St. Cloud woman given 21-year sentence for 3-month-old son’s murder

Krystal Frasier KSTP

Fardoussa Abdillahi (Courtesy: Stearns County Jail)

A woman who entered a guilty plea to a second-degree murder charge last summer following the death of her 3-month-old son has now been sentenced.

On Thursday, Judge Sarah Hennesy sentenced 29-year-old Fardoussa Abdillahi to spend 261 months, or 21.75 years, at the Shakopee project. She was allowed 859 days of credit for time already served behind bars, or a little over two years.

As previously reported by 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS, Abdillahi was indicted for one count of first-degree premeditated murder and one count of second-degree intentional murder, not premeditated, in December of 2021.

Before Abdillahi entered her guilty plea last August, Stearns County prosecutors filed a motion to seek an aggravated sentence due to the fact that the victim was an infant and was treated with “particular cruelty.” In exchange for her plea, prosecutors had agreed to dismiss the first-degree murder charge.

On Nov. 28, 2021, officers from the St. Cloud Police Department responded to an apartment on Maine Prairie Road for a report of a mother saying she had thrown her baby in the dumpster.

Officials say Abdillahi contacted multiple witnesses, including her mother, and told them she had put her child in the dumpster. Several of the witnesses came to the scene to try to find the child.

After the officers arrived, Abdillahi told them she had cut the child across the throat and put him in a black plastic garbage bag before placing him in the dumpster. Court records say officers located the deceased child in the dumpster shortly after.

One in custody, Abdillahi told officers she had experienced headaches and feelings of fear after she gave birth. Abdillahi told law enforcement the child’s father had denied being the father and on the day of the murder, she was looking at her child and wondering how she was going to get help.