Defendant’s sister testifies

LOS ANGELES — An emotional Cynthia Alvarez told jurors Thursday of her brother’s erratic behavior beset by swift mood swings and violent proclivities as she testified at his murder trial.

Juan Manuel Alvarez is charged with 11 counts of murder with special circumstances and one count each of train wrecking and arson for causing the Jan. 26, 2005, Metrolink train wreck that killed 11 people and left nearly 200 others injured.

Juan Manuel Alvarez’s unpredictable behavior, which may have been aided by an addiction to methamphetamine, resulted in violent outbursts toward his family and hallucinations that his wife, Carmen, was cheating on him, his sister said.

Though drugs intensified his hallucinations and contributed to various incidents of violence, the seeds of his discontent may have been planted by a vicious pattern of abuse at the hands of his father in Mexicali, Mexico, she said.

“To me, he was more loving. To Juan, he would never hug him,” a teary Cynthia Alvarez said of their father, Juan Alvarez Sr. “He would love me more and kiss me more. His tone of voice was different. I never heard him say anything to Juan like he did to me. He would beat Juan. He would call him names.”

The beatings and name-calling drove a 9-year-old Juan Manuel Alvarez to attempt suicide, which he would try at least two more times as an adult in Los Angeles, she said.

“When [our dad] was drunk, he would come start screaming,” Cynthia Alvarez said. “That night, I remember a big scream. That was my mom. He grabbed her neck, and my mom screamed at me to take the kids outside. I took my little brother and Juan, and we went outside.

“There was a window, and my dad — I was just looking inside — and my dad was hitting my mom. There was blood all over her face, and I couldn’t stop looking. I remember they were both trying to tell me something, and that’s when I saw Juan. He was trying to hang himself.”

“Did your father react in some way?” defense attorney Thomas Kielty asked.

“My dad just grabbed Juan and pulled him down,” she said.

Three years later, Juan Manuel and Cynthia Alvarez left Mexico for Los Angeles, and they lived in a Compton home with their cousin, Beto Alvarez, during a period of relative calm before drugs took control of Juan Alvarez’s life, she said.

Though she never saw her brother use drugs, Cynthia Alvarez said she noticed his behavior had begun to descend down an erratic path that included more than 20 calls to Carmen in one evening, hallucinations that laughter from a television was directed at him and, in 2004, one instance when he stabbed himself with an ice pick, she said.

“That’s when I knew he was on something,” she said. “He was going crazy. I couldn’t believe the way he was acting. He would get very violent.”

The violence forced a fearful Cynthia Alvarez to call the Los Angeles Police Department at least twice, once pleading with officers to take her brother away, she said.

“I was saying, ‘You have to do something, you have to take him away before something happens.’ He just [shrugged],” she said of the officer.

But Deputy Dist. Atty. Cathryn Brougham said when given the chance on another occasion, Cynthia Alvarez declined to have her brother taken by police.

Though called by the defense, Brougham used Cynthia Alvarez’s testimony to highlight her portrayal of Juan Manuel Alvarez as a violent offender who instilled fear in others.

“Before the train derailment, you believed your brother was dangerous, right?” Brougham said.

“Yes,” Cynthia Alvarez said.

“And it wasn’t uncommon for him to use weapons against you,” Brougham said. “He was a grown man who would come at you with weapons.”

“Yes, but he only did that once,” Cynthia Alvarez said.

The trial is expected to resume Monday with at least two witnesses scheduled to be called by defense attorneys.

Dave Burroughs, who had lined up a construction job for Juan Manuel Alvarez on the day of the accident, and Officer Tiffany Royce, an LAPD officer who spoke with the defendant in the hospital after the incident, are slated to appear, Kielty said.

The trial is expected to wrap up by the end of June — nearly three weeks before Superior Court Judge William S. Pounders initially told jurors the case would end — with closing statements possibly starting as early as June 19, officials said.