Los Angeles Times
Posted 3/1/2006 12:00:00 AM

Tragedy on the Rails; Chain-Reaction Crash Kills 11

Tragedy on the Rails; Survival is a Matter of Chance

Tragedy on the Rails; A Troubled Past, a Startling Action

Tragedy on the Rails; Chain-Reaction Crash Kills 11

January 27, 2005

By David Pierson and Mitchell Landsberg
Los Angeles Times

A man apparently intending to commit suicide parked his SUV in the path of aMetrolink commuter train Wednesday morning, then jumped out of the way in timeto watch a chain-reaction wreck that killed at least 11 people and injured about180.
The crash, which involved three trains, was the deadliest on a railroad in theUnited States since 1999. It shattered the predawn stillness near Griffith Parkwith what witnesses described as the sound of scraping gravel followed by asustained boom that shook the ground.

"Before I knew it, there was a big, big bang. I looked out the windowand saw fire," said Teresa Alderete, 50, of Reseda, a commuter whose traincar was transformed in an instant from a rolling island of morning serenityinto a nightmare of flying bodies, torn metal and shattered glass.

"I was one of the fortunate ones to walk out."

Officials said the carnage was caused by a despondent man from Compton, JuanManuel Alvarez, 25, who parked his green Jeep Grand

Cherokee on the tracks that run along the border of Glendale and the Los Angelesneighborhood of Atwater Village. As Metrolink's regular commuter train No. 100from Moorpark to Union Station bore down on him just after 6 a.m., Alvarez leapedfrom the vehicle, Glendale

Police Chief Randy Adams said. He was arrested at the scene and, after beingtaken to County-USC Medical Center, was booked on suspicion of murder. Prosecutorsare weighing formal charges.

The lead passenger car of a three-car southbound train, which was being pushedfrom the rear by its locomotive, hit the truck, dragged it down the tracks,then derailed.

As the Metrolink train veered off the tracks, it crashed into an idle UnionPacific freight train that was on an adjacent siding. The impact caused thepassenger train to jackknife. Its protruding end smashed into a three-car northboundMetrolink train as it passed on its way from Union Station to Burbank.

The rear two cars of the northbound No. 901 train -- which was being pulledby its locomotive -- also derailed.

"It was almost like a perfect storm of an accident," said Mary Travis,who oversees rail programs, including Metrolink, for the Ventura County TransportationCommission. "The timing of those three trains being at the same spot atthe same time is just too horrible."

The crash renewed long-standing questions about rail safety in Southern California,where commuter lines share tracks with busy freight systems and intersect frequentlywith parts of the nation's most extensive urban road network.

Passengers aboard the Metrolink trains described how the roar of the crashgave way to isolated moans; the chaos of flying bodies and briefcases was followedby a stunned determination to survive. There was little panic, and those whowere able helped those who were not.

"Most of the people in my car were fairly calm," said David McAfee,50, an architect who works in downtown Los Angeles. "We gathered our thoughtsand someone shouted to get us off the train."

At a makeshift triage center established in an adjacent Costco parking lotand, later, at a community room at the Glendale Police Department, anxious relativeswaited for news of the missing.

Throughout the day, the families huddled around tables, speaking quietly withcounselors and watching endless reports of the crash on a big-screen television.Periodically, police would enter to deliver the news that another body had beenfound.

There was no precise count by Wednesday night of the number of passengers aboardthe two passenger trains, but Metrolink spokesman Francisco Oaxaca said thesouthbound train from Moorpark typically carried 200 to 250 people, and thenorthbound train carried about 30 to 50.

More than 120 people were taken to 14 hospitals, officials said. An undeterminednumber of others were treated at the scene or sought medical help on their own.As of Wednesday night, at least four people remained missing as rescue crewscontinued to search the wreckage, some of which burned after the crash.

Trains can attain up to 79 mph in the stretch where the wreck occurred. Officialssaid, however, they were probably traveling more slowly because the northboundtrain had just left the Glendale station and the other was approaching it.

Torn and twisted wreckage, yards from the Costco store on Los Feliz Boulevard,showed the force of the collision. The southbound Metrolink train had splitinto a mangled V, its passenger compartments ripped open in a tangle of roughlysheared metal.

