A twenty-one-year-old Burke woman is dead and her twenty-seven-year-old brother has been arrested and charged with Driving While Intoxicated and Manslaughter after a July 4th crash in Fairfax.

Sara Ghaffari-Nik was killed when the 2009 Mitsubishi Eclipse driven by her brother Hossein Ghaffari-Nik struck a tree and rolled. According to police reports, the siblings were heading south on Shirley Gate Road by the intersection of Matte Moore Court just before 4 a.m. at the time of the crash.

The chain of events leading to the death of the younger Ghaffari-Nik began when the vehicle her brother was driving struck a curb and lost control of the car. The Mitsubishi Eclipse crashed into a tree, causing the vehicle to flip onto the driver's side and spin, according to police reports. The car hit a second tree after it flipped. Please visit our Maryland car accident lawyer page for more information.

The deceased woman was not wearing a seatbelt at the time of the crash, and was ejected from the vehicle. She was pronounced dead at the scene of the accident. Fairfax County Police Spokesman Officer Don Gotthardt commented on the woman's death:

Gotthardt also commented on some of Fairfax County's "high intensity DWI enforcement" policies. The Fairfax County officer says there are "weekly DWI enforcement efforts" involving random sobriety checkpoints within Fairfax County and "six pack patrols." He added:

The accident is still being investigated by Fairfax County Police, and anyone with information has been asked to contact Fairfax Crime Solvers at fairfaxcrimesolvers.org. It was unclear whether Ghaffari-Nik had been assigned or had retained an attorney to defend him.