GLENDALE, Calif. (AP) - The suicidal man who authorities say caused the chain-reaction train derailment that killed at least 11 people has been charged with multiple counts of murder and could face the death penalty, the district attorney said Thursday. Juan Manuel Alvarez, 25, left his sport utility vehicle on a railway track Wednesday after changing his mind about committing suicide, authorities said. He was held without bail at a hospital's jail ward after apparently slitting his wrists and stabbing himself in the chest.
In addition to the 11 dead, nearly 200 people were injured. The last person reported missing was accounted for Thursday and firefighters ended recovery efforts. All but one of the dead had been identified.
Los Angeles County District Attorney Steve Cooley said prosecutors filed charges late Wednesday for 10 counts of murder with "special circumstances" of committing murder through a train derailment. Cooley stressed however that charges were still being evaulated. Under state law, special circumstances allegations could make a defendant eligible for the death penalty.
Cooley said the complaint would be amended to add another count to refer to the 11th victim, found in the wreckage late Wednesday night. And he said the defendant's suicidal intent didn't make any difference to him.
"He's not going to engage my sympathy because he was despondent. His despondency doesn't move me," the district attorney told The Associated Press.
Arraignment was initially planned for Thursday afternoon but was put off until Friday because of Alvarez's medical condition.
Meanwhile, early Thursday, another suicidal man was arrested in Orange County after he parked his SUV on railway tracks, said Irvine police Cmdr. Dave Freedland. He drove off after he was spotted by police, and a dispatcher talked him out of suicide during a cellphone call, authorities said. Freedland declined to say if the incident was considered a copycat crime. The man's identity was not released.
Early Wednesday, Alvarez, got out of his green Jeep Cherokee before the two commuter trains crashed in this Los Angeles suburb. He stood by as the gruesome chain-reaction wreck scattered wreckage and bodies over 400 metres of track.
The SUV was stuck between tracks away from a crossing and once there, he could not have moved it even if he had tried, Metrolink CEO David Solow said. The southbound train that struck it bolted skyward, hit a parked Union Pacific railcar, then clipped the northbound train.
Sheriff Lee Baca said Thursday on CBS' The Early Show that "Alvarez was rather astounded himself as to what the outcome was" when the train hit the vehicle.
Among the two women and nine men killed was a Los Angeles County sheriff's deputy on his way to work. About two dozen people were in critical condition in hospital.
Alvarez's estranged wife, Carmelita Alvarez, had ordered him out of her home months ago, her family said, and in December she obtained a temporary restraining order keeping him away from her, their three-year-old son and other family members.
"He is using drugs and has been in and out of rehab twice," she said in asking for the restraining order. "He threatened to take our kid away and to hurt my family members." She said he was "planning on selling his vehicle to buy a gun and threatened to use it."
Carmelita Alvarez, who lives in a converted garage behind her sister's home in suburban Compton, also told the court her husband had threatened to seek revenge on people he suspected of introducing her to another man. She said his drug use was triggering hallucinations.
She went into seclusion shortly after the crash.
The crash victims included several public employees, including Los Angeles County sheriff's Deputy James Tutino, 47, whose flag-draped body was saluted by law enforcement officers and firefighters as it was carried from the wreckage.
The force of the collision, which happened about 6 a.m. local time, hurled passengers down the trains' aisles.
"I heard a noise. It got louder and louder," said Diane Brady, 56, of Simi Valley. "And next thing I knew the train tilted, everyone was screaming and I held onto a pole for dear life. I held on for what seemed like a week and a half, it seemed. It was a complete nightmare."
First on the scene were workers at a Costco store next to the tracks, who helped remove some of the injured in shopping carts. Uninjured passengers also joined the rescue effort.
Costco employee Hugo Moran said an elderly man, covered in blood and soot and with apparently broken arms and legs, was pulled out of the wreckage. Before he died, he thanked his rescuers and asked them to pray for him.
Another trapped man had used his own blood to write a note on a seat. Using the heart symbol, he wrote "I love my kids" and "I love Leslie."
The man's identity wasn't known, but Los Angeles Fire Department spokesman Capt. Rex Vilaubi said he was removed from the wreckage alive.
