‘I DON’T WANT THEM DYING FOR NOTHING’
Seven years after a drunken driver killed two young sisters, family returns to accident site to remind drivers of DWI’s toll
Life goes on, Darlene Peshlakai said, but never easily. The family keeps busy to help with that. The Peshlakais, of Naschitti in northwest New Mexico, organize runs, basketball tournaments, motorcycle rides, rodeos and more.
Del Lynn and Deshauna, Darlene Peshlakai’s youngest daughters, were killed by a repeat drunken driver on Santa Fe’s south side seven years ago. Nothing changes that, but all the events organized by the family, Darlene Peshlakai said, keep the girls’ memory alive.
And, maybe, she added, if people remember the sisters, see their faces often enough, the next tragedy might be avoided.
“I don’t want them dying for nothing,” Peshlakai said. “The thing that we can do is remind people: If you drink, don’t get behind the wheel. Just don’t get behind that wheel.”
Among the Peshlakai events that raise awareness of the terrible costs of DWI, one undertaking directly sweeps drunken drivers off the road: Santa Fe police run a biennial DWI checkpoint at the spot of the March 5, 2010, crash.
In honor of the Peshlakai sisters, police will again stop drivers and administer sobriety tests at the intersection of Cerrillos and Cristo’s roads beginning at 8 p.m. Thursday.
In 2015, the memorial checkpoint netted four arrests, three for DWI. Gov. Susana Martinez attended the 2013 memorial checkpoint in solidarity with the family and, according to news reports at the time, passed out flyers to drivers as they passed through.
The Peshlakai family will again pass out items bearing the girls’ photographs Thursday night, including
cards, pins and bags of candy, Darlene Peshlakai said. All of it serves the message of awareness, she said, and the fight against drunken driving requires persistent messengers.
“One of our intentions is to remind people that something has happened there — just to remind them and to keep reminding them,” Peshlakai said. “It’s something that we have to keep doing.”
Del Lynn and Deshauna Peshlakai were teenagers at the time of the fatal crash. The family was traveling south on Cerrillos Road after a state tournament basketball game between Santa Fe Indian School and Newcomb. Deshauna, 17, played for Newcomb; Del Lynn, 19, was a former player and attended the game that night with her mother and father, David.
They were nearly at the Interstate 25 on-ramp. “The last thing I remember is we were talking about where we were going to eat when we got back to Albuquerque,” Darlene Peshlakai said.
James Ruiz of Albuquerque, then 36, plowed his F-250 pickup into the rear of their sedan. A police report said Ruiz made no effort to brake. Tests later showed Ruiz’s blood-alcohol content was well over the limit at which a person is legally presumed to be driving drunk.
The sisters, seated in the back, were killed in the wreck, as was the family dog, July. The Peshlakai parents were hospitalized with serious injuries.
Ruiz, who suffered minor injuries, had a lengthy criminal record, including five DWI arrests, three of which had resulted in convictions, one of which was set for trial the week of the fatal crash. He is serving a 40-year sentence at Southern New Mexico Correctional Facility in Las Cruces, according to online correctional records.
Blue Corn Cafe & Brewery, where Ruiz had been drinking prior to the wreck, was fined $10,000 and had its liquor license suspended for 15 days by the state. The restaurant group that owns Blue Corn began what it called the Responsible Alcohol Server Program for employees, which included a presentation featuring photographs of the Peshlakais and the crash. The group also adopted a policy limiting alcohol servings to customers.
Darlene Peshlakai said they always make a point to visit the crash site when in Santa Fe. They maintain a memorial there — a permanent piece, she said, of the message the family works so hard to spread.
“These were young girls,” she said. “It could happen to anybody.”