Derrick Thompson charged with five counts of third-degree murder in car crash that killed five young Somali women

The Hennepin County Attorney’s Office added five charges of third-degree murder Monday against Derrick Thompson in the car crash from June 2023 that killed five young Somali women in Minneapolis.

Reached by phone, Thompson’s attorney, Tyler Bliss, said he had no comment. Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty said in a prepared statement that Thompson’s “lengthy record of dangerous driving, the trail of devastation he’s left in his wake, and his conduct in this case make these more serious charges appropriate.”

This is the second time in recent days that Moriarty has added third-degree murder charges to a case initially charged as criminal vehicular homicide. Last week, she brought two counts of third-degree murder against Steven Frane Bailey in the crash at Park Tavern in St. Louis Park that killed two people.

Thompson, the son of former DFL state Rep. John Thompson, was already facing 10 counts of criminal vehicular homicide, two separate counts for each victim. The amended charges come three weeks after a court hearing where Assistant Hennepin County Attorney Paige Starkey told Judge Carolina Lamas they offered Thompson a deal where he would plead guilty to five of 10 counts of criminal vehicular homicide while causing the crash and fleeing the scene.

Terms of the plea called for Thompson to serve between 32 and 38 years in prison and in return the county would drop the other five charges of criminal vehicular homicide while operating a motor vehicle in a gross or negligent manner.

The crash came after Thompson allegedly ran a red light at 95 mph in Minneapolis last year, killing the five young women and devastating the Twin Cities Somali community. The victims were Sabiriin Ali, 17, of Bloomington; Sahra Gesaade, 20, of Brooklyn Center; Salma Abdikadir, 20, of St. Louis Park; Sagal Hersi, 19, of Minneapolis, and Siham Adam, 19, of Minneapolis. On the night they were killed, the women were on their way home after running last-minute errands before a friend’s wedding the next day.

Their funeral was attended by thousands and an online fundraiser to support the victims’ families raised more than $450,000.

According to court documents, Thompson was observed driving at 95 mph on Interstate 35W in a Cadillac Escalade. A state trooper followed but did not turn on his lights. Thompson exited on Lake Street and plowed through a red light, hitting a Honda Civic with such force that it was pushed out of the intersection and pinned against a retaining wall. The five women in the Civic died at the scene.

Thompson was arrested shortly thereafter in a Taco Bell parking lot. An eyewitness identified him “100 percent positive” as the driver of the Escalade. Investigators used a receipt and surveillance video to show that Thompson had rented the car from a Hertz location at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport about 24 minutes before the crash.

A search of the Escalade found a Glock 40 semi-automatic handgun, 250 grams of fentanyl in 2,000 individual pills, 35.6 grams of cocaine and 13 pills that tested positive for MDMA. In December, U.S. Attorney Andrew Luger announced federal charges against Thompson from the crash for possession with intent to distribute fentanyl and illegal possession of a firearm. That trial is set to begin Oct. 7.

At the most recent hearing for Thompson in Hennepin County District Court, most of the arguments were procedural and related to what evidence will be allowed at trial. Bliss argued that several statements Thompson made after the crash before he was read his Miranda rights should be inadmissible along with a confrontation between an eyewitness and Thompson at a “show-up” which Bliss argued was “impermissibly suggestive.”

Moriarty had asked the court to allow the state to produce evidence from a different crime Thompson committed in California in 2018. In that case, Thompson was also fleeing police in a rental car. It contained more than 17 pounds of marijuana and $20,000 cash. Thompson crashed and pinned a woman against a retaining wall, which resulted in her being placed in a coma. He then fled the state. He pleaded guilty to that crime in 2022 and was released in 2023.

Moriarty’s filing claimed those previous charges are essential to proving Thompson’s criminal intent and that the crash in Minneapolis was part of a pattern of criminal behavior.

The next hearing in the case in Hennepin County is set for Nov. 4 with a trial set to begin Dec. 2.