(The following story by Gabe Semenza appeared on the Victoria Advocate website on July 17.)
VICTORIA, Texas — A man died early Monday morning when a train “chopped his head off” and severed one of his hands, a Victoria police officer said hours after the gruesome death.
The decapitated man is from Honduras and was born in 1969, Sgt. Julian Huerta said.
“He was laying on the tracks,” Huerta said. “I couldn’t tell you why. Only God can tell you why he was on the tracks.”
Huerta said the train engineer – from Kansas City Southern – saw the Honduran, sounded a horn and tried to stop in time and nearly did. But instead, the train rolled over the man, killing him instantly.
He died about 3:30 this morning near the intersection of Odem Street and Port Lavaca Highway, Huerta said.
Warren Erdman, Kansas City Southern’s senior vice president of corporate affairs, said in a statement e-mailed to the Advocate that “a trespasser who was lying across the track was struck by a Kansas City Southern Railway train operating on Union Pacific track in Victoria after the train’s whistle was blown and the train was placed in an emergency stop procedure, but was unable to stop before hitting the individual on the track.”
The incident remains under investigation, Erdman said.
Police identified the man by calling a series of telephone numbers stored on the Honduran’s cell phone, finally reaching a woman they think is a girlfriend. Huerta declined to share the man’s name, saying he will first attempt to contact family members in Honduras through that country’s consulate.
Although Huerta couldn’t say for sure, he doesn’t suspect the Honduran died from foul play or from an alcohol-related misstep.
Did he commit suicide?
“The only person who could tell you is God,” Huerta said.