A 33-year-old man fatally shot the mother of his children in St. Paul after showing up for one of their birthdays last week, then fled the state with the children and crossed the Canadian border alone on foot, according to charges.
St. Paul police said Monday they continue to look for Wesley B. Koboi, of St. Paul, in connection with the killing of 29-year-old Shaniya D. Thompson, who officers found dead in her Dayton’s Bluff apartment Friday. Preliminary evidence indicated she was shot Thursday.
Koboi was charged by warrant Saturday in Ramsey County District Court with second-degree intentional murder and second-degree unintentional murder.
Thompson was a “devoted mother” of five children who “witnessed the unthinkable,” according to her sister.
“(Koboi) came into her home bearing gifts for my young niece’s birthday,” Thompson’s sister wrote on a GoFundMe page. “All the while planning to shoot and kill my sister, while my nieces and nephews were there.”
According to the criminal complaint:
Officers about 4:15 p.m. Friday were called to Thompson’s apartment building in the 500 block of Broadway Street, near downtown and close to Interstates 94/35E and East Seventh Street. The caller, who lives in Louisiana, said her granddaughter called and told her the girl’s father, Koboi, had shot her mother inside the apartment.
An officer called the girl, who said she was in Michigan. When asked if her mother was at home and OK, she replied, “I don’t know.” When asked if she had seen her father, she said, “Dad had a gun.”
Another child was handed the phone and said she thought he had hurt her mother with a gun, and that he said it was an accident. She said they had been arguing, and that he had a “short” firearm that he put to her mother’s head.
The child said Koboi then asked her and her siblings if they wanted to go to their aunt’s house. It was the child’s birthday.
Officers entered the apartment and found Thompson on her back in the master bedroom bathroom. She had a gunshot wound to her head. A handgun and phone were on the floor near her body.
Thompson’s father told an investigator he learned Koboi went to the apartment for a child’s birthday. Koboi told the children to leave the living room and go into their bedroom. They then heard a scream and a loud “thud.” Koboi told the children they were going to leave, and drove them to Grand Rapids, Mich., where his mother lives.
Koboi’s mother said he and the children arrived at her house between 8:30 and 9 a.m. Friday. It’s an eight hour, 13-minute drive from St. Paul to Grand Rapids on the interstate, the complaint noted.
Koboi told his mother they were there to celebrate Christmas, but otherwise “didn’t say much about their surprise arrival,” the complaint read. She said he stayed for about an hour and then left the children with her, saying he would be back but not where he was going.
Investigators learned through federal law enforcement officers that Koboi crossed the border into Canada on foot at the Sarnia Blue Water Bridge at Port Huron, Mich., just before midnight Friday. He had booked a flight to Mexico.
Mara H. Gottfried contributed to this report.
