‘Little angels on earth’
A family’s grief became a yearly warning against drunk driving

Posted by Donovan Quintero | Mar 26, 2026 | News |

SANTA FE

Red and blue lights flashed along a busy Santa Fe roadway Saturday night as officers funneled cars through a sobriety checkpoint that has become both a law enforcement operation and a memorial to two young Navajo sisters killed by a drunk driver.

By the end of the night, 1,902 vehicles had passed through the checkpoint. Officers arrested two people on suspicion of drunken driving, took another driver into custody for operating a vehicle with a license revoked because of a prior DUI and made two additional DWI arrests after the checkpoint ended.

For Darlene and David Peshlakai, the annual checkpoint is about more than enforcement. It is part memorial, part warning and part promise that the deaths of their daughters, Del Lynn Peshlakai and DeShauna Peshlakai, will not be forgotten.

The sisters, both basketball players, were killed in March 2010 after a game at Santa Fe Indian School when a drunk driver struck the family’s vehicle. In the 16 years since, their parents have turned grief into public advocacy, organizing annual sobriety checkpoints with the Santa Fe Police Department and carrying the same message into basketball tournaments, rodeos and bike runs across the Navajo Nation: don’t drink and drive.

About 30 members of the extended Peshlakai family helped at this year’s checkpoint, including grandchildren attending for the first time. Darlene Peshlakai said the turnout was both healing and humbling.

“It’s a beautiful thing,” she said.

To read the full article, please see the March 26, 2026, edition of the Navajo Times.

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