mahamud yassin yusuf › deadmonton 2007 › deadmonton › edmonton

Mahamud Yassin Yusuf, 19, AKA Juma Abdi AKA Castro AKA Cuba Castro, was found dead May 20th, 2007. Police told family members he had been shot.

Yusuf was the Edmonton surrounding area's third homicide victim of the year.

Case status is open and active.

latest update

Standing 6-feet 7-inches and sporting wild wavy hair, Mahamud Yassin Yusuf would have been hard to miss.

The former Ottawa resident had recently moved to Edmonton where he was known on the street by various names.

The next thing anyone knew of the man was that he was found lying dead off an access road in a rural subdivision near Stony Plain west of Edmonton.

It took several days for RCMP to identify Yusuf.

Fingerprints, likely taken during earlier brushes with the law, led the RCMP Forensic Identification Section to put a name to him.

The police-supplied photograph was taken March 2006.

Now that they knew who he was, Stony Plain RCMP and their Edmonton Major Crime Unit are checking the man's last movements and immediate past with the assistance of the Edmonton police gang unit.

The cause of Yusuf's death was not released and police still weren't sure how long he may have been lying in the ditch.

As they try to puzzle together Yusuf's recent activities, police asked those with information to contact Stony Plain RCMP at 780-968-7200, Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-TIPS (8477) or online at www.tipsubmit.com - a secure tip submission web site.

The investigation into the Mahamud Yassin Yusuf case began when RCMP were called out after human remains were found northwest of Stony Plain on May 20th, 2007.

The remains were found by a woman or a couple [media and RCMP reports initially varied – see below] from the nearby area walking by a marsh at about 7:20 p.m.

The case was first treated as a suspicious death while police waited for autopsy results.

The body was found in a ditch along an entry road to Bridgewater Estates.

"This roadway up here you'll see some downed logs on the right hand side of the road and the remains were found just to the right of there, down in the dip there," Staff Sgt. Mike Pierson pointed out to CTV Edmonton viewers.

"I don't think there was any concealment of the body," Pierson later said explaining the body was not hidden.

A Global Edmonton-hired helicopter provided an aerial view of the scene. The body was found a short distance away from the main intersection.

Neighbours told the Edmonton Sun the house at the end of the driveway had been vacant for a month. The owner died of an apparent suicide.

Global did not indicate the source of the helicopter shots used in their broadcast. The station was still waiting for their Canadian Traffic Network operated R44-II news chopper to be readied after numerous delays.

RCMP called in the Edmonton forensic and major crimes units to assist. Project KARE was notified but was not taking an active role in the investigation.

Parkland County Search and Rescue crews combed the area looking for clues should the case turn out to be a homicide.

“They're just searching the area immediate to the body, looking for anything that might be left behind,” said Pierson. He added that RCMP are not yet searching the pond that adjoins the field.

The area, described as "wetlands, scenic lakes, rolling hills and big houses," is located about 10 minutes by road north and west of Stony Plain.

An autopsy completed two days after the find revealed the remains were that of a man. No details regarding his identity were released, including whether police knew who he was.

“About all I can tell you is it's a male. We're not sure who it is yet and how long it had been there,” said Pierson.

"Right now, all we can say is it's a criminal investigation. As it stands, it's not a homicide, it's a criminal investigation."

A number of items were found with the body but their nature was not disclosed.

The RCMP Edmonton Major Crimes unit took over the case from Stony Plain detachment. Edmonton police were assisting by checking their missing persons files.

On May 23rd, RCMP confirmed they were now conducting a murder investigation.

RCMP Staff Sgt. Mike Pierson said police still don't know the dead man's identity and they haven't released a cause of death.

"Certainly the focus of the investigation right now is on determining the identity of the deceased," Pierson said.

Pierson said the decision to deem the case a homicide was made "based on everything they've come across so far at the scene and in the autopsy." He didn't eloborate further.

What was made more clear was who initially discovered the body.

On May 24th, Eliza Barlow of the Edmonton Sun reported that it was a child, not a couple, who discovered the man's remains.

Pierson confirmed to the paper a school-aged child found the body. “A young person initially found the remains. The young person went home and told an adult, who phoned the police.”

It was later reported by the Edmonton Journal that it was a boy who found the body.

On May 25th, 2007 RCMP released the identity of the man as Mahamud Yassin Yusuf.

Police released little information about the man other than that he had recently moved to Edmonton from Ottawa. His cause of death and the length of time his body may have spent lying in the ditch before being found was also withheld.

However, more exact details would soon come from Yusuf's family.

RCMP Corp. Al Fraser also had little to say about possible suspects or a motive for the killing.

"At this point, everything is open," Fraser said.

"We're trying to put a lot of pieces together."

