Nurse leaves note at crash scene to comfort parents

BOSTON- A pink note attached Monday to the makeshift memorial for the young couple killed in the Back Bay this weekend reads, in part, "Please know that neither of you were alone."

NewsCenter 5 reports that Janet Kennedy is the longtime Beacon Street resident who wrote that note. She felt that she had to, she told NewsCenter 5's Liam Martin in an exclusive interview, after trying to save the couple's lives.

Kennedy is an emergency room nurse. She heard a loud "bang" Saturday night at the intersection of Beacon and Fairfield streets.

"I ran around to the back of the car, and that's when I saw the pedestrians," she said. "They were pinned, and they weren't moving, unfortunately."

John "Jack" Lanzillotti, 28, was already dead, Kennedy said, but she had hope that his girlfriend, Jessica Campbell, 27, might survive.

"I knelt down, held her hand because I wasn't sure how alert she was at the time -- her eyes were open -- and I just said, 'Help is coming. Stay with me. Stay with me,'" Kennedy recounted from the scene of crash.

"In all my years in emergency and acute care, I felt helpless. There was nothing I could do."

Campbell was transported to Brigham and Women's Hospital, where she was later pronounced dead.

Kennedy left that note Monday, hoping it would help ease the minds of the couple's parents.

"As a parent, I wanted their parents to know that I was there, that I was talking to them," she said.

Friends and family of the victims tell NewsCenter 5 that Lanzillotti and Campbell, who had been dating for two years and had just moved in together into a Brookline apartment, were walking home 9 p.m. Saturday from an evening on the Esplanade.

A black SUV, witnesses said, blew a red light on Beacon Street, smashed into a Sedan, and then rolled on top of Lanzillotti and Campbell.

Boston Police told NewsCenter 5 that two people -- the unlicensed 26-year-old female driver and her 29-year-old male passenger, who allegedly told police he was driving -- will be charged with causing the crash. The Suffolk County District Attorney said Monday night that those charges have not yet been filed, and that no one is under arrest.

Kennedy, for her part, said that people speed and run reds far too often on Beacon Street, noting that there have been three serious accidents in the past few years at the Beacon-Fairfield intersection.

"We have to slow down. We have to pay attention," she said. "I certainly would never, ever want anyone to experience this again."