Minn. man gets 18 years for killing cabbie

Published 2:38 pm Thursday, January 6, 2011

HASTINGS, Minn. — An Apple Valley man has been sentenced to 18 years in prison for the stabbing death of a cab driver.

Twenty-year-old Abdirahman Abdikarim was sentenced Thursday in Dakota County District Court.

Abdikarim pleaded guilty in October to second-degree murder in the death of 41-year-old Michael Palm Jr. Palm’s body was found in his cab on Aug. 1, 2009, in front of an office building in Apple Valley. He had been stabbed 30 times.

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Abdikarim admitted that he broke into the cab with a screwdriver, then used it to kill the cabbie, who surprised him. He had wanted to steal a GPS unit.