A woman from Taylor has been charged with second-degree murder in the car crash that killed 33-year-old Dr. Ghada Mustapha from Dearborn, according to a Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office press release.

On July 19, just before 8 a.m., Felecia Sunshine Lazo’s car crashed into Mustapha’s pickup truck while driving at an extremely high speed on Michigan Avenue near Nowlin Street. Reports state that she was exceeding 100 miles per hour and ran the red light at Nowlin Street.

Mustapha was pronounced dead at the scene and Lazo was taken to the hospital for her injuries.

Dr. Mustapha’s father, Deeb Mustapha, honored his late daughter with heartfelt words as he spoke to The Arab American News. He described her as remarkably bright and gifted individual, someone who excelled in school and was deeply loved by those around her.

Sharing his pride for her academic career, he said that just before graduating Fordson High School, she received the Brehm Scholarship for her undergraduate studies at the University of Michigan. Completing her undergraduate degree in Ann Arbor, she then went on to pursue her medical degree at the university’s medical school, graduating in 2017.

After graduation, she worked as a family physician at the Corewell Health Taylor Hospital.

Mustapha said his daughter, a wife and mother, leaves behind a 4-year-old son, a 2-year-old daughter and a 9-month-old son.

Overcome with emotion, he said that everything his daughter worked for — everything that she was — was taken away in an instant.

He also said Lazo’s car struck his daughter’s driver’s side door directly and that witnesses to the crash described the sound as similar to a bomb.

“This is something you never hear,” he said in regards to the severity of the situation. “We were in a tragedy, we are still mourning, she is so beautiful. We can’t survive without her.

“She helped a lot of people, she trained a lot of people going through the process to be a doctor,” he added. “Three or four guys told me: ‘without Ghada, I wouldn’t be a doctor.'”

He also said his daughter’s friends and those around her deeply admired her, with many of her college peers saying she made them “feel like home.”

After the crash, the family went to the Prosecutor’s Office to push for a deeper investigation.

Because the crash involved a fatality, casework needed to be completed, so the charges took time to be issued, according to a statement by Assistant Prosecuting Attorney and Director of Communications Maria Miller  to the Detroit Free Press.

Prosecutor Kym Worthy shared a statement regarding the horrific incident:

“It is always beyond tragic when the life of a promising young person is cut short over the horrific actions of another. By every account, Ghada Mustapha was a young, brilliant and passionate doctor who was just beginning her medical career. She had hopes, dreams and goals for herself and her family. The alleged actions of this defendant took away her life — along with those hopes, dreams and goals.”