Photo:Jill Goddard/Facebook
Jill Goddard/Facebook
A Missouri woman died and three others were injured when a car backed into a nail salon in a St. Louis suburb on Saturday afternoon.
“Basically the driver of the vehicle was going to move the vehicle to another parking space,” Dallas Thompson, MSHP public information officer, told PEOPLE. “Put the vehicle in reverse. The vehicle then backed through the front of the nail salon and struck three people inside.”
Langley reportedly backed the vehicle up closer to the front of the salon so that Goddard and Cates would only have a short run through the rain to get inside.
Goddard was trapped underneath the vehicle, while Cates and Langley suffered minor injuries. A 17-year-old receptionist behind the desk was also injured, per KMOV.
All of the victims were taken to local hospitals, but Goddard was pronounced dead shortly after 3 p.m. local time at Mercy Hospital in Washington, Missouri,according to an MSHP accident report.
Cates, Langley and Goddard were longtime friends who were enjoying their Saturday — first with brunch, and then with a visit to the nail salon in Pacific, Goddard’s fathertold theSt. Louis Post-Dispatch.
“These are the closest friends you ever saw,” Mostow, whom Goddard lived with prior to her death, told the newspaper. “These girls were unstoppable. They brought her out of her shell.”
Mostow does not hold Langley responsible for his daughter’s death.
On Monday, he spoke with her and told her to “get rid of the guilt,” per thePost-Dispatch.
“Honey … it’s called an accident,” Mostow, 83, told Langley. “That is truly an accident.”
Now, authorities are investigating the circumstances of the tragedy.
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“At this point we are still investigating to see if this was driver error or mechanical,” MSHP’s Thompson said. “Did the gas pedal stick? Did [her] foot get caught? Did she press gas and mean to press the brake? This is still an ongoing investigation.”
Jeff Goddard, Jill’s brother, is currently raising money in aGoFundMe campaignfor her family.
source: people.com
