A newly unsealed police affidavit in the unsolved Portland killing of David Anderson reveals previously undisclosed details of the shooting, including how the gunman paused to pick up shell casings that could have been used as evidence after firing multiple shots through an apartment door at 88 Gilman St. on March 15.
The affidavit, filed by police to obtain a search warrant for Apartment 305 on the day after the shooting, also publicly reveals for the first time the names of all five people who were inside when the shots were fired around 11 p.m. and that one of them dropped a different gun out a window afterward.
The affidavit and executed warrant remained under seal by a judge’s order at the Cumberland County Courthouse in Portland for 90 days after being returned on March 25. Since then, police have actively continued to investigate but have yet to identify a suspect or reveal any breaks in the case.
Both police and Deputy Attorney General Lisa Marchese, whose office prosecutes all homicides in Maine, declined to comment Monday on the newly unsealed documents.
“I can tell you that the investigation is ongoing,” Marchese said. “The Portland Police Department is determined to find the person responsible for the death of Mr. Anderson.”
The gunman never went into the apartment and was in the corridor with his back to the peephole when Anderson went to the door with Abdirahman Abdullahi behind him and demanded that the knocker turn around so he could see who he was, according to the affidavit by Portland police Detective Lisa Sweatt.
The affidavit details what police found in video footage from the apartment building’s lobby and hallways and what witnesses told them in the hours afterward.
“The male approached #305 and approximately 35 seconds later, the male produced a firearm and fired rounds towards the door,” Sweatt wrote. “The male then picked up shell casings off the floor. The male fired another round and picked up the casing and left towards the Valley St. side of the building.”
At least six shots went through the wooden door, including ones that struck Anderson in the left side of his back and middle of his chest. Another shot hit Abdullahi in the upper left thigh. Abdullahi survived, and told police that he threw another gun that was inside the apartment out a window before he fled about five minutes later, the affidavit states.
When police arrived shortly thereafter, they found Anderson lying on his side on the bathroom floor in a pool of blood. Rescue workers from the Portland Fire Department were unable to revive him, and Anderson was pronounced dead at 11:34 p.m.
Anderson was one of a group of people visiting the tenant of the apartment, Shawn McGuinness, that night. When the phone inside rang, indicating someone was at the secured front door of the building looking to get in, it was Anderson who buzzed his killer in around 11 p.m., witnesses told police.
McGuinness had been in bed when the phone rang. The others in the apartment – Anderson, 36, of Portland; Abdullahi, 20, of Portland; Anthony Osborne, 39, of Biddeford; and Abdullahi’s cousin Siyad Abdi, 35, of Portland – were watching television.
Osborne told police that after the shooting, he first tried to revive Anderson and then called 911. Osborne and McGuinness met the first officers when they arrived.
Other police found a Springfield Arms 9mm handgun in the leaves outside the apartment building, and an officer with a police dog followed from the gun on the ground to a location behind Amato’s sandwich shop a few blocks away, where they found Abdullahi and Abdi, the affidavit says.
Abdullahi and Abdi told police that they had been visiting McGuinness’ apartment at the time of the shooting and hid in a back room for about five minutes afterward because they were frightened and then ran from the building.
Abdullahi later told Detective Christopher Giesecke that he threw the Springfield Arms gun out the window after the shooting and that he didn’t know to whom the gun belonged, Sweatt wrote in the affidavit.
Abdullahi has only one criminal conviction on his record, for a misdemeanor charge of disorderly conduct, and was not prohibited from possessing a firearm.
No one has been charged with any crime in connection with the shooting or its aftermath, and police said witnesses have continued to cooperate with the investigation.
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