John Jefferson
Left: Claire Zisserson (obituary). Right: Gregory Goodsell looks on at sentencing on Oct. 3, 2024 (WBZ).
A Massachusetts man found guilty of murdering a 13-year-old girl and seriously injuring her mom and a friend by running a red light at close to 70 mph in a company pickup truck while drunk and under the influence of cocaine after a work Christmas party will spend at least the next two decades in prison and up to life behind bars.
The Plymouth County District Attorney’s Office has said that 36-year-old Gregory Goodsell, in the early morning of Dec. 29, 2019, had a BAC of .266 as he crashed a driving a pickup truck that belonged to his then employer Hi-Way Safety Systems, Inc. into a Subaru, with deadly consequences.
The crash on Route 139 in Pembroke, a town not far from the Cape Cod Bay, left the three victims with “catastrophic injuries,” injuries only Claire Zisserson’s mother and a friend would survive. Claire would have turned 14 a week later.
Authorities said that in the aftermath Goodsell acknowledged he “drank way too much,” that he knew he shouldn’t have been behind the wheel, and that he was “so sorry.”
“Investigators determined that Goodsell attended a company party and then a house party in Pembroke prior to 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.”
Last week a jury of Goodsell’s peers convicted him of second-degree murder and other charges, leading to an emotional sentencing hearing on Thursday.
During the hearing, Claire Zisserson’s mother Elizabeth Zisserson, who was behind the wheel of the Subaru and catastrophically injured by Goodsell, said that the crash “destroyed my life and caused a ripple effect of damage that can never be undone,” according to NBC affiliate WBTS.
“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 was the defendant’s turn to speak, he did not point fingers at anyone but 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.”
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