PRESIDIO — At around 6 p.m. on April 10, two Presidio women — sisters Irma Rodriguez Dominguez and Carolina Rodriguez Leyva — were driving back from Marfa when they were struck by a northbound vehicle that had veered into their lane. The sisters were pronounced dead on the scene, and the driver of the other vehicle was transported to El Paso for treatment.
In the week since, the families of the deceased have been overwhelmed by the outpouring of support from their community. So many people showed up to last weekend’s funeral at Santa Teresa church that some mourners were turned away at the door. “I’m so grateful to live here in Presidio,” said sister Letty Tharp. “There was too much love around us.”
Tharp, Leyva and Dominguez grew up as three of four Rodriguez girls. “We were a team of four — they were my angels,” Tharp remembered.
As the sisters grew older, they stayed in Presidio and had families of their own. They also dedicated more and more time to taking care of their father, Francisco.
At the time of the crash, Irma had already retired, and Carolina was looking forward to celebrating the end of a long career at Presidio ISD by spending even more time with family. “We liked to spend time together here at the house, to eat and talk about our dreams,” Tharp said.
Earlier in the day on April 10, Irma and Carolina invited Letty to come with them for a sweet tradition — driving to Marfa to take their aunt out for a meal at Dairy Queen. When Letty turned down their invite, they told their sister not to make anything for supper because they’d return with everyone’s favorites. “I said, ‘Ok, I’m waiting for you girls,’” Letty remembered. “They never came back.”
The Rodriguez sisters are just the latest in a series of tragic accidents on Highway 67, which connects Presidio and Marfa. The route sees far more traffic than just two small border towns — it’s one of a few highways that connect northern Mexico with the Permian Basin, and sees lots of traffic traveling long distances with heavy loads, especially over holiday weekends.
County Judge Joe Portillo has known all his life just how dangerous the road can be, but said this accident spurred him to take formal action — just four months into his first term as judge. “To see two sisters in coffins laying side by side — there was not a dry eye,” he said.
As a former state trooper himself, he’s been studying traffic patterns on the road. “We have a lot of blind curves and a lot of odd traffic — Solitaire homes, alfalfa trucks, transmigrantes,” he said. “We also have people coming from Midland-Odessa and from Chihuahua, and the driving habits of those communities are very, very different from ours.”
He cited the Texas Department of Transportation’s 67 Corridor Study, an exhaustive document compiled by the state agency over the years 2010 to 2018. The study revealed a higher crash rate in the 67 corridor than statewide averages. Crashes were clustered about 20 miles south of Marfa to 20 miles north of Presidio, where the road is windy and steep.
Portillo has since enlisted an informal focus group of representatives from local law enforcement, DPS, and TxDOT. He’s hoping to get the attention of state lawmakers to help initiate projects that will make the road safer.
Presidio Mayor John Ferguson was on board, hoping to get the message out to visiting drivers that it’s important to drive the road carefully. He remembered a fatal crash about a year ago, where a driver from Chihuahua was killed on the highway on the way back from WalMart with mother’s day presents.
He’s hoping that Presidio can remain a welcoming place — while also ensuring the safety of everyone on the road. “You can’t blame people for wanting to go visit and come back and forth [across the border],” he said. “But everyone gets in a huge hurry and they take huge chances.”