The yellow Union Pacific freight train was knocked on its side, a toppled switchingtower dangling above it.

About 20 yards from the train cars lay a wheel and axle, believed to be fromthe sport utility vehicle that caused the wreck.

Emergency exit panels, seat covers and bloody paper towels were strewn nextto the rail cars, as were a jacket and backpack left behind by fleeing passengers.

Within minutes, rescuers -- initially, Costco workers, then firefighters andpolice from Glendale, Los Angeles and elsewhere -- were helping pull the dazed,the injured and the dead from the wreckage.

In one car, firefighters said, they found an injured man who had written amessage in blood on a piece of metal under his seat. It read: "I (heart)my kids. (heart) Leslie."

The man, whom officials did not identify, was rescued and taken to a hospital.

Officials identified several of the dead: Scott McKeown, 42, who was in chargeof the city of Pasadena's phone, radio and sound systems; Julia Bennett, a 44-year-oldsenior clerk-typist with the

Los Angeles Fire Department; Manuel D. Alcala, 51, of West Hills, a seniorgeneral maintenance worker at the County Jail; and Elizabeth Hill, 65, who workedin the city of Glendale financial office.

Also among the dead was Los Angeles County Sheriff's Deputy James Tutino, a47-year-old father of four who was on his way to work downtown at the Men'sCentral Jail.

"My empathy is with everyone on that train," Sheriff Lee Baca said."When you lift up the body of a colleague who seconds earlier had beensafe and secure on that train, and place it on a stretcher, and drape an Americanflag over him, and look down and you find blood on his hands, the blood thatsustained his life only hours earlier, and then after that, you find out thatsome individual who was not happy with his life caused all this death and destruction....This is

a thing to be extremely angry about."

Alvarez stabbed himself in the chest with a knife and tried to slit his wrists,police officials said, although it was not clear if that was before or afterhe parked on the tracks.

He apparently turned onto the tracks just south of a crossing at Chevy ChaseDrive. Police said there were indications that he tried to back out but gotstuck before abandoning the vehicle.

Adams, the Glendale chief, said Alvarez "will be charged with as manylives as were lost in this tragedy." He described Alvarez as "distraughtand remorseful, but cooperative," and said he admitted leaving the vehicleon the tracks.

Adams added that Alvarez would be kept under close supervision in jail.

Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley said that it was too early to discusswhat charges may be brought against Alvarez, but that he could face multiplecounts of murder. Under state law,

intentional train wrecking could be the basis for a murder charge that wouldcarry a potential death penalty, Loyola University law professor Laurie Levensonsaid.

Alvarez also could face separate charges under a law that makes derailing atrain a federal crime. If the derailment results in fatal injuries, that lawalso provides for execution or life in prison

without parole.

Wednesday's crash was the third fatal Metrolink crash in less than three years,and it brought fresh urgency to calls for costly projects that would put railsbelow or above roadways.

It also raised questions about Metrolink's practice -- a common one among commuterrailroads -- of using a "push-pull" system in which locomotives arein the front of the train in one direction and in the rear the other.

In this crash, that meant a passenger car bore the brunt of the initial impact,but Metrolink spokeswoman Denise Tyrrell said the configuration is not inherentlyunsafe.

The southbound train that was the first to derail was operating on a routeand at a time that were the first in the Metrolink system when it was establishedin 1992, according to Travis, the Ventura

County official. Many of those on the train had been regular commuters fora decade or more, and had developed daily routines and friendships.

Russ Francis, 48, of Simi Valley, who has been taking the train several timesa month, said he follows a personal safety plan he devised for train travel.

"I always sit in the second-to-the-last car from the back," he said."I figured that you don't want to be in the front car if you get in a wreck,and you don't want to be in the very last car because

of the whip."

Suddenly, the train jumped. "It was scary. I thought we either hit a caror ran over something really big on the tracks," he said.

For about 10 seconds, the scraping, screeching sound intensified. "Itgot faster and faster, louder and louder." Then the lights went out andthere was more screeching.

