A man serving time in a South Carolina jail has been indicted for the 2015 killing and dismembering of a woman in Niagara Falls.
Yasin Abdu-Sabur was charged Tuesday with second-degree murder in Niagara County Court in the death of Terri Lynn Bills. Niagara Falls Police Chief of Detectives Capt. Kelly Rizzo said Abdu-Sabur pleaded not guity and was remanded, before a pre-trial conference later this month. The suspect is being represented by a public defender.
Bills' body was found inside a vacant home in the city of Niagara Falls in June 2015. Her head, feet and hands had been removed and were not found inside the home. Niagara County District Attorney Caroline Wojtaszek acknowledged the murder's similarity to that of Bills' niece a few years earlier.
"This arrest allows us to say for certain that we do not have a serial killer in our community," she said. "The reason we are sure that this defendant was not responsible for the murder of Loretta Jo Gates is because he was serving time for a felony conviction at the time."
Abdu-Sabur was extradited on Friday from a South Carolina jail, where he has spent the last year for a domestic violence and child neglect conviction. He was transported to the Niagara County jail in Lockport.
"While it's important today that we have an arraigned man for the murder of Terri Lynn Bills, we want to remind the family of Loretta Gates that we have not stopped searching for the person responsible for her death," said Wojtaszak.
