British woman and her two daughters killed in New York after car crashes into them

Danny Rigg

Published April 2, 2025 11:17am Updated April 2, 2025 3:23pm

Natasha Saada (right) and her daughters – Diana, eight, and Debra, five – died in the crash

A British woman and her two daughters died when an overturned car crashed into them while crossing a road in New York.

The blue Audi rested on its roof with its lights blinking on Ocean Parkway, a boulevard running through the Midwood area of Brooklyn, on Saturday.

It had allegedly sped through a red light, hitting an Uber and flipping over before ploughing into Natasha Saada and her three children.

Natasha, 34, died along with Diana and Debra, aged eight and five. Her four-year-old son Philip survived with critical injuries. They were walking home from synagogue at the time.

Members of the city’s Orthodox Jewish community, Natasha had been raised in Mill Hill, north London.

‘The whole community is grief-stricken’, Yitzchak Schochet, rabbi of Mill Hill Synagogue, told Jewish News. He travelled to Jerusalem for the funeral on Monday night.

‘Natasha grew up in Mill Hill and is fondly remembered by many. They are a beautiful family and we are all mourning along with them.’

Pictured: Ellie Yarimi in photos from her Facebook page. The driver accused of fatally running down a mother and her two daughters in Brooklyn Saturday is a wigmaker who lives a luxe lifestyle and who won $2 million from the NYPD in a lawsuit alleging she was raped by a police officer when she was a minor, according to court documents. Miriam Yarimi, 32, a mother of one, was driving her Audi on a suspended license on Saturday afternoon on Ocean Parkway in Gravesend when she got into a collision with Toyota Camry, and careened into and killed a mother and two children who were leaving Shabbat services, according to NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch. Yarimi, who goes by the name ?Ellie,? is a wigmaker by profession, something noted by the vanity plate of the Audi in the crash, which reads ?WIGM8KER.? — Miriam Yarimi, who goes by Ellie on social media, has been charged in connection with the crash (Picture: Facebook)

Miriam Yarimi, a 32-year-old wigmaker who was driving the Audi, has been charged with three counts of manslaughter, criminally negligent homicide, assault, and reckless driving.

Firefighters had to remove Yarimi from her car, which she was allegedly driving at 50mph, double the speed limit. She is now in hospital in stable condition.

Yarimi had 93 previous traffic violations, including 20 speeding tickets and more than $10,000 – or £7,700 – in fines.

Her licence was suspended at the time of the crash. She has previously shared pictures online of her stood next to the Audi, with its number plate saying ‘WIGM8KER’.

‘Speed certainly may have been a factor’, NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch said.

‘This was a horrific tragedy caused by someone who shouldn’t have been on the road.’

The impact of the crash sounded like an ‘earthquake’, a witness told The Daily News. He said: ‘I quickly ran, called 911, reported it in there.

‘There was emergency Hatzalah [ambulance] there on the scene within two minutes of that phone call, they came in there.

‘They performed CPR on the lady. There was another kid right next to that…and they did CPR on them.

‘There was a little boy did the CPR, and hopefully they got a pulse on him. Just really ugly scene.’

A woman who was left with bruises after the Uber she was travelling in with her kids was hit. Initially, she feared her own children were dead when she saw bodies lying in the road.

Mahbuba Ahmedova, 35, told NYPost: ‘I got knocked out [from the impact]. When I opened my eyes, I saw two kids were killed, and I thought they were my kids. But my kids were sitting down.’

Candles and flowers have been left near the scene of the crash.