The mother of two teenage boys who died in Christchurch on Sunday night when the car they were fleeing police in crashed says she’s in “severe shock”. Meanwhile, a Givealittle page has been set up to pay for funeral costs.
Glenn Mcallister, 16, was driving the stolen car with his 13-year-old brother, Craig, and a friend, Brooklyn Taylor, 13, when they hit police spikes and crashed into a tree, causing a “ball of fire”.
Commander Superintendent John Price spoke to media after the triple-fatal accident following a police pursuit, on January 13.
Juanita Rose, the mother of Glenn and Craig, told Stuff her sons were her “babies, my life”.
The boys’ sister also paid tribute to her brothers.
Witnesses say the car erupted in a ball of fire.
"Losing one of you is hard enough, but both of you going has destroyed me, 13 and 16 is way too young to be gone, can't believe I'll never get to see you grow into the men you were supposed to be. I love you both endlessly," she wrote.
A Givealittle page was set up by a friend of the boys’ mother to help pay for the funerals of both boys.
“My good friend Juanita has just lost both of her beautiful boys in a tragic accident,” wrote Theresa Houghton, who started the page.
“As a single mother who is struggling to cope with in unimaginable loss, I would like to make her stress a little easier to bare by taking away the burden of paying to bury her sons.”
A second Givealittle page was also set up to support Brooklyn Taylor’s family.
TeAri Taylor, the older sister of Brooklyn, told Stuff her brother had struggled after the death of their father nine years ago and was in the Oranga Tamariki.
She said she had spoken with him last year about moving up to live with her in Wellington
"At the time he wasn't going through a very good situation, wrong people, wrong crowd – just basically couldn't get out of the situation that he was in," she said.
"I told his caseworker something's got to change because if you don't send him to me we're going to be burying my brother. He needs to get out of Christchurch and have a whole new beginning."
The three boys were understood to have stolen cars in Christchurch regularly in recent months, according to Stuff.
They were travelling in excess of 130km/h and running red lights when police started a pursuit that lasted less than a minute, police said.
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