speed. In 2019, Bile quietly moved from Virginia to Minnesota to coach runners and help develop youth in Minneapolis.

But all Mohamed knew was that there was a hero living in his midst when he worked the phones in Minnesota's Somali American community to get hold of Bile's cell number. At the time, he was a junior at Macalester College in St. Paul and at the lowest point of his five years in the United States. Homesickness, grief and plummeting grades were leading him to question if coming here on an academic scholarship was worth it.

On a gamble, Mohamed called Abdi Bile.

Shockingly, Abdi Bile picked up.

Mohamed could hardly spit out the words as he told Bile he had just started running for Macalester's track team — and — would the coach be interested in meeting him one day?

"If I was lucky, I would get to see him even once," Mohamed remembers thinking.

The next day, Bile showed up at Mohamed's doorstep in St. Paul. That encounter started a friendship that the two say will continue for the rest of their lives.

When I sat down with them near the home of the Loppet Foundation, where Bile directs competitive running programs , organizes walks for seniors, and introduces Somali American families to cross-country skiing, the 59-year-old former Olympian assured me that the story I wanted to tell — about the power of mentoring — was not just about him.

"Mohamed's journey is very interesting, from where he started to where he is today — it's just incredible," Bile says. "You just see the resiliency of human beings, the struggles they go through, and how they survive if they don't give up."

But Bile's story is remarkable, too. Once a teen standout soccer player, he decided on a whim to join some nearby runners who were training for the 400-meter. He beat them to the finish line, but felt so woozy afterward that he threw up.

Within a week, however, he learned two things about running: If you were good enough, you could win a scholarship to attend college in the United States — and even advance to this thing called the Olympics. When he quit the soccer team, Bile told his coach: "I'm going to the Olympics. I'm going to get a scholarship. I'm going to America. Goodbye!"

Killer workouts and his initial disdain for running did not deter Bile. "I hated it. But I just saw an opportunity: This is my way out. This is my meal ticket."

Within just a few years, he cashed in on that ticket. He ran on an athletic scholarship at George Mason University in Virginia and competed in his first Olympics — the 1984 games in Los Angeles.

More than 35 years later, he saw echoes of himself — the dedication, the sense of purpose — when he got that phone call from the kid at Macalester.

Mohamed's journey

Growing up in the sprawling Dadaab refugee camp in Kenya, Mohamed used to walk 4 kilometers to fetch water for his family. Whenever a blinking red light in the sky soared past, his mom used to point to the airplane and tell her son this would be his ride out of the camp.

And a scholarship was the only way to catch that ride.

With some diligence and luck, Mohamed earned a scholarship through Blue Rose Compass , a nonprofit that affords gifted young refugees a shot at a university education. It was through this gift that he was able to attend an international boarding school in New Mexico and then Macalester.

Unlike Bile, Mohamed never knew of Somalia's idyllic beaches or peaceful past, a land rich in history and culture. He was a kid born into civil war, only to learn of his homeland's halcyon days through stories imparted by his mom and dad.

"In their minds exists a grand country," he says. "And at the center of this country is Coach Abdi Bile."

"At least I had a country, a stable life," Bile muses. "This kid just grew up in a refugee camp. What hope do you have in a refugee camp? A refugee camp is a prison. You have to do whatever it takes to get out of those four walls."

When Mohamed first called Bile, he was on the cusp of giving up and going home. The second eldest of eight kids, he hadn't seen his family in five years. He was mourning the death of his uncle, who was struck by a stray bullet in Mohamed's hometown of Kismayo. His grades were slipping, and he was almost put on academic probation.

"I was starting to feel sorry for myself," Mohamed recalls. "I was questioning the decisions I made. It feels like you're living in a virtual reality — you have everything you need, but your family is still living in a refugee camp. I was willing to throw everything away."

With Bile he forged the kind of connection he couldn't find anywhere else. "What I needed was some tough love," Mohamed says.

"He needed my help," Bile says. "Right away, I could relate to what he's crying for, what his issues and problems are. Sometimes it's not a lot — sometimes the person just needs someone to talk to."

The hardest lap

Bile told Mohamed about his first days in the United States as a college student, so poor he couldn't cobble together the coins to do his laundry. Bile reminded Mohamed of all the people who were in his corner and invited Mohamed to Bile's training program for elite runners so he could meet other young Somalis working toward big dreams.

"In running, the hardest is the last lap," Bile tells me, recalling how he almost abandoned the sport because of injuries. After healing his body through yoga and acupuncture, Bile won a world championship in 1987.

"Sometimes people who quit, they don't know how close they were to the finish line," the coach adds.

Mohamed listened to his mentor: — Look what you came from. You're almost there. You're here, you're doing it. This is nothing compared to how far you've traveled — and kept putting one foot in front of the other.

