After a work Christmas party, a Massachusetts man was found guilty of killing a 13-year-old girl and gravely hurting her mother and a friend by speeding through a red light in a company pickup truck while intoxicated and under the influence of cocaine. He faces a minimum of 20 years in prison and a maximum of life sentence.
Gregory Goodsell, 36, had a blood alcohol content (BAC) of.266 early on December 29, 2019, according to the Plymouth County District Attorney’s Office. He was driving a pickup truck owned by his former company, Hi-Way Safety Systems, Inc., when he drove into a Subaru, which resulted in casualties.
Only Claire Zisserson’s mother and a friend would survive the three casualties in the incident on Route 139 in Pembroke, a village near Cape Cod Bay, who suffered “catastrophic injuries.” In one week, Claire would have turned fourteen.
After the incident, according to the authorities, Goodsell said he “drank way too much,” realised he shouldn’t have been driving, and expressed his regret.
“Investigators determined that Goodsell attended a company party and then a house party in Pembroke before the crash. He departed the party at approximately 6:40 a.m. in his company-issued ‘Hi-Way Safety Systems, Inc.’ white Ford F-250 truck, and struck a nearby tree, breaking his passenger side headlight,” prosecutors recounted the alleged facts. “Through evidence and witness interviews, investigators determined that Goodsell was intoxicated with a BAC of 0.266, under the influence of cocaine, and passed through a red light at 67 m.p.h. before broadsiding the Subaru. At the time of the crash, inside Goodsell’s vehicle, police located a bottle of whiskey, a beer can, two nip bottles, marijuana and a pipe.”
Goodsell was found guilty of second-degree murder and other crimes last week by a jury of his peers, which set the stage for an intense sentencing hearing on Thursday.
According to NBC affiliate WBTS, Elizabeth Zisserson, Claire’s mother, who was driving the Subaru when Goodsell severely injured her, testified during the court that the collision “destroyed my life and caused a ripple effect of damage that can never be undone.”
“As a family, we cling together to stay afloat,” she reportedly said. “Our table of four is now three, our house is quiet as a tomb.”
Claire’s friend Kendall, also severely injured in the crash, reportedly added that she lost her “best friend” and “part of myself that day that I will never get back.”
When it came time for the defendant to speak, he just pointed the blame at himself.
“I shamefully take responsibly for my actions and can hold nobody accountable except for myself,” Goodsell said, according to WBTS.
In other remarks aired by local CBS affiliate WBZ, Goodsell said “If I could go back to that day and die instead of Claire, I would in a heartbeat.”
An obituary for Claire Zisserson remembered her as musically talented, a “gifted athlete,” an “excellent student,” a “bright, kind and caring girl with a beautiful heart,” and a beloved sister who “loved her family, her friends and her teammates.”
