Mother Of 15-Year-Old Amira Nairat Killed In 2019 Hit-And-Run Crash Shares Her Anguish

CHICAGO RIDGE, IL — The day before her 15-year-old daughter Amira Nairat was killed by a hit-and-run driver near Richards High School in February 2019, Amira’s birth mother, Roza Dawud, was sick with dread all day at work. She could not shake the unwell feeling in the evening, and the next morning she still felt physically ill with a sense of foreboding.

“I went to work with tears in my eyes,” said Dawud, who works as a registered medical assistant at Northwesters Palos Hospital. “My manager said, ‘you still can’t shake it?’ I had a gut feeling that was making me nauseous.”

The morning of Feb. 5, 2019 Amira was walking to school when she was struck and killed standing on the sidewalk by a driver later found to be impaired on the Chicago Ridge side of Central Avenue.

“We were changing offices that day and too busy to watch the news,” Dawud told Patch, who said a friend called to tell her of Amira’s death after seeing it on the news.

In the days immediately following her daughter’s death, Dawud’s ex-husband and Amira’s dad, Mahmoud Nairat, dealt with the news media. In the Muslim tradition, Dawud washed her 15-year-old daughter’s body and covered it with a shroud. During her daughter’s funeral, Dawud says she and Amira’s stepmother, Dina, clung to each other.

Like many divorces, especially when children are involved, her post-marriage relationship with her former husband is complicated. There are recriminations on both sides, but one painful truth will forever bind Roza and Mahmoud: They both lost their little girl.

“You can’t function,” Dawud said. “It affected me mentally and physically. A piece of you is gone forever.”

For almost three years, Dawud attended all the court hearings for the driver, 25-year-old Edward Cruz, of Oak Lawn, that were streamed live on Zoom during the pandemic.

Prosecutors at his bond hearing said Cruz had spent the evening before watching the Super Bowl at a friend’s house, where he had “12 beers.” After the game, Cruz went to 115 Bourbon Street, where prosecutors said he was tossed out after reaching behind the bar counter and drinking from the open bottles of liquor. Cruz was charged with theft and bonded out of the Merrionette Park police station twenty minutes later.

Around 6 a.m., prosecutors said Cruz returned to the home where the Super Bowl party was held the night before. There, Cruz is said to have drank more whiskey. He was kicked out when he started to become violent. Before he left, he allegedly told a friend, “I’m really messed up.”

A Chicago Ridge police officer followed Cruz’s Volkswagen Beetle that matched a description broadcasted earlier by Oak Lawn police of a car traveling southbound on Central Avenue that rear-ended two vehicles. Prosecutors said Cruz got into a third crash, veering into the oncoming lane of traffic and sideswiping another vehicle, breaking off its side mirror.

When Cruz reached the corner of 107th Street and Central Avenue, prosecutors said he drove on to the sidewalk and hit Amira, waiting to cross the street to get to school. He continued driving without stopping. When police caught up with Cruz, he was covered in vomit. Officers said he told them he thought he hit a garbage can. Amira died a few hours later at Advocate Christ Medical Center.

A Cook County judge ordered Cruz to be held without bail pending trial during his bond hearing at the Bridgeview Courthouse.

“We will never forget Judge John Mahoney,” Dawud said. “I am so grateful for him.”

In October 2021, facing incriminating video evidence, Cruz pleaded guilty to charges of failure to report an accident/death and aggravated DUI/accident/death. He was sentenced to 12 years in the Illinois Department of Corrections. He was released into a work transitional program last October.

“My emotions were everywhere in my victim impact statement,” Dawud said, who feels that her story has been forgotten. “He took a part of my heart forever.”

In February, around the sixth anniversary of Amira’s death, sad and depressed, Dawud reached out to the Village of Chicago Ridge. She wanted to put up signs along Central Avenue warning motorists not to drink and drive on property the village did not own.

“She would have had to jump through a lot of hoops,” said Barbara Harrison, village clerk for Chicago Ridge. “So my mind went to honorary street signs.”

Hearing of the plan, Harrison said Richards High School also reached out to the village wanting to participate.

“Roza got the ball rolling,” the village clerk said.

Last month, on a hot, muggy Saturday morning, Amira’s family, Chicago Ridge elected officials, Dist. 218 administrators, Muslim community leaders and friends gathered at the corner of 107th Street and Central Avenue to dedicate Amira Nairat Memorial Drive. The Chicago Ridge and Oak Lawn police officers and paramedics who tended to Amira after the crash and chased down the driver were also on hand.

“Amira always wanted to wear scrubs and be a doctor,” her mother said. “I used to take her to work with me for the physician who delivered her. She was always an honor student. She went to Brookfield Zoo every Christmas to decorate trees.”

The day of the class of 2023 Richards High School graduation, the school acknowledged Amira with a certificate and teddy bear that was placed on an empty chair among the seated graduates.

“I sleep with the bear every night,” Dawud said.

Amira would have turned 22 on June 8. Dawud’s adult daughter from another marriage, Nadeen, 26, made Dawud a grandmother – 3-year-old Amir – named for his lost aunt, a dark-eyed little boy with a mop of black curls.

“He’s what makes me wake up every morning. He helps me survive,” Dawud said. “He is my light.”