Man admits to fatal stabbing in dispute over diluted drugs
An Ottawa killer who pleaded guilty Friday had confessed to a jailhouse cellmate that he murdered Lonnie Leafloor because he was “tired of being punked” with diluted pills.
Idris Abdulgani, 22, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder for Leafloor’s fatal stabbing in April 2016.
Homicide detectives began investigating the case after a maintenance man at Leafloor’s apartment building at 1400 Lepage Ave. found Leafloor, 56, dead inside unit 315 on May 2, 2016.
He had been killed days earlier. The maintenance man was trying to deliver a new mailbox key to Leafloor but he wasn’t answering the door. The man entered with a master key and found Leafloor dead on the living room floor.
An autopsy revealed Leafloor had been stabbed in the neck and upper torso.
Friends of the slain man told investigators that Abdulgani — who was known by many names, including “Bosch,” “Seattle,” “Boz” and “Bodge” — had shown up the day before Leafloor is believed to have been killed, trying to take over the man’s apartment to sell pills. The two had known each other and Leafloor told a friend he wanted to get him out of his apartment but didn’t know how.
The same day Leafloor’s body was found, Abdulgani was arrested for assaulting a cab driver. Police were further aided when a jailhouse cellmate who had shared a cell with Abdulgani while he was in custody for the assault told them Abdulgani admitted to the murder.
Leafloor owed Abdulgani money and Abdulgani was tired of being taken advantage of, he told his cellmate. After Leafloor got high, Abdulgani stabbed him in the throat with a steak knife.
Police found Abdulgani’s DNA at the scene, including on a bloodstained cigarette butt.
Abdulgani was arrested and charged with the murder after pleading guilty to a robbery in October 2016. He was set to walk out of court a free man after the Crown withdrew a charge of uttering threats and he was sentenced for time he’d already served.
Instead, he was arrested by police for the killing. He was originally charged with first-degree murder but pleaded guilty Friday instead to second-degree.
Leafloor’s family previously told the Citizen he had struggled with addiction for nearly 30 years after a series of back surgeries led him down a dependent path of abusing prescription painkillers.
His brother Barry Leafloor told the court that a brother, uncle, father and son was “savagely attacked” and taken from his family. What’s left now are scars that will last a lifetime for the Leafloor family.
Barry and his brothers had to clean out Lonnie’s apartment — the site of his murder. “That ugly scene plays over and over in my head,” he said.
Barry said he will be “forced to take to his grave” the smell, taste and sight of how his brother was killed.
There was no one to hold Lonnie’s hand while he took his last breath, said Barry, who later learned his brother died clutching his sports trophies — trophies they had won together as young men.
Barry presented court with a rock with the word “hope” written on it and asked it be given to Abdulgani, should he ever be released.
“Maybe there is hope that you will have more respect for human life in the future,” he said to the man, who sat inside the prisoner’s box. syogaretnam@postmedia.com