LIVERMORE — Her name was Sara Abdelhadi and the last six months of her life were a living hell.
There were threats, nonconsensual posts of intimate visuals to social media, incidents of harassment at the Concord mall where she worked, and finally, a kidnapping that resulted in the 23-year-old Pleasant Hill woman jumping from a car as it raced down Interstate 580 in Livermore, according to police.
It was a desperate, final attempt to escape a man who seemed obsessed with her. After she hit the pavement, Abdelhadi was fatally struck by multiple vehicles as her alleged kidnapper continued down the freeway and out of sight, authorities said.
Abdelhadi’s abductor has been identified as 23-year-old Mohammed Yousef Omar, a Hayward resident, and authorities don’t know his whereabouts. But on Sept. 23 — nearly a year to the day after Abdelhadi’s death — Alameda County prosecutors charged Omar with felony counts of murder, involuntary manslaughter, kidnapping, vehicular manslaughter with gross negligence leaving the scene of an accident and a misdemeanor charge of damaging the cell phone of a witness.
Omar called 911 after Abdelhadi jumped from the car, but not until after he drove 13 miles from the site to a family member’s home in Tracy. He described Abdelhadi’s death as a suicide brought about by a loved one’s meanness. The California Highway Patrol says that after an extensive investigation, an even darker picture emerged of torment, stalking behavior, and domestic violence.
The two had begun dating roughly six months earlier, a relationship Omar would later tell police was plagued by mutual infidelity and arguments. Family members told investigators that Omar had continually threatened to injure and even kill her and would constantly harass her with phone calls, text and Instagram messages anytime she stopped talking to him and tried to distance herself, according to court records.
“We’re gonna get back to the old us. I promise. (One) more chance mama,” Omar allegedly texted Abdelhadi in one string of messages obtained by police. When she didn’t respond, the Omar’s messages got increasingly aggressive and suggested violence.
A final message was a direct threat, according to police: “I’m (expletive) shaking bra. I’m (expletive) kill you (expletive). Watch.”
On the night of Sept. 21, 2024, after another day of harassment, Omar allegedly confronted Abdelhadi near her Pleasant Hill residence. Earlier in the day, he’d stopped Macy’s at the Sunvalley Mall in Concord, where she worked, and “made a scene” in front of employees there, demanding to know where she was, according to police.
She called him to say that after she got off work about 6:30 she would go home and change and return to her work site to meet him. After she returned, he followed her to Morello Drive, about a mile from her home, where he blocked her car, court documents allege.
Once face-to-face with her, Omar allegedly smashed her phone by spiking it into the roadway, and ran for his 2018 black Audi sedan.
When Abdelhadi bent down to pick up her broken phone, Omar allegedly smashed the gas pedal and accelerated toward her. He missed Abdelhadi, slammed on the brakes, exited the car, and yelled at Abdelhadi to get inside, police say. She did.
But a few yards away, perched on an apartment balcony, stood a neighbor with their cellphone camera out. Concerned about the noise, the eyewitness had recorded the entire incident and would later show investigators the video, according to police.
Omar and Abdelhadi drove around for more than an hour, eventually ending up in Livermore. It was there, on the freeway, that Abdelhadi jumped from the car around 8 p.m., just east of North First Street exit. Omar continued to Tracy, then dialed 911 and later agreed to a police interview, according to court records.
Omar did not stop his vehicle after Abdelhadi jumped and made no attempt to assist or check on her, court documents say. Instead of calling 911 immediately, he called his mother first, talking to her for almost five minutes before finally dialing 911, authorities allege.
In his statement to investigators, Omar claimed that Abdelhadi had been high on cocaine and that she “lost the will to live” and jumped from the moving car when one of her family members called her and made cruel remarks over the phone. When police asked to examine his phone, he claimed he’d deleted communications that he didn’t want her to see, authorities said in court filings.
Authorities were able to obtain some of the communications and other incriminating posts, including a sexually explicit video of the two that Omar allegedly posted to Instagram. He also threatened to expose her family’s “secrets” as a form of control, police alleged in court records. She began carrying two phones out of fear Omar would damage one, her family members told police.
Her family members told police they noticed bruises and other visible injuries on Abdelhadi throughout the relationship, and that she told her sister-in-law she was in an abusive relationship. In a police interview last year, Omar claimed Abdelhadi had told him a family member threw a remote at her face, causing a bruise, according to court records.
