A vehicle near Oakton was traveling 116 miles per hour just seconds before crashing into a concrete barrier, Fairfax County police say. Two adults died and two children were injured.
According to FCPD, Xiomara Herrera, 30, of Falls Church was driving eastbound on the I-66 Express Lanes late Saturday night when she took the exit to Chain Bridge Road. The car crossed over the raised median and collided with a concrete barrier.
Herrera died at the scene. The front passenger, Alejandro Rodriguez Castillo, 27, of Sterling, was taken to a hospital and was later pronounced dead. Neither Herrera nor Castillo were wearing seat belts.
Two children, aged 8 and 2, were in the back seat. Police say they believe the 2-year-old, Herrera and Castillo’s child, was unrestrained and is now facing life-threatening injuries. “We have now two fatalities. We’re probably going to have three,” Chief Kevin Davis said in a news conference.
The 8-year-old suffered non-life-threatening injuries. The child was the only person in the car wearing a seat belt. However, police say the restraint was not appropriate for a child of that age and size. The 8-year-old is the child of a family friend of Herrera and Castillo, police say.
Crash Factors
Davis says police are currently unaware if alcohol was a factor in the crash. “We know speed was an absolute factor in this fatal crash. We suspect there may be more than one factor,” Davis said.
Davis said that there has been “an emerging pattern” of unrestrained drivers this year. Fairfax County has had 12 unrestrained deaths in vehicle crashes since 2023, he said, and four of those occurred in 2026.
“We’re arguably experiencing collisions that if seatbelts and child safety seats and booster seats were being used properly, a great deal of these collisions are actually survivable. But they’re not survivable if you’re not restrained,” Davis said.
Feature image courtesy Fairfax County Police Department/Facebook
