Man Accused of Causing Fatal Train Crash Pleads Not Guilty

Juan Manuel Alvarez, the construction worker whose suicide attempt last month allegedly caused a fiery Metrolink crash and killed 11 people, pleaded not guilty Tuesday to first-degree murder and arson.

Prosecutors have not yet decided whether they will seek the death penalty against him. Alvarez, 25, allegedly parked his Jeep Grand Cherokee on railroad tracks in Glendale on Jan. 26, hoping that a train would kill him, but he ran away when he changed his mind.

“The train, the car, actually some of the victims were burned,” said Deputy Dist. Atty. Pat Dixon, explaining the arson charge that prosecutors added Tuesday after scientists corroborated evidence from the scene.

Alvarez’s attorney, Eric Case, said the defendant tried to set himself on fire shortly before the crash and remains on suicide watch in jail.

“He expressed a great deal of remorse and sorrow for the damages caused by his actions,” Case said.

The attorney cautioned the public against a “lynch mob mentality.”

“When something like this happens and a large number of people are injured ... we rise up as a society and we want an eye for an eye, but that’s not what America is all about,” Case said. “This case is going to be about whether we’re a society dedicated to vengeance or a society dedicated to justice. What will be the justice for Juan Alvarez?”

In an interview foreshadowing strategies for the defense, Case said Alvarez suffers from an undiagnosed mental illness, possibly schizophrenia.

“I’m not sure this case will end up going to trial,” Case said. “It is not a matter of whether he did it or not. This case is not a whodunit.”

Alvarez admits driving onto the tracks and then leaving his SUV behind, Case said. The question is his culpability, the lawyer said.

In an interview inside Case’s Studio City law office Tuesday, members of Alvarez’s family said he had shown signs of mental illness since he was a boy.

The first time he tried to kill himself -- as far as his family could tell -- he was 9. He stood in the middle of a street, hoping a bus would hit him. But his grandmother whisked him away. Later, the boy began complaining that an “evil ghost” named Arid lived in his bedroom, said his cousin, Beto Alvarez.

As an adult, Juan Alvarez fell into a depression about a year ago, after a wrist injury made him unable to find work in construction and provide for his family, said his estranged wife, Carmelita.

He underwent surgery that left a metal pin in his wrist. But when removal of the pin was delayed because of insurance problems, he yanked it out himself, Carmelita Alvarez said.

Last year, she caught him using drugs at their Compton home, and he began to hallucinate and show paranoia.

“Out the blue, he would say, ‘Why are people following me?’ ” Beto Alvarez recalled.

Juan Alvarez repeatedly refused to see a doctor. Carmelita Alvarez said she eventually requested a judge’s order against her husband last year because he was mentally unstable and she didn’t want him near their two children, ages 3 and 7.

Still, she said, she would be willing to reconcile with him if he “got help.” The children don’t know what really happened to their father, she said. When they ask, she tells them he’s at work or so ill that he’s in a hospital.

After the couple separated, Juan Alvarez moved in with relatives in Monterey Park. But his behavior became so strange they called police twice. Each time, police did nothing because Alvarez didn’t seem to pose an imminent threat to himself or to others, the relatives said.

A few days before the Metrolink crash, Beto Alvarez lined up a construction job in Pasadena for Juan Alvarez, who was living in the Glendale area.

The night before, Juan Alvarez called Beto Alvarez, asking about his family, and then said he had to get off the phone because he had to work the next day.

On the morning of Jan. 26, Juan Alvarez left for his Pasadena construction the job but returned home to retrieve some tools, Beto Alvarez said his cousin later told him from jail. When Juan Alvarez drove onto the Glendale tracks, he was on his way to work.

Later that same day, Alvarez left his cousin a cellphone message. “He said he loved his wife and his children,” Beto Alvarez said.

“ ‘A lot of innocent people got hurt,’ ” he said, quoting his cousin’s message. “ ‘I don’t know how this happened. Please pray for me. I don’t deserve to live.’ ”