Fearing an impact, Francis grabbed a nearby pole and braced a foot againstthe side of the car.

"Then we started hearing heavy metal," he said. "The metal soundedlike it was being ripped around."

"I realized we were done, we were crashing."

The impact was strong and quick. And immediately following, silence. Francislooked around and saw passengers lying on the floor, eyeglasses strewn about.In the darkness he could make out a bloody forehead and a bloody neck.

The next-to-last car did not overturn.

Francis grabbed his rolling suitcase and started to make his way toward thedoor, watching a woman trying to help a man off the train.

"We've got to get out of this train right now," he remembered tellingthe couple. He estimated that it took him 10 seconds to get out of the car.

Outside, he trekked up to the first car and found a man in a uniform shirtlying on the ground. He reached out and grabbed his hand to help him, but theinjured man fell back, unable to move.

Nearby, Francis saw another severely injured man lying on the ground, wearingwhat appeared to be a uniform jacket. His face was like "a hood of blood.It looked like a shell where his head should have been. He had no face."

Tragedy on the Rails; Survival is a Matter of Chance

January 27, 2005

By Erika Hayasaki and Megan Garvey
Los Angeles Times

They rode the southbound train in the predawn darkness, some napping, some reading,some chatting with the friends they had made over the years.

Los Angeles County Sheriff's Deputy James Tutino, 47, boarded at the firststop, Simi Valley, before 5:20 a.m. He needed to make it to downtown Los Angelesfor an early meeting.

Tutino rode only a few times a month. He sat in the first car, with a groupof fellow deputies. He told them his knee was bothering him and he didn't wantto work the clutch of his Mustang in rain-soaked traffic.

About half an hour later, Steve Toby, 51, boarded the second car at the downtownBurbank station. A stranger was sitting in his regular seat. He chose anotherseveral rows back.

Theresa Gillen, 37, boarded at the same station, en route to her job at a LosAngeles day-care center. Her mother, Eleanor, had dropped her off, as she dideach day. She got on the first car of Metrolink Train No. 100.

Minutes later, there was a loud noise, and then the sound of rocks strikingthe undercarriage.

Some screamed. Then, as the train careened off the track and the lights wentout, the passengers fell silent. The only sound was the shriek of metal againstgravel.

Derailed by an empty SUV left by a despondent man, Train No. 100 was hurtlingtoward a sidelined freight locomotive.

For the passengers on board, survival was a matter of chance.

The impact against the Union Pacific locomotive spun the lead car sideways,and popped Scott Cox's second-floor seat from its bolts.

Cox, 29, looked out a hole that had been ripped into the car to see the overturnedyellow locomotive beside the train. Below, he saw fire. A woman's legs dangledout of the train. Cox pulled her in, to safety.

In the darkness of the wreckage, injured passengers cried for help -- a screamthat someone was pinned inside, a woman moaning that she could not move.

Cox walked with other passengers toward the back stairs.

He stepped over another woman sprawled on the floor. Then he compared his injuriesto hers, and went back. Cox stayed with her until help arrived.

Still inside the train, Steve Toby had been thrown across the car.

Toby, who runs the audio for Los Angeles City Council meetings, landed on topof a woman who works for the Department of Water and Power, someone he saw regularlybut had never met.

Ceiling tiles fell on them. Metal trapped his leg. They were close to wherethe train had jackknifed and collided with a northbound commuter train.

Toby broke free and hobbled to an exit. His usual seat was crushed and shredded.He wondered what had happened to the man who had been sitting there.

Outside, on the ground, he saw the body of a dead sheriff's deputy.

Tutino had been killed. The veteran deputy, an avid sports fan and part-timefootball coach, was carried away later, draped in an American flag. He leftbehind a wife and four children.

"Fate, it was just fate," said Sheriff's Sgt. Mark McCorkle, a longtimefriend.

Others narrowly escaped.

Nearly every morning, Kenny Yi, 45, drove from Simi Valley to the NorthridgeMetrolink station, unloaded his bicycle and got on the first car. This time,the bike rack for the lead car was full. He got on the second car.

