A Woodbury mother found guilty of murdering her 5-year-old daughter and injuring her 6-year-old son in 2021 will not serve time in prison as long as she follows through with a current mental health civil commitment and other conditions of 40 years of probation she received Friday in a Washington County courtroom.

Judge Douglas Meslow sentenced Sadiyo Ibrahim Mohamed to 30½ years in prison, but then stayed execution of the sentence until 2063, during which time she will be on supervised probation. The judge ordered Mohamed to follow all conditions of her current mental health commitment case at the Minnesota Security Hospital in St. Peter, Minn., and any treatment or aftercare.

Mohamed, 34, has a history of mental health issues and civil commitments dating back to 2013. She has been at the St. Peter hospital under her latest civil commitment since November 2021. It runs for an “indeterminate” amount of time.

In April, Mohamed waived her right to a jury trial in favor of a bifurcated bench trial based on stipulated evidence and facts.

Meslow in September found Mohamed guilty of second-degree intentional murder and second-degree assault in connection with the attack on her children outside their townhome on May 26, 2021.

In the second phase of the trial, Meslow ruled that there was not enough evidence to support Mohamed’s defense that she was mentally ill when she attacked her children and that she should be exonerated of the crimes.

In Minnesota, an insanity plea, or “M’Naghten defense,” requires evidence that the defendant did not know right from wrong or understand the repercussions of her actions.

A ruling of not guilty by reason of mental illness would have resulted in Mohamed being civilly committed indefinitely to a secure hospital run by the state Department of Human Services.

Prosecutors on Friday asked Meslow to give Mohamed 30½ years in prison, while her attorney, Chris Grove, requested a downward dispositional departure to probation. Meslow’s sentencing order includes a domestic abuse no-contact order for Mohamed to keep her away from her children.

Chasing the children

Woodbury police were called to 479 Lake View Alcove at 12:45 a.m. Screaming could be heard in the background of several phone calls to 911.

Police found Mohamed chasing the boy, who was screaming. The daughter lay in the street, unconscious and bleeding from a head injury. A long, thin piece of wood, which Mohamed allegedly used to punish the children, was found near the girl.

When officers made contact with Mohamed, she “appeared to be staring off into the distance and saying an unknown Somali phrase repeatedly,” the criminal complaint says.

Sadiyo Ibrahim Mohamed (Courtesy of the Washington County Sheriff’s Office)

The children were taken to Regions Hospital. The girl had a fractured skull, lacerated liver, bruising over her entire body, a rib fracture and multiple brain bleeds, and the boy had a possible broken arm and a large bump just above his right eye. The girl died three weeks later, but the boy recovered from his injuries.

Witnesses reported seeing the woman hitting the children and chasing them down the street.

The boy told police his mom kicked him out of the house after she hit him and his older sister. He said that “they did not do anything” and that he did not know why she was mad, the charges say.

He said he told her to stop but she continued hitting him on his arm and head with a hard object. He said he saw his mom hit his sister “all over her body, lots of times,” the charges say. “(She) was saying ‘Sorry, Mommy,’ and his mom was saying that she didn’t trust her.”

His mom also chased him, he said, but he got away. According to the boy, Mohamed had previously used the object — which he described as a gray cylinder approximately 12 inches long — to hit him and his sister “lots of times.” He said she kept the object “down low” in her bedroom closet.

Mohamed told investigators she has bipolar disorder and had been off her medications for a couple of months. She had tried to clean her home that day and had been paranoid and hallucinating the past couple of days, believing her children were playing games on her. She wasn’t sure if her children were “the devil or a demon,” which made her question if she should hurt them or not, according to the charges.

‘Battles in her own mind’

Prior to sentencing, the judge received a dozen letters of support for Mohamed from her family, friends and members of the local Somali community. They all shared a common theme: Mohamed struggles with her mental illness and needs treatment, not incarceration, and she is remorseful for what she did.

Mohamed’s mother, Hodan Ali, said Mohamed was diagnosed with severe mental health problems after the birth of her first child. It gradually got worse to the point where she became isolated, combative and refused to take medication and support from family and friends, Ali said.

“Her life could be described as relentless battles in her own mind,” Ali said.

She said she was not asking that the judge “absolve her of responsibility. Instead, I am pleading for a more compassionate and appropriate approach to her case.”

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