The last time Thaiz Ramos heard from her friend Priscilla Ramos Mafalda, she sounded tired but happy. “Friend, I’m very tired, but thank God I’m finally taking some vacation time. I’m going to Florida,” Mafalda told her on Thursday. Ramos waited for the call that she had arrived safely. It never came.
Mafalda, 25, of Worcester, was identified over the weekend as the fifth person killed in the devastating Interstate 95 crash in Virginia that also claimed the lives of four members of the Doncev family from Greenfield, Massachusetts.
Born in Inhapim, in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais, she had built a new life for herself in Massachusetts before her death cut everything short.
The crash happened around 2:35 a.m. Friday in Stafford County, when a bus traveling from New York to North Carolina struck the SUV Mafalda was traveling in after traffic slowed near a work zone.
The impact pushed her Chevrolet Suburban into an Acura carrying the Doncev family, which caught fire. Her husband, Igor Ernesto, was also in the vehicle and was hospitalized following the collision.
A relative of Igor’s was left stranded at the scene without a phone, prompting friends to urgently reach out on social media, seeking Portuguese-speaking community members in the Stafford area to help her.
The four people killed in the Acura were Dmitri Doncev, 45, his wife Ecaterina, 44, and their two children, Emily and Mark, ages 13 and 7. The Greenfield family had been driving through the night to attend a wedding in South Carolina.
Ecaterina had spent days preparing homemade desserts to bring to the celebration. Dmitri worked as a nurse at Holyoke Medical Center, and the family had emigrated from Moldova in 2008, eventually settling in Greenfield.
Dmitri had been traveling in convoy with his brother Iuri, but the two vehicles became separated along the way.
When Dmitri’s car never arrived at the destination, and he stopped answering his phone, the family began to panic. Police officers showed up at the house hours later bearing the worst possible news.
“When they showed up, our hearts broke right away,” Iuri said. The family wedding still took place on Sunday, but it became as much a mourning as a celebration.
Bus driver Jing Sheng Dong, 48, of Staten Island, New York, was arrested at a Virginia hospital on Saturday and charged with two counts of involuntary manslaughter, with additional charges still pending.
He is being held without bond. US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy noted that Dong received his commercial driver’s license only in 2024 and claimed he did not speak English. Under recently revised federal guidance, commercial drivers are required to demonstrate English-language proficiency.
The bus was operated by E&P Travel of Kings Mountain, North Carolina. In total, 44 people were taken to area hospitals, with three suffering critical injuries. The National Transportation Safety Board is conducting a parallel investigation alongside state authorities.
Friends of Mafalda launched a GoFundMe campaign seeking $18,000 to cover the cost of returning her body to Brazil for burial and to support other victims still recovering from their injuries. She had promised her friend she would call when she arrived in Florida. The phone never rang.
