A 26-year-old Allston resident who did not have a driver’s license was at the wheel of a vehicle that allegedly ran a red light Saturday night in the Back Bay, setting off a devastating crash that killed a young couple strolling on the sidewalk, authorities said Monday.
Boston police said they
will seek to charge Ghuzlan Alghazali with two counts of motor vehicle homicide by negligent operation
on accusations of running the red light and crashing into another vehicle at Beacon and Fairfield streets.
Jessica Campbell, 27, and her boyfriend, John Lanzillotti, 28, both of Brookline, were killed when one of the vehicles involved in the crash struck them on the sidewalk, authorities have said.
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Police said they are also looking to charge Mohamed Alfageeh, 29, of Allston with misleading investigators under the state’s witness intimidation statute. He allegedly told detectives that he was driving Alghazali’s vehicle at the time of the crash.
The relationship between Alghazali and Alfageeh was not clear Monday.
Alghazali, the driver, has a Massachusetts identification card but no driver’s license or learner’s permit, said Michael Verseckes, a spokesman for the state Department of Transportation, which oversees the Registry of Motor Vehicles.
Verseckes said the state has no record of Alghazali obtaining a license previously in the Bay State or transferring a driver’s license or identification card from another state.
Alfageeh’s license was suspended after Saturday’s crash. His driving record had no infractions listed before Saturday, records show.
Officials could not say Monday night if the suspects were in custody, though a Boston police vehicle was parked outside an apartment listed for Alfageeh in Allston. It was not clear where Alghazali resides in Allston.
A spokesman for Suffolk District Attorney Daniel F. Conley would only say Monday that “no charges have been issued at this hour.”
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On Monday, an executive at Campbell’s employer, Kantar Retail, described her as a confident senior analyst at the company, where she had worked for three years.
“She was sure about who she was,” Leon Nicholas, senior vice president at Kantar, said by phone. “She was her own person. There was never any pretense.”
He said Campbell was considered a rising star in the company and did her work with “wit and style,” with an easygoing charisma that endeared her to business executives and colleagues alike.
“She didn’t take herself too seriously,” he said. “Yet she was very good at what she did. There was an honesty about her that was so refreshing.”
Campbell had a sunny yet authoritative presence, he added, and was capable of addressing a professional conference in the day, then belting out karaoke tunes at night.
“She was a very authentic person,” Nicholas said.
He added that Campbell had become friends with his 10-year-old daughter, who called her Miss Jessica and looked up to her as a role model.
Colleagues were stunned and deeply saddened by her death, he said.
“We’re not going to be able to replace her,” he said.
Lanzillotti was an Emmy-winning production manager for the Boston Red Sox, whose principal owner, John Henry, also owns the Boston Globe.
The team declined to comment on the criminal charges being sought in the case.
Over the weekend, Larry Lucchino, Red Sox president and chief executive, had praised Lanzillotti’s “poise under pressure and good-
humored manner.’’
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“We are all grief-stricken, and we send our deepest sympathies and condolences to Jack’s and Jessica’s families,’’ Lucchino said on Sunday.
Also on Sunday, one of Lanzillotti’s co-workers, Jen Baglio of Waltham, mourned the loss of her colleague.
“Red Sox Productions has a huge hole in our hearts tonight,” she wrote in a message posted on Facebook.
Family members of Campbell and Lanzillotti could not be reached for comment Monday.
Martin Finucane and Dana Sinerate of the Globe staff and Globe correspondent Derek J. Anderson contributed to this report.