New counts of stalking, kidnapping resulting in death returned in Noel murder case

May 15—SPRINGFIELD, Mo. — A Somali national who fled the country five years ago after being charged with abducting a 4-year-old McDonald County girl now stands indicted on additional counts in connection with her mother's death.

A federal grand jury returned a superseding indictment Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Springfield charging Mahamud Tooxoow Mahamed, 39, with stalking and kidnapping resulting in the death of Jessica McCormack, 25, as well as the count of kidnapping a minor alleged in an initial indictment in 2019.

McCormack's body was discovered July 29, 2019, crammed into a suitcase left along Missouri Highway 59 between Lanagan and Noel. Her 4-year-old, 20-month-old and 6-month-old daughters could not be located after her body was found, and they remained missing for several days.

The last time McCormack had been seen alive was on July 16, 2019, when law enforcement officers were called to her residence in Noel. All three of her girls and Mahamed, her boyfriend, were at home at the time.

On Aug. 8, 2019, a woman in Des Moines, Iowa, who had worked with Mahamed at the Tyson plant in Noel, contacted law enforcement to report that the children were with her.

She said Mahamed had shown up at her residence with the children three days earlier. She called law enforcement when she came upon a note from Mahamed informing her that he could no longer care for the girls and realized that he had left.

The girls, born to three fathers, were taken into state custody, and the original indictment for kidnapping of a minor was sought and obtained on confirmation by the oldest girl's father that he had not consented to her being taken to Iowa.

Mahamed fled the country following his indictment and remained at large for about a year before being arrested in Guatemala in July 2021.

The new charges allege that Mahamed stalked McCormack between April and July 2019 and then kidnapped her, resulting in her death.