Vivian Vivi Staples Minnesota girl, 1, struck & killed by drunk uncle Anthony J. Goose along moms driveway. Driver had been on a suspended’s driver’s license.
A one year-old girl has died after she was struck and killed by her drunk uncle as he backed out of the child’s mother’s driveway according to a sheriffs deputy. At the time of the incident, the uncle had been on probation for a suspended driver’s license on careless driving charges.
Anthony J. Goose, 28, of Walker, Minnesota, had been visiting his niece, Vivian ‘Vivi’ Staples in Shingobee Township, when he backed up and hit her with his car just before 5 p.m. on Sunday, Cass County Sheriff’s Office says.
Vivian had been playing in the driveway with a friend, her mother, Vanessa Goose, when her brother, Anthony, stopped by. Vanessa said Goose ‘was playing with her at first. Then he said he was leaving,’ according to the Star Tribune.
Vivian, one of four of Vanessa’s four children, was behind her uncle’s truck when he pulled out, according to the mother, ‘The way he pulled out was careless.’
It remained unclear how the one year old child came to be behind the vehicle.
Previously revoked driver’s license
Police arrived on the scene shortly thereafter, only for Anthony to have already fled the scene.
Responding officers immediately began performing life-saving measures, which continued as Vivian was taken to a medical helicopter to be flown off for further treatment. But she died en route to the air ambulance.
By the time Goose returned to the house, Vanessa said Anthony ‘acted like he didn’t know what happened.’
Goose had a blood alcohol level above the 0.08 legal limit, the sheriff’s office said, and he was arrested on criminal vehicular homicide charges. He was booked in to Cass County Jail afterwards.
He remained in Cass County Jail and was scheduled to be arraigned on Tuesday morning.
The Department of Public Safety told the Star Tribune that Anthony had a revoked license at the time of the hit-and-run and had been on probation.
He had been cited on March 12 for careless driving and was imprisoned on March 25. A Beltrami District Judge sentenced him to 45 days in hail, but later cut 27 days off that term, allowing Goose to be released on April 13 rather than May 9.
Anthony had also been arrested in December for drunk driving, the Star Tribune reports. He had a blood alcohol level at 0.16 per cent, double that of the legal limit, while he was driving his 10-year-old daughter, according to a criminal complaint.
Paying tribute to Vivian, Vanessa remembered how her daughter, ‘loved to play with her sisters and my brothers and my boyfriend.’
She loved cartoon characters, especially Mickey Mouse, Vanessa said, and ‘loved to dance to the music.’
An autopsy on Vivian has been scheduled to determine how exactly the infant girl died.
