Child dies of injuries from 2009 DWI crash
DALLAS — A young boy who was crushed in a car crash by a repeat drunk driver in 2009 died Sunday.
Abdallah Khader, 8, had lived in a near vegetative state, all but brain dead since the crash in Arlington, Texas, nearly six years ago.
Abdallah was strapped into his car seat on Feb. 20, 2009, when Stewart Richardson crashed into the car.
The boy lived strapped to a chair, often tethered to oxygen, and never able to respond to his parents' loving touch.
He suffered from frequent bouts of pneumonia. His parents said he died Sunday morning at Cook Children's Medical Center in Fort Worth.
His case sparked outrage, legal battles over sentencing, and a civil suit against the establishments that had served Richardson in the hours before his pickup truck slammed into the Abdallah's family's car.
One case is closed; the other was settled.
Richardson's blood alcohol level was approximately three times the legal limit on the night of the 2009 crash. He remains in a Tarrant County, Texas, jail, where he has been waiting for trial longer than any other inmate currently incarcerated. Richardson's trial has been delayed over efforts to enhance his punishment because of prior DWI-related offenses in other states.
Prosecutors want Richardson off the streets for good — up to life in prison instead of a maximum 20-year sentence.
The ordeal has tortured Loubna and Fahad Khader, Abdallah's parents. In 2014, on the fifth anniversary of the crash, Loubna Khader hoped to confront Richardson. The previous day, Richardson said that he prayed constantly for Abdallah, and kept a picture of the child in his cell.
Richardson agreed to see Loubna Khader face-to-face. Five years of pent-up rage and grief erupted as Khader slammed a photo of her long-suffering son against the visiting room glass separating a mother from her living nightmare. Richardson told her he was sorry. Khader wept and screamed until she was spent. She then left the room and collapsed on a bench.
Abdallah's mom and dad have spent years expecting their son to die at any time. His parents had been told he'd live five more years.
"The last year, my son's health has been declining really fast," said Loubna Khader last year on the fifth anniversary of the accident. "Originally they said five years, so this year — when he started getting sick — my heart started pounding."
The Khaders, who now have a daughter, have long wondered whether Abdallah's death would bring any peace, or whether finally facing Stewart Richardson in court will bring them anything like closure.