On the morning of January 26, 2024, 67-year-old Yuam Ming, a Chinese woman visiting family, was fatally shot in the parking lot of the Tukwila Costco, just south of Seattle. The King County Medical Examiner's Office later confirmed that she died from a gunshot wound to the chest, ruling her death a homicide.
The tragic event unfolded around 10:41 a.m. as Ming and her sister were loading groceries into their car. They were approached by two individuals in a stolen white Porsche SUV.
One of the men, identified as Salman Haji, then 19, allegedly attempted to steal her sister's purse. As Ming intervened to help her sister, Haji is accused of striking the sister with his gun before shooting Ming in the chest. The two suspects then fled the scene in the stolen vehicle. First responders arrived and administered lifesaving measures, but Ming died at the scene.
The investigation into the senseless act of violence revealed a preceding crime spree by the suspects. Earlier that morning, Haji and his alleged accomplice, Ilyiss Abdi, then 18, are said to have staged a minor traffic accident on Queen Anne Hill in Seattle to carjack a 76-year-old woman's Porsche at gunpoint. They were later captured on surveillance footage attempting to use the carjacking victim's stolen credit cards at a grocery store in Normandy Park shortly before the fatal shooting at Costco. The stolen Porsche was later found abandoned behind a church in SeaTac.
Investigators were able to identify Haji and Abdi through fingerprints found on the abandoned SUV and surveillance footage from the grocery store. A few days after the murder, a social media post identified Haji as the suspected killer, prompting him to flee the country on a flight from Seattle-Tacoma International Airport to Kenya. Abdi was arrested in May 2024 in connection with a separate fatal shooting in Kent. Both men were subsequently charged with murder, robbery, and attempted robbery for the death of Yuam Ming. After months of international cooperation between the FBI and Kenyan authorities, Haji was apprehended in Nairobi, Kenya, in July 2025 and extradited back to Seattle to face the charges against him. Both suspects are now in custody.
