Man convicted on four counts of murder
MINOT (AP) — A Somali national was found guilty Monday of killing the mother of his child and three other people in Minot two years ago.
A jury took about three hours to convict 28-year-old Omar Mohamed Kalmio, who was accused of fatally shooting 19-year-old Sabrina Zephier at her home and then killing her mother, her brother and her mother’s boyfriend at a nearby mobile home on Jan. 28, 2011, The Minot Daily News reported.
Kalmio, who had a history of violent crime, was working in North Dakota’s Oil Patch at the time and said he was in the U.S. under political asylum. His sentencing hasn’t been set.
Zephier’s sister, Terri Zephier, said she was happy to be done with the trial, which began Jan. 23.
“That’s the hardest part: waiting, having to sit it out,” she said.
Kalmio was accused of fatally shooting Sabrina Zephier, the mother of his infant daughter, before killing her 13-year-old brother, Dillon Zephier; her mother Jolene Zephier, 38; and Jolene’s 22-year-old boyfriend, Jeremy Longie. The baby girl was found unharmed in Sabrina Zephier’s home. The were members of the Yankton Sioux Tribe.
According to court documents, a witness said Kalmio and Sabrina Zephier argued days before she was found dead, and Kalmio’s co-workers at an oil rig site near Williston claimed Kalmio had made statements about Zephier purposely getting pregnant and ruining his life. Kalmio also allegedly described injuries to Zephier that had not been publicly disclosed, authorities said.
Kalmio was convicted in 2006 of second-degree assault with a dangerous weapon and sentenced to about a year in prison. He and a group of other Somali men were accused of attacking a man in Minneapolis in January 2006, and Kalmio stabbed him three times in the back with a knife. Kalmio also was convicted of theft in 2006, and ordered to pay a fine.
Multiple slayings are virtually unheard of in North Dakota, which had only 10 murders and non-negligent homicides in all of 2010 and 24 homicides the next year, according to data compiled by the FBI.
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