"Being able to determine the identity now is a huge leap for us and now we can really start taking off with the investigation."

"We still need the public's help in trying to identify his movements, friends, associates, co-workers – anything of that nature."

Fraser also wouldn't speculate on whether Yusuf had been killed somewhere else and his body dumped outside Stony Plain.

The RCMP officer was also hesitant to connect Yusuf's death to the slayings of Deng Atem Bulgak and Juk (Jock) Deng Ring, shot to death in a Delwood neighbourhood alley on May 15th, or Ola Tinineh Moses, shot May 6th inside the Urban Stylez Clothing near near Edmonton's downtown.

The investigation continues.

As Mahamud Yassin Yusuf's Ottawa family gathered in Edmonton, more details emerged about the man's immediate past.

The 19-year-old moved west one and a half years ago and they hadn't spoken to him for about two months.

According to the family, police told them Yusuf had been shot and his body may have been in the ditch for as long as two months.

In an interview with Ajay Bhardwaj of the Edmonton Sun, the family shared their grief. Yusuf's mother, Faduma Ismail, had arrived in Edmonton the previous night from Ottawa.

“You can imagine, I was so broken down,” the woman said as she prepared to wash her son's body and bury him. “I couldn't believe it.”

“I don't know what happened to him,” said Ismail, who last spoke with her son about two months ago.

Yusuf and his family left their home in northeastern Somalia in 1993 and came to Canada. The teen, one of four children, had run into trouble in Ottawa but his mother wouldn't elaborate. He had come to Edmonton looking for a 'fresh start' about 18 months ago, she said.

“You know kids. He was trying. He said 'I'm going to change, I'm going to work.' ”

“He was a good kid at heart,” Ismail added. “He was a bright student, he played basketball."

“It was a shock, especially when they told us the body was there for two months,” said Yusuf's cousin, Ali Jama, who had come to Edmonton from Calgary for the funeral.

Jama told the Sun he hadn't seen Yusuf for six or seven months. When he last spoke with his cousin, he was doing well.

“He was quiet, gentle,” said Jama, adding Yusuf often hung out at local Somali restaurants where shot pool.

The funeral was scheduled for the evening of the 25th at an Edmonton mosque.

Without an accessible crime scene or eyewitnesses to a crime, media had to settle for interviews with area residents on the sunny spring day when Yusuf's body was found. Some interviewed offered their own speculation.

CTV spoke to Jim Carswell who happened to be passing by. Reporter David Ewasuk asked if the man if he had heard the news.

"They just asked if we'd seen anything suspicious in the last little while and they found some human remains down here."

You've kind have come by a crime scene basically, Ewasuk pointed out.

"Yah I know it's like something you don't expect out here naturally. Keeping an eye on the kids more now," said Carswell.

When Global caught up to Carswell, he had stopped to take a picture.

Asked if crime tape and a heavy police presence was a familiar sight in the area he replied, "No, nothing like that."

"You get quads rolling around once in a while, young kids here and there."

The Sun quoted some residents as saying the apparent dumping of the body had to be a fairly recent occurrence. Carswell agreed.

He figured someone drove through at night and thought the area was more remote and sparsely populated than it actually is.

“I think it's a pretty rare occurrence,” he said as he resumed his walk.

Some residents interviewed were shocked and unsettled. Brenda Dubilowski lived just across the road from the scene.

"All the families in the subdivision are very outdoorsy and riding their bikes and walking their dogs, taking their kids out, sitting down by the lakes because it's beautiful out here. It's, you know, it's serenity."

“It couldn't have been there long because everybody walks out here, rides their bikes, walks their dogs with their kids.”

"I'm really kind of hoping it doesn't have anything to do with the area or our subdivision."

“Obviously somebody must have got murdered and it was just our place that they picked [to dump the victim].”

Resident Paul Tremblay kept an eye on police as he pondered why a body ended up near his country hideaway.

"Is it gang-related? Is it KARE-related?"

"We moved here for the peace and quiet to get away from the big city and subsequently what's happening down the road here. Kind of ironic they found us again."

"Very spooky. Very spooky," Tremblay reflected.

P.J. Jovic, a hardwood floor installer working at a new home across from where the body was found, said he was at the house all weekend and didn't notice anything unusual.

“We were just talking about how this is heaven. Now we're seeing police and yellow tape – who would expect that?”

Residents told the Sun crime in the area usually consisted of burglaries and vandalism. However, the subdivision wasn't immune to drug crime.

In March 2006, a 55-year-old Edmonton man was arrested at a Bridgewater Estates home after a police raid turned up 52 marijuana plants, grow-op equipment and a 12-gauge Winchester shotgun with ammunition.

deadmonton 2007 - mahamud yassin yusuf