Usually, he got off at Burbank and bicycled the rest of the way to the Caltransoffice downtown. But the rain persuaded him to stay aboard to Union Station.

He was napping on the second level when the sound of grinding rock woke him.

He was thrown into the aisle. When he saw the crumpled first car, he thoughtthe overcrowded rack might have saved his life.

"Thank God. I guess someone was looking out for me," said the SimiValley resident. "I was thinking about all the things I could have left,like my family."

Upstairs in the first car, Goddard Paialii, 53, of Woodland Hills had bracedhimself at the first loud noise. He thought that the train must be draggingwhatever it had hit.

Around him, passengers were being tossed about.

One woman facing him ended up three seats away. A man seated across the aislefrom him flew over and landed in a seat on the aisle.

The man, Paialii said, was unconscious. His eyes were open, but he didn't move.

Smoke filled the car. Someone yelled fire. But people weren't panicking.

"Everybody was trying to help everybody get out," Paialii said. Theonce-orderly passenger compartment seemed "ripped out" -- laptops,seat cushions, briefcases, eyeglasses were scattered everywhere.

"We went out through the gaping hole," he said. The damage was sosevere, he couldn't tell which side of the train was ripped open.

Someone made a step out of a piece of the broken train, to help passengersget out.

At Eleanor Gillen's Burbank home, the phone woke her about 7:30 a.m. It washer oldest daughter, Sarah Gillen.

"Mom," she said, "was Theresa on the train?"

"Yes," Eleanor told her.

"Mom," Sarah said, "the train wrecked."

Eleanor Gillen turned on the television, saw the jackknifed train cars, theinjured people. She watched as rescue workers carried victims away on stretchers.

She dialed her daughter's cellphone. No answer. She tried again and again.

The home phone rang again, but it was a friend from Houston who had seen thenews. Did she know anyone on board?

"I said, 'My daughter was there,' " Gillen said. "They said,'We'll pray for her.' "

By 10 a.m., family members had fanned out to search.

A brother-in-law went to Glendale Memorial Hospital, where a dozen of about180 injured were treated. There was no one there with her name, officials toldhim.

Unable to wait any longer, Gillen found her way to a makeshift informationcenter near the crash site by 10:30 a.m. She brought a picture of her daughter.

Glendale police officers called hospitals and described Theresa Gillen: about5 feet 5, long black hair, brown eyes. Wearing a black fleece jacket.

Glendale Memorial officials had a Jane Doe who matched.

Police drove Eleanor Gillen to the hospital.

Her daughter had undergone emergency brain surgery for a blood clot. Her headwas shaved. Her arms were bruised. Three metal plates had been placed in herskull. She was heavily sedated. But by the afternoon, her family visited herin a recovery room.

"I have a myriad of emotions going from anger to sadness, to just reliefthat she's OK, to worry: What's she going to be like when she recovers?"said her younger sister, Leah Gillen, 35. "I'm angry that someone wouldbe so selfish and would destroy the lives of so many people. These people werejust going to work."

Tragedy on the Rails; A Troubled Past, a Startling Action

January 27, 2005

By Richard Winton and Jill Leovy
Los Angeles Times

Juan Manuel Alvarez's troubles had been building long before he drove his JeepCherokee onto the train tracks in an aborted suicide attempt that derailed twocommuter trains and killed 11 people, according to family members, acquaintancesand court records.

Alvarez, a pony-tailed sometime construction worker, had been separated fromhis wife for several months amid allegations that he had threatened her andher family.

Carmelita Alvarez alleged that drug use had addled his mind, according to courtpapers she filed in support of a restraining order. She described him as a jealousman possessed by paranoid fantasies that she was cheating.

Family members and acquaintances said he used drugs heavily.

Alvarez, 25, described as a devotee of ancient Mexican rituals, was in custodylate Wednesday, booked on suspicion of murder.

Authorities disclosed little about his background, and even some of those closeto Alvarez said they were mystified about what led him to a railroad crossingnear Glendale early Wednesday.

Alvarez had never been convicted of a serious crime, but was arrested severaltimes on suspicion of burglary and drug possession beginning in 1994, authoritiessaid. A cocaine possession charge against him, dating from a 1999 arrest inCarson, was later dismissed, court documents show.

