Qafim Kaba was 29 years old when he was found stabbed to death inside his home in the 2500 block of Terra Firma Road in Baltimore's Cherry Hill neighborhood on Saturday, September 15, 2007. The Baltimore Police Department investigated his death, and the Baltimore Sun's homicide database lists it as a homicide.
According to the Baltimore Sun, police were "responding to a call from a family member at a home in the 2500 block of Terra Firma Road in Cherry Hill" just after midnight when they
"found a 29-year-old man dead in the house." Police said the victim, "a resident of the house identified as Qafim Kaba, appeared to have been stabbed." A separate Sun roundup of the day's killings said he "was found dead early yesterday morning in his home." Another Sun report described him as "fatally stabbed in a Cherry Hill apartment early Saturday."
His death came during one of the most violent weekends of that year. The Sun reported that six people died in a span of 16 hours, and that police had made no arrests in any of the weekend's slayings, including Kaba's. The stories did not say who called police, what the family member saw, whether anything was taken from the home, or whether there were signs of a struggle. They also did not say whether detectives believed Kaba knew the person who killed him, though the fact that he was attacked inside his own home suggests that his killer may have been someone he let in or someone who knew where he lived.
Beyond these brief news accounts, little about Qafim Kaba's life has been made public. No obituary, memorial page or family fundraiser could be found. His name is unusual, which means anyone who knew him is likely to recognize it, and a relative was involved in the first call to police that night. Those who loved him surely remember far more about who he was than the record shows.
Cherry Hill sits in the southern part of the city, near the Middle Branch of the Patapsco River. It is a residential neighborhood of rowhouses, apartments and garden-style homes, somewhat set apart from the rest of the city by the water, rail lines and major roads. Terra Firma Road runs through the residential heart of the neighborhood.
Baltimore recorded roughly 200 to 280 homicides a year between 2007 and 2014, one of the highest rates of any large American city, and many of those killings were never solved. The killing of Qafim Kaba was one of many that fall that were never publicly connected to a suspect.
No arrest, criminal charge or court case connected to the death of Qafim Kaba could be found in news archives or public records. More than 19 years later, there is no public sign that anyone has been held responsible. Anyone who was in Cherry Hill around Terra Firma Road late on Friday, September 14, or in the early hours of Saturday, September 15, 2007, or who knew Qafim Kaba and the people he spent time with, may know something that could help.
Even a small detail, such as a name overheard, a vehicle seen nearby or a conversation remembered, can help detectives move a case forward. Anyone with information can call Baltimore Police homicide detectives at 410-396-2100, or leave an anonymous tip with Metro Crime Stoppers of Maryland at 1-866-7LOCKUP (1-866-756-2587).
