An Ohio man will spend the next several decades behind bars for killing his wife and then setting her body on fire, authorities say.
Mamadou Aliou Diallo, 43, was sentenced on Wednesday to an indefinite term of years in prison over the September 2021 slaying of Fatoumata Diallo, 32, Franklin County court records reviewed by Law&Crime show. On July 19, after a six-day trial, Diallo was found guilty on two counts of murder and one count each of aggravated arson, tampering with evidence, and gross abuse of a corpse.
Franklin County Common Pleas Court Judge Stephen McIntosh sentenced the defendant to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 27 years, the Franklin County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office clarified in a press release – the sentence that prosecutors had requested and “the maximum possible” under Ohio law.
Upon any potential release, the defendant will be required to register as a violent offender and an arson offender. Diallo filed an appeal of his conviction on Tuesday, court records show.
The defendant was arrested on Oct. 1, 2021.
Contemporaneous press reports detail the way the condemned man killed his wife before haphazardly trying to torch the evidence.
Firefighters arrived at the home on Noe Bixby Road in Madison Township owned by the defendant at around 1:00 p.m. on the day in question, according to Columbus-based ABC affiliate WSYX. The blaze was small enough for first responders to control quickly. Inside, they found a residence filled with smoke and the body of a woman immediately pronounced dead, The Columbus Dispatch reported.
Fatoumata Diallo had been strangled to death and then set on fire with an accelerant, authorities said, describing the murder weapon, variously, as a coaxial cable or USB cord. A prosecutor told local CBS affiliate WBNS that the victim had been strangled with “some sort of braided cable, maybe a phone cord, something of that nature.”
Diallo himself called 911 that day.
“I need a firefighter here,” he told the dispatcher in audio obtained by WBNS. “I got a fire in my house.”
“Is everyone out of the house?” the dispatcher eventually asked.
“Uh, no, I think I, uh, just got the kids out,” Diallo can be heard saying in response. “I couldn’t go in. I tried to get in now, I can’t go.”
Law enforcement said that what the man didn’t say was important.
“The 911 call, he never mentioned his wife was in the house for 45 seconds to a minute,” a prosecutor told WBNS. “If it was you or I and our loved one was in the house, the first thing I would say is: ‘Get somebody here. My wife’s in the basement. I can’t get her out.’”
Investigators also found surveillance footage that showed the husband coming and going out of the house at the time of the fire.
The defendant and two of the couple’s children – both under the age of 3 – made it out of the house with no injuries. The couple had five other children who were not at home that day. Police reports obtained by WBNS showed a history of domestic disturbances – some focused on issues between the wife and her husband-turned-killer’s three children from another woman.
“They’ve got a history of domestic violence incidents between the two of them,” Franklin County Sheriff’s Office Sgt. Bill Duffer told WSYX. “There’s been many domestic violence incidents at that home.”
Those incidents date back to 2018.
One report obtained by WBNS offered a chillingly prescient guess about the fate of those in the home on Noe Bixby Road.
“It is my opinion, that this living situation is a powder keg of tension, waiting to explode,” police wrote. “Most likely only a matter of time before something at this residence turns into something criminal.”
Have a tip we should know? [email protected]