And while he had threatened his wife, he had never assaulted her nor theirchildren, according to a questionnaire Carmelita Alvarez filled out last fallto get the restraining order.

"He threatened to take our kid away and to hurt my family members,"she wrote. "He is planning on selling his vehicle to buy a gun and threatenedto use it. He has caused damage to family property.... He has primarily threatenedmy brother, saying that he would shoot and stab him."

The order was granted Dec. 14, court papers indicated. Its terms included asuspension of Alvarez's right to visit his two children: a stepdaughter, 6,and a 3-year-old son.

He and Carmelita met in Los Angeles about six years ago, said Carmelita's brotherRuben Ochoa, 26.

At that time, Alvarez was not working much, said Sergio Lopez, who managesan apartment complex in Bell where the couple had lived for several months.

But he played traditional drums used in ancient Mexican Indian ceremonies.

Lopez said Alvarez was in a group that performed such ceremonies in Aztec costume-- headdresses, loincloths and sandals with bells.

When Alvarez's son was born, the couple gave him the middle name Nezahualcoyotl.The name is taken from a pre-Columbian warrior-poet and a Mexican city.

Relatives said the couple married about two years ago and moved into a convertedgarage behind the tidy, tan stucco home of his in-laws on a quiet, well-keptstreet in Compton.

Accounts of more recent events varied:

Alejandro Amaya, 50, who is married to Carmelita's sister and also lived inthe Compton house, said Alvarez was "like a brother." Amaya said hesometimes drank beer with Alvarez but was not aware of any drug addictions."He was never a problem," Amaya said.

But neighbors and Ochoa, Carmelita's brother, tell a different story. Ochoasaid Alvarez was an alcoholic and used many drugs. In court papers, Carmelitaalleged that Alvarez had been using drugs "a very long time," despitetwice completing rehabilitation programs.

The couple split up several months ago, relatives said. On Nov. 24, Carmelitaapplied for the restraining order, alleging that Alvarez had begun hallucinating,convinced she was having affairs and making pornographic movies.

Alvarez accused her, she wrote, of setting up hidden cameras in the couple'sbedroom. She said he told her he would buy a gun and take revenge on her, herfamily members and an imaginary lover.

Carmelita also described three incidents from Nov. 12 to Nov. 21 in which Alvarezmade threats, including two menacing phone calls. He was especially hostiletoward her brother, she said, who Alvarez believed introduced her to other men.

About 6 a.m. Wednesday, police said, Alvarez drove his Jeep Cherokee onto thetracks at the border of Los Angeles and Glendale east of the Golden State Freewayand north of Los Feliz Boulevard.

Authorities offered fragmentary accounts of what happened next:

According to some reports, Alvarez turned onto the tracks south of Chevy ChaseDrive, hooking his front two wheels over the rails.

Later, police would find marks on the tires suggesting the Jeep had moved backand forth before the train hit. They concluded that Alvarez tried to drive forwardover the tracks, but the car wouldn't move. So he tried to back up and failed.He was stuck.

As the train bore down on him, police said, he got out of the car.

He then stood by watching as the oncoming train flattened the car under itswheels. At first the car shattered easily -- but then the train hit the Jeep'sunyielding engine block.

That's when the train wheels lifted and it skipped the tracks, unleashing thecollisions that followed.

Alvarez was arrested by police a few blocks away as he was being treated byparamedics, said Glendale Police Chief Randy Adams.

He was injured, not from the train crash but from self-inflicted wounds, policesaid.

He had tried to slit his wrists and had stabbed himself, police said. Therewere conflicting reports of when these injuries occurred -- whether before theaccident, or as police said some witnesses reported, afterward, while watchingthe disaster unfold.

Police described Alvarez as cooperative, suicidal, and remorseful.

He was treated for his wounds and is being held at an undisclosed facility.

A man who described himself as one of Alvarez's relatives declined to answerquestions about him, saying the family is trying to get a lawyer.

"We don't know what to do," said the man, speaking from a small homein Monterey Park. "We regret everything that happened."