Dearborn man almost killed in hit-and-run forced to sell famed GMC Envoy

When Haidar Alfadawi recalls his GMC Envoy, the memory of his daughter shines in the chrome stickers that turned heads in and around Dearborn for years.

He’d added her first name across the rear window, as he worked to create a rolling tribute that would be even “more special,” for her.

Batoul, age 6, died unexpectedly in a hit-and-run crash in November 2021, struck by a speeding SUV on Bingham Street in Dearborn.

“That’s how life is. Sometimes things happen that we never expected,” said Alfadawi, sitting on his mother’s porch a short distance from the crash site on a recent Tuesday morning.

Alfadawi’s reflective words are a way to describe a tragedy that cost a little girl her life, but they might also describe the near tragedy that almost ended his own life last year, when he was struck by an SUV on Aug. 23 as he walked across Michigan Avenue in what authorities called an intentional hit-and-run crash.

Murtadha Jabbar Alizairij pleaded guilty in the case to a charge of reckless driving causing serious impairment. He was sentenced in April to 18 months to five years in prison. More serious charges, including assault with intent to murder, were dismissed.

Survival for Alfadawi doesn’t equal unscathed, however, even when the doctors consider it, as he said, miraculous. Alfadawi said he remembers nothing of the crash and that he spent three months in a coma last year. He gave his first name as “Haidar,” which is different than the spelling reported previously as “Haider.”

Alfadawi, who also goes by the name, “ZilZal,” carries scars on his head, relies on lots of medicine to ease his pain and isn’t currently able to work. He also had to sell the vehicle that made him locally famous, an approximately seven-year project that involved cutting the shiny pieces and attaching them with various types of adhesives inside and outside of the vehicle. He said he spent an estimated $15,000 on his creation.

The layered pieces, with edges sharp to the touch, create a kind of shiny skin or armor, an idea that Alfadawi developed during his travels as a long-haul trucker, going to places like Texas and Washington State.

“I loved that car, but I had no choice and I had no money. I had to get rid of it,” he said of the decision to let it go for $1,000.

The vehicle, as it turns out, hadn’t gone unscathed either. It was stolen, trashed and left on a roadside in Detroit, apparently while Alfadawi was in the hospital, before it was recovered.

This reporter had gone looking unsuccessfully for the car himself in October after someone posted a video of it anonymously to a stolen cars Facebook group, where it showed the Envoy abandoned and missing a window. That left a mystery solved in May after the same reporter spotted the unmistakable gleam of the Envoy while driving past a grassy lot in southwest Detroit.

“One thing is seeing it drive by and another thing is actually seeing it in person and seeing … the time, the detail he put into it,” said Chris Vasquez, referencing Alfadawi. Vasquez, 34, of Detroit, who owns XVO − We Buy Junk Cars, spotted the Envoy for sale on Facebook Marketplace and arranged to buy it.

But extensive damage likely means it’s destined to be scrapped, according to Vasquez, who showed how the steering column had been ripped apart, with wires left to dangle.

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The Envoy still demands attention despite some portion of the estimated 10,000 tiny stickers now missing. A green-accented scorpion, for instance, continues its vigil on a back window.

Alfadawi, 41, had caught attention for years driving the Envoy around Dearborn or even up and down Woodward Avenue during the Dream Cruise.

These days, Alfadawi, who moved to the United States from Iraq as an 11-year-old, is spending a good deal of time at his mother’s house as he tries to heal.

He’s taking a lot of medicine, 13 different kinds, and “healing up slowly,” he said.

“It’s going to take time because sometimes I get headaches, sometimes I get dizzy,” he said, noting that he is able to sleep but not without waking multiple times. “When I get to talk to friends or family it kind of helps me … 'cause when I think of what they did to me it hurts me, so I gotta go slowly.”

Alfadawi’s injuries were extensive, affecting his brain, spinal cord, ribs and ankle, he said.

He lifted the ball cap he was wearing when the Free Press visited to show some of his scars. A picture on his phone from his time at the hospital shows him with eyes closed and a sunken area on the side of his head.

He said he doesn’t remember being in a coma or the crash on Michigan Avenue, just waking up at some point.

“They told me slowly. I never knew I was in an accident. I never knew a car hit me but then slowly they told me,” he said.

One mystery that remains from the period Alfadawi connects to his time in the coma is an open court case. It’s from a misdemeanor assault and battery charge filed against him related to an incident in October “at or near” the address for Corewell Health Dearborn Hospital.

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Court records reviewed by the Free Press shed little light on the allegations (a bench trial was scheduled for Thursday, May 28), and Alfadawi said he has no recollection of the incident. A Free Press reporter received an email from Dearborn Police on Wednesday, May 27, saying the department would take advantage of an allowed 10-day extension before fulfilling a Freedom of Information Act request for more information.

Alfadawi’s situation caught media attention last year, not just because of the violence associated with the crash but also because of a dismissive response he received when he went to the police station beforehand worried about his safety. That led to an officer’s suspension.

Alfadawi had also been posting on social media about his concerns, saying, as the Free Press previously reported, that people were trying to kill him over a $565 dispute.

Alfadawi told the Free Press the dispute was with the assailant and his brother and involved a traffic ticket connected to a trip to Texas.

"I used to drive their semitruck. I got a ticket for no insurance," he said.

He said he’d been assured, incorrectly, that the matter had been resolved.

Although he can’t drive right now and his prized Envoy is gone, Alfadawi, who has seven living children, all but one of whom are girls, said he intends to create something special with another vehicle eventually.

In the meantime, he’s taken advantage of a wall in his parents’ basement, applying the same type of stickers used on his vehicle, which he’d buy in big sheets from an auto parts store, to a design that’s reminiscent of what he did with the Envoy.

“It’s like freedom,” he explained, as a photographer suggested a comparison to the wings of a bird. “From here,” he motioned across, “you need to be patient, and then from here, everything opens up.”

Eric D. Lawrence is the senior car culture reporter at the Detroit Free Press. Send your tips and suggestions about cool automotive stuff to elawrence@freepress.com. Become a subscriber. Submit a letter to the editor at freep.com/letters.