Metrolink Suspect May Face Execution

Prosecutors announced Friday they will seek the death penalty against a former construction worker accused of driving his SUV onto railroad tracks and causing the collision of three trains in Glendale that killed 11 people and injured almost 200.

Juan Manuel Alvarez, 26, is charged with 11 counts of murder and arson in the Jan. 26 Metrolink crash in which a commuter train struck his SUV, derailed and slammed into another commuter train and a freight train.

Eleven members of the Los Angeles County district attorney’s special circumstances committee decided this week to use a rarely used “train wrecking” statute as one of the allegations against Alvarez, said spokeswoman Jane Robison.

“Eleven people died, so this was a case of mass murder,” she said.

Robison declined to say how the committee came to the decision.

Alvarez has maintained the incident was an aborted suicide attempt and that he never intended to hurt anyone.

His lawyer, Eric Chase, said seeking the death penalty is going to be difficult for the prosecutors.

“There’s no evidence he intended or wanted anybody to die, and that’s just not appropriate with the death penalty in my opinion,” he said.

But Glendale police have maintained that Alvarez’s actions were deliberate and did not match the behavior of someone trying to commit suicide.

During a May preliminary hearing, prosecutors were able to successfully argue that there was enough evidence to justify trying Alvarez.

At the hearing, a Glendale city employee testified that he saw a man who fit Alvarez’s description douse a sport utility vehicle with gasoline shortly before the crash.

Alvarez parked his Jeep Grand Cherokee on railroad tracks in Glendale in the early hours of Jan. 26. He told authorities he wanted to be hit by a train but abandoned the vehicle after he changed his mind.

A southbound Metrolink train heading for Union Station smashed into Alvarez’s Jeep, derailed and crashed into a freight train on an adjacent track. The commuter train then struck an approaching northbound Metrolink train.

Members of Alvarez’s family said he had suffered with bouts of depression and mental illness since childhood.

Alvarez became depressed about a year ago after a wrist injury left him unable to find work, his estranged wife, Carmelita Alvarez, told reporters earlier this year.