A 43-year-old man murdered his girlfriend in Missouri, concealing her body in a pink suitcase, before abducting her three children and transporting them approximately 400 miles to Iowa, ultimately abandoning them in an attempt to flee the country, authorities report.

Mahamud Tooxoow Mahamed, a permanent resident originating from Somalia, admitted guilt on Friday to kidnapping resulting in death for the murder of 25-year-old Jessica McCormick, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Missouri disclosed.

Mahamed became a focus for police on July 16, 2019, after McCormick dialed 911 to report that he had threatened her with a knife and attempted to coerce her into sex at their residence in Noel, located in the Ozarks, as detailed in a plea agreement. McCormick also voiced fears about Mahamed potentially harming her children, one of whom was his. She escaped outside to make the emergency call.

“He’s going to go up,” McCormick told dispatchers, referring to her apartment.

She was then overheard yelling at Mahamed.

“Tito stop, please don’t. He’s going upstairs to the kids now, come on!” she screamed.

Authorities swiftly arrived at the apartment, but Mahamed had already disappeared. That instance marked the last sighting of McCormick alive. She and her children, aged 4, 2, and 6 months at the time, were officially reported missing on July 17, 2019.

On July 29, 2019, the McDonald County Sheriff’s Office received a 911 call from an individual who encountered a pink suitcase with feet protruding from it on Missouri Highway 59 in Lanagan, about six miles from McCormick’s apartment. It appeared as if the suitcase had dropped from an overhead bluff, causing the zipper to break and expose the feet. The body inside was severely decomposed, federal authorities stated.

Around the time McCormick’s body was discovered, Mahamed called his cousin in Minnesota and told her he was bringing McCormick’s three kids to her. When the cousin asked why, Mahamed said “something bad had happened and he could be in trouble,” cops wrote.

Mahamed arrived at the cousin’s home in Rochester, Minnesota, on Aug. 1, 2019. The cousin gave Mahamed some cash to rent a hotel room, but he returned to the cousin’s home a couple of days later and tried leaving the kids with her. Instead, she gave Mahamed money for another hotel room. But he ended up taking the kids to a friend’s home in Des Moines, Iowa.

Police recovered the kids, who were not physically harmed, on Aug. 8, 2019. The friend told cops that Mahamed had shown up with the kids a couple of days prior. On the day they were recovered, the friend said she woke up to the kids crying around 4 a.m. Mahamed was nowhere to be found. He had left her a note saying “he could not care for the children and had left,” cops wrote.

Meanwhile, the suspect told other friends he didn’t know where McCormick and the children were.

“I’m trying to find them,” he said in one message. “… it’s just the safety of her and the kids is what everybody is worried about.”

“Who the f— has my kids,” he said in another.

Sometime between then and Sept. 19, 2019, Mahamed fled the country and traveled to Guatemala.

Police obtained a warrant to search Mahamed and McCormick’s car and found clothing items with her blood on them, along with items that appeared to have been bleached. Investigators also spoke to one of Mahamed’s friends, who sold him the pink suitcase.

Mahamed was detained in Guatemala and extradited back to the United States in July 2021. He’s been in federal custody ever since.

The defendant faces life in prison when sentenced at a date to be determined.