Mother, daughter killed in Bethesda wrong-way I-270 crash involving allegedly impaired driver

A head-on car crash in Bethesda that killed a mother and daughter Saturday night also injured two other family members in the car, according to charging documents about the incident involving a vehicle traveling the wrong way on Interstate 270.

Maryland State Police identified the women who died as Musammat Shamima Begum, 46, and Areebah Jahin, 23, both from Virginia.

Jahin’s father, Mohammed Faruk Hossain, 62, was driving the family in a Toyota Camry. He sustained minor injuries, according to charging documents. His 8-year-old daughter was also injured. She is still in the hospital in critical but stable condition, prosecutors said at a bond hearing in Montgomery County District Court on Monday

The driver of the vehicle, Jose Caballero Nolasco, 32, was traveling the wrong way on I-270, police said. According to charging documents, he lives in Germantown, but his attorney said he had recently moved to Gaithersburg.

Caballero Nolasco has been charged with two counts of negligent manslaughter by an automobile, two counts of causing a homicide via a motor vehicle while impaired, and causing life-threatening injuries to a minor with a vehicle while impaired.

Bond denied

At the hearing, at which Caballero Nolasco appeared via video, Judge Patrick Mays declined to release him on bond, citing his “extreme disregard for everyone traveling on the Beltway.”

The crash occurred on I-270 just south of Democracy Boulevard in Bethesda around 6:46 p.m on Saturday evening. State police said a Ford Mustang was traveling north in the southbound lanes of the highway when it struck the Camry.

According to charging documents, state police said Caballero Nolasco slurred his words and that they could smell alcohol on his breath. They also found several opened and unopened beer cans in his car. After the crash, Caballero Nolasco had to “brace himself from falling over” by holding onto a traffic barrier, a prosecutor said in court.

Caballero Nolasco’s defense attorney, Sharon T. Diamant, said her client is from El Salvador and “never had a single brush with the law” during his time living in the United States. His immigration status was not immediately clear, according to Diamant.

Caballero Nolasco worked in construction and his girlfriend is pregnant, Diamant said.

She asked the judge to release Caballero Nolasco on home confinement with GPS monitoring. But Montgomery County Assistant State’s Attorney Christina Rodriguez argued that Caballero Nolasco should be held without bond because he is a danger to the public.

Neighbors in mourning

Neighbors on the cul-de-sac street in Burke, Virginia, where Begum lived, said on Monday that they were heartbroken over the family’s losses. One said Jahin recently graduated from George Mason University and worked as a nurse.

Neighbor Peter Huynh said the family was from Bangladesh and he often gardened with the father, who he referred to as Faruk.

Jahin, Huynh said, would often play with her 8-year-old sister, who frequently rode her bicycle through the neighborhood.

“I saw them just two days ago,” Huynh said.

Another neighbor, Kara King, 60, described the family as “great neighbors.”

“They’re wonderful, loving people,” King said.