A few other drivers were tested and released.Ī photo at the memorial site showed the actual scene of the accident. The annual commemoration captured one alleged drunk driver. Drunk Drivers checkpoint with the help of Santa Fe and other police officers. The parents were in Santa Fe on Sunday to honor their girls at the annual Angels vs. That’s my words because I’m the mother of those two girls. “But I’m never going to heal and heal is not in my vocabulary. People use that a lot: ‘you’re healing, that’s healing,’ and things like that,” she said. She said “healing” wasn’t in her vocabulary because the pain was still as fresh as 12 years ago. “I’m still at that same place with missing my girls, wanting them here to touch them and hold them and being able to hug them,” she said.ĭarlene Peshlakai, the mother of Deshauna, 17, and Del Lynn Peshlakai, wears earrings with their photo in Santa Fe on Sunday. You know, I’m not strong.”ĭarlene explained that while people praise her for her strength and how she advocates for her girls, she yearns to hold them every day. “People approach me, and they say, ‘As a mom, you’re very strong, you’re strong,’ and I say, ‘Yeah, thank you,’ out of courtesy,” Darlene said on Sunday in Santa Fe. Ultimately, the driver, James Ruiz, was sentenced to 40 years in prison.ĭarlene has to live with the loss and terrible pain that keeps her awake at night. They were going to Lovington, New Mexico, to watch the boys play the next day when the repeat drunk driver hit them.

They walked to remember Deshauna, 17, and Del Lynn, 19, Peshlakai, who were killed on March 5, 2010, by a drunk driver in Santa Fe.ĭarlene, David, and their daughters had left the Santa Fe Indian School after a basketball game against the Lady Braves. On Wednesday morning, Darlene Peshlakai, her husband David, their children, and grandchildren were accompanied by Council delegates Eugenia Charles-Newton and Amber Crotty on the walk. An awareness walk for two Naschitti, New Mexico, sisters took 12 years.

Drunk drivers killed two to four times