A 26-year-old St. Cloud, Minnesota, man has been convicted of murdering his pregnant girlfriend, a woman who had sought protection from him through courts in two separate counties before he stabbed her 34 times in front of their three-year-old child.
Saleebaan Mohamed Abdirisaaq pleaded guilty at a Friday plea hearing to second-degree intentional murder and second-degree felony murder of an unborn child in the death of Falus Ali, KNSI reported. Ali was 17 weeks pregnant when she died. Sentencing is set for November 25, 2026.
The case lays bare a grim reality that protective orders, however well-intentioned, can amount to paper shields when the system behind them fails to keep a violent offender away from the person he has already threatened and harmed.
Officers responded to the East Germain Court apartments in St. Cloud at approximately 11:55 p.m. on September 23, 2025. When they arrived, Abdirisaaq was already outside, hands up.
"It's me. I'm right here," he told police.
Inside the apartment, officers found Ali's body near the living room couch. She had been stabbed 34 times, in the neck, chest, and arm. Their three-year-old child witnessed the attack.
Minutes before police arrived, Abdirisaaq had called dispatch himself. He reported a person dead inside the apartment and said he wanted to turn himself in. While officers were still processing the scene, Abdirisaaq's brother contacted authorities in Minneapolis to report that Abdirisaaq had called him and admitted what he had done.
Ali was rushed to CentraCare-St. Cloud Hospital, where she was pronounced dead. Hospital staff told investigators she was 17 weeks pregnant. The unborn child did not survive.
The killing did not come without warning. Court records referenced in the case show Ali had obtained a domestic abuse no-contact order against Abdirisaaq out of Sherburne County for prior violence. A separate restraining order had been filed against him in Hennepin County the previous September over threats he made against Ali.
Two courts in two jurisdictions had already documented a pattern of threats and violence directed at the same woman. Ali did what the system tells victims to do: she sought legal protection. Twice.
Yet on the night of September 23, Abdirisaaq was inside the apartment they apparently shared, close enough to grab a knife from the dishwasher during an argument and use it to end her life.
Whether Abdirisaaq was in active violation of either order at the time of the stabbing remains unclear from available case details. But the fact that he was initially charged with counts tied to violating a restraining order suggests prosecutors believed the orders were still operative.
Benton County Attorney Kathleen Reuter initially charged Abdirisaaq with four counts of second-degree murder. Those charges included counts connected to violating a restraining order and to the death of the unborn child. Reuter later referred the case to the Minnesota Attorney General's office, which allows the attorney general to step in at a county attorney's request.
At the plea hearing, Abdirisaaq admitted to the stabbing. He was convicted on two charges: second-degree intentional murder and second-degree felony murder of an unborn child. What happened to the remaining two counts, whether they were dropped as part of a plea agreement or resolved in some other fashion, has not been disclosed publicly.
Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison announced the conviction and thanked the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension and the St. Cloud Police Department for their work on the investigation and prosecution.
Ellison stated:
"Abdirisaaq's crimes are shocking and horrifying, and we are holding him accountable for them. My heart breaks for the victim's family, friends, and loved ones. I will continue to partner with law enforcement across Minnesota to ensure people face justice when they commit such heinous offenses."
Ellison's statement frames the conviction as accountability. And a guilty plea that carries two murder convictions is not nothing. But the case raises hard questions that no press release can answer.
How was Abdirisaaq in a position to be inside that apartment with Ali and their child despite protective orders from two counties? Who was responsible for monitoring or enforcing those orders? Was there any intervention between the filing of the restraining order and the night Ali was killed?
The three-year-old child who watched a parent die that night is now somewhere in the system, identity protected, future uncertain. That child is the most concrete measure of what the failure cost.
Ali's unborn child, 17 weeks along, is recognized in the conviction itself. The second-degree felony murder charge for the death of the unborn child reflects Minnesota law's acknowledgment that two lives were taken that night, not one. That legal recognition matters. It should matter more often in the national conversation about who counts as a victim.
Domestic violence cases like this one follow a depressingly familiar arc. A victim seeks help. Courts issue orders. The orders go unenforced or unmonitored. The offender escalates. And then the system that was supposed to protect the victim pivots to prosecuting the offender after it is too late.
Abdirisaaq's conviction does not bring Falus Ali back. It does not undo what a three-year-old saw. It does not answer why a man with documented violence and threats against the same woman was still close enough to reach a kitchen knife.
Sentencing is scheduled for November 25, 2026. The court will decide what Abdirisaaq's years look like. Nothing it does will change what Ali's final minutes looked like, or the fact that two separate courts had already been told this man was dangerous, and it wasn't enough.
Accountability after the fact is better than none at all. But for Falus Ali and her unborn child, it arrived exactly one intervention too late.
