Woman who tried to drown Muslim girl in Euless pleads guilty to attempted murder
A woman who last year held the face of a 3-year-old under the water of a Euless apartment building swimming pool because the little girl is Muslim has pleaded guilty to attempted murder.
Elizabeth Wolf last week also pleaded guilty in a state district court in Tarrant County to an injury to a child offense and was sentenced to the equivalent of five years in prison in the water submersion of Salma Dawoud. Wolf received credit for the time she has already served in jail.
Adhering to a plea agreement that the Tarrant County Criminal District Attorney’s Office reached with Wolf, Judge Andy Porter, who presides in Criminal District Court No. 4, sentenced the defendant.
Wolf pleaded true to the special-issue hate-crime allegation that she intentionally targeted Salma and her brother, Yusef Dawoud, because of Wolf’s bias or prejudice against Muslims or people of Middle Eastern descent.
The district attorney’s office waived the indictment’s top offense, attempted capital murder of a person under 10, which would have carried a sentence of between five to 99 years, or life, in prison.
Wolf is 43. She tried to drown the 3-year-old girl at an apartment pool in Euless on May 19, 2024. Wolf, who witnesses said was intoxicated, made racist comments before trying to drown the girl, according to police and the child’s mother.
The 3-year-old and her 6-year-old brother were in the shallow end of the swimming pool at the apartments, watched by their mother, Dar Salem Hadeel, on May 19 when Wolf approached and asked the mother where she was from, according to police and witnesses. The mother was wearing a hijab and speaking Arabic to her children.
The mother said that Wolf jumped into the pool and pulled the children to the deep end, where she attempted to drown both.
Police have said that Wolf attempted to grab the 6-year-old boy, but he managed to get away. The 6-year-old is the victim of the injury to a child charge.
The mother went to help her son, but Wolf grabbed the 3-year-old girl and forced her under the water, authorities said.
Wolf is accused of kicking at the mother as she tried to get to her daughter and pulling off her hijab, hitting her with it, according to the Council on American Islamic Relations. A man jumped into the water and helped rescue the girl from Wolf.
Wolf was approached by Euless police officers as she tried to leave and placed under arrest, initially for public intoxication. As Wolf was being handcuffed by police, she shouted, “I will kill her, and I will kill her whole family,” a witness told the Texas chapter of CAIR, a Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization.
Wolf’s actions received condemnation from elected officials including Texas House District 92 Rep. Salman Bhojani of Euless and then President Joe Biden.
Defense attorneys Tim Choy and Kara Carreras did not respond to questions that a reporter submitted via email.
This story was originally published September 30, 2025 at 8:19 PM.
