After years of waiting, the mother of a three-year-old child slashed to death by a homeless California man can now move forward with a civil lawsuit against him and others.
Timmy Kinner was sentenced last June to more than two consecutive life sentences for the killing of Ruya Kadir at her own birthday party and the stabbing of eight others at an apartment complex on Wiley Lane in 2018.
Bifituu Kadir and Recep Seran, Ruya’s mother and father, filed the case a few months after the killing, but it had been on hold while Kinner’s criminal case progressed.
Judge Samuel Hogland lifted that stay on June 10.
In addition to Kinner, the lawsuit names the companies that own and manage the Wiley Lane complex, which is home to many resettled refugees in Boise.
Kadir is originally from Ethiopia, while Seran is from Turkey.
They allege these companies should share blame in their daughter’s killing since another tenant let Kinner temporarily stay with her against the complex’s policies.
In court documents responding to the suit, the companies, Northwest Real Estate Capital Corp., NWRECC Idaho Community Development LLC and NWRECC Idaho Affordable Housing Preservation LP, said they’re not responsible for Kinner’s actions that night.
The companies said the parents “failed to mitigate their damages” in Kinner’s attack.
“Plaintiffs' losses and damages, if any, were caused by the negligence, fault or responsibility of plaintiffs,” they said in their response.
Lawyers for the companies didn’t respond to a request for comment.
No further hearings have been scheduled in the case as of Wednesday afternoon.
The attack by Kinner on the night of June 30, 2018, that killed Ruya Kadir and injured five other children and three adults, made national headlines. Local police called it one of the most horrific crimes the city had ever witnessed.
“People were scattered across the apartment complex, both within apartments themselves, lying in the street and in the walkways,” said former Boise Police Chief Bill Bones at a news conference the day following the attack.
Kinner, who was homeless, had been staying at the complex for a few days that week with another tenant. But he was eventually kicked out the morning of the attack.
“I had no idea that this individual was planning to kill my daughter,” Bifituu Kadir said through an interpreterat Kinner’s sentencing last year. “I passed by him hugging my daughter at the time. I wish he had killed me instead.”
“You have taken my life from me. I cannot sleep. You are always in my life. You are everywhere,” Kadir told him.
“I didn’t have any plans to throw my life away and I definitely didn’t have any plans to hurt these people,” Kinner said to his victims during his sentencing hearing. “I hate that I took their baby away from them.”
As Boise State Public Radio previously reported, he said he was having a mental breakdown at the time and that he did not intend to attack anyone that night. Kinner had previously been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and schizophrenia.
Judge Nancy Baskin rejected his request to reconsider his multiple life sentences without the possibility of parole last February. A couple of months later in April, Kinner asked to permanently withdraw his appeal to the Idaho Supreme Court, which was granted.
Follow James Dawson on Twitter @RadioDawson for more local news.
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