Court hears Kamloops murder victim’s final message to fiancé

Mohd Abdullah’s failed efforts to recover a cache of hidden money led him to leave a final message for his fiancé before meeting his lawyer — the last day he was seen alive.

Elisabeth Sumartha, 48, testified in Rogelio “Butch” Bagabuyo’s murder trial this week.

The court heard her former fiancé, Abdullah, sent his final message to her over WhatsApp, but the wording changed slightly when she returned to testify the next day.

Adbullah, 60, was found dead in March 2022 and allegedly met Bagabuyo at his downtown Kamloops law office days earlier. It was the last time he was seen alive.

Bagabuyo, charged with first-degree murder, is accused of using Abdullah’s hidden money for himself, then killing his client as Abdullah became increasingly “frantic” for its return.

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“He asked that I not judge him and he felt grateful for my having been with him through all this time,” she said through an interpreter on May 12. “I answered when I woke up in the morning… I could see through my online messaging app it was sent, but it had not been read.’

Almost all of her testimony was translated from Indonesian by a court-appointed interpreter, but she spoke without the interpreter the next day.

“Thinking of you all day long. I know I can say anything in front of you and you will never judge me. Thank you for being with me. My heart will always belong to you,” Sumartha said, reading the message aloud in English.

Abdullah neglected to say he was going to meet Bagabuyo, telling her he could not give her more details about what he was doing, the court heard.

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Earlier in the day, the court heard a heated conversation with Bagabuyo which Abdullah surreptitiously recorded in December 2021. Abdullah was swearing, frustrated and questioning why the lawyer hadn’t returned his nearly $800,000. He sent the recording to Sumartha.

“This is what happens when someone pushes me to the end of the wall and suffocates me. I’m very patient and tolerant to a point,” he said in a December 2021 email, the court heard.

The court heard earlier how the money was crucial to Abdullah’s planned 2026 retirement, but it was entrusted to Bagabuyo in order to hide it from his 2016 divorce. When his ex-wife died, Abdullah began asking for its return.

Sumartha was living in Indonesia when Abdullah died, but they were planning for her to immigrate to Canada.

The nine-week trial is around halfway through and expected to conclude in Vancouver next month.

Bagabuyo remains on bail, more than three years after Abdullah’s body was discovered in a rental van which the lawyer is accused of using in a failed effort to bury the body somewhere outside Kamloops.