The Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office has charged a San Jose man with murder, alleging that he drove drunk the wrong way down a Sunnyvale highway and killed a 52-year-old Mountain View woman on her way home from work at a Denny’s.

Brian Burke, 34, is accused of driving his Ford F-150 head-on into a Jeep being driven by the victim.

Burke was arraigned on the murder charge on April 13, and held without bail. His next court date is June 2.

District Attorney Jeff Rosen thanked the Sunnyvale Department of Public Safety officers for their thorough investigation and said: “More than 10,000 people die in drunk driving incidents every year in this country. Not one of them was what I would ever call an accident. Every single one was an avoidable criminal tragedy, and in this case – a murder.”

On April 9 at approximately 10:55pm, Sunnyvale officers responded to the intersection of Central Expressway and Commercial Street in Sunnyvale, on a report of a vehicle collision.

At the scene, officers found the suspect seated in the driver seat of a pickup truck with major front-end damage. Officers said the victim, seated in the driver seat of a black Jeep Compass with major front-end damage, was extricated from the vehicle with major injuries but was pronounced dead at the collision scene.