His internships and work-study jobs helped pave the way for his family to leave the refugee camp and find an apartment in Nairobi. His siblings now are receiving the kind of education he had only dreamed of while in the camp.

And what about the kid who came so close to throwing it all away? Mohamed graduated from Macalester in December. No one in his family could be at the ceremony, but Abdi Bile, the hero of his parents' stories, showed up to watch Mohamed cross the stage. Bile says he wouldn't have missed it for anything.

Mohamed is now reverse-mentoring his coach, encouraging Bile to start an Instagram account so he may ignite a spark for other young people. This week, the recent college grad also started a job as a tech analyst for a global consulting firm with offices in Minneapolis.

As the two recap the highs and lows of the past couple of years, Bile dabs his wet eyes with a carefully folded tissue.

"You did it," he tells Mohamed. "You have a good job. You're going to take good care of your brothers and sisters."

The coach says he wants other young people, those who can trace a whiff of opportunity, to learn from this young man — that they should go ahead and be brave with their lives.

"Mohamed's story is a good story for our kids here," Bile adds.

"And so is a world champion helping his people," Mohamed counters. "How many people can say they have the greatest athlete in the history of their country rooting for them?"

Laura Yuen is a features columnist for the Star Tribune. She explores parenting, gender, family and relationships, with special attention on women and underrepresented communities. With an eye for the human tales within every news story, she calls forth the deeper resonance of a story, to humanize it, and make it universal.

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Ohio man charged in Kanawha County shooting

CHARLESTON, W.Va . — A Columbus, Ohio man is in jail charged with a shooting Wednesday night in Kanawha County.

The Kanawha County Sheriff’s Department has changed Aweis Mohamed Abdi, 29 years old of Columbus, Ohio with one count of felony malicious wounding.

Deputies were dispatched to a home in the Rand community of Kanawha County for a domestic dispute. When they arrived, deputies found a handgun at the scene believed to have been used to shoot a woman. Witnesses told police Abdi shot a woman and then left with her and an eight year old girl.

Deputies say they suspected Abdi might be taking the two back to Ohio and put out an all points bulletin for the vehicle. State Police spotted the vehicle travelling west on I-64 in Cabell County and successfully stopped it off the 29th Street Exit in Huntington.

The gunshot victim was transported to Huntington’s St. Mary’s Medical Center and is in stable condition. The child, according to deputies, was not injured. Abdi was arraigned in Cabell County Magistrate Court and is lodged in the Western Regional Jail in lieu of $50,000 bond.

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Columbus gangster sentenced to 14-19 years in prison for manslaughter in fatal shooting

A Columbus man is serving a minimum 14-year prison term for killing a man his defense attorney said shot at his client first.

Mohamed Abdi, 18 , pleaded guilty in Franklin County Common Pleas Court to voluntary manslaughter for shooting 20-year-old Musa Aliyow on Feb. 1, 2023, at the Ashton Square Apartments complex on Columbus' West Side. Aliyow was taken to a hospital in critical condition, but died on Feb. 9, 2023.

Because Abdi was 17 at the time of the shooting, he was initially charged in Franklin County Juvenile Court before his case was bound over to adult court .

As part of the plea agreement, county prosecuting attorneys dropped other charges, including a murder charge.

Judge Sheryl Munson sentenced Abdi to 14 years to 19 years in prison, at the recommendation of the prosecution and Abdi's defense attorney, Lewis T. Dye.

Abdi was scheduled to appear in court next week, but his case was moved up. He pleaded guilty on Dec. 21 and was immediately sentenced.

Assistant Prosecuting Attorney Steven Schott told The Dispatch that Abdi admitted to being a member of "Bantu Life" or BL-800, a criminal gang based out of the Wedgewood Apartments complex in the city's Hilltop neighborhood.

Abdi pleaded guilty to a criminal gang participation specification on the manslaughter charge.

According to Dye, Aliyow shot first while Abdi was sitting in his vehicle.

"The guy who got killed was trying to do a hit on my client and put two shots in my client’s door," Dye told The Dispatch on Friday.

Aliyow's gun jammed and Abdi got out and shot him, according to Dye. Aliyow tried to run away but fell to the ground, and Abdi shot him again, Dye said.

Schott said surveillance video showed Aliyow put his hands up before Abdi shot him the second time.

On a recorded call made from jail, Abdi laughed about Aliyow begging for his life, Schott said.

"Once the guy's on the ground begging for his life, you can't finish him off. And that's what he did," Schott said.

Because Aliyow was unarmed when he was shot again, Dye said the judge probably would not instruct a jury to consider a self-defense argument. But there was sufficient provocation, making this manslaughter, Dye said.

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