Today’s Derailed Yet Truly Morbid Fact!
On October 9, 1995, Amtrak’s “Sunset Limited” was on its way to San Diego, California. Running on Southern Pacific tracks near Palo Verde, Arizona, the train derailed without warning. Two locomotives and eight of the twelve passenger cars left the tracks, with four of those cars falling thirty feet off a trestle down onto a dry riverbed. Seventy-eight people were injured, and a sleeping-car attendant named Mitchell Bates was killed. Four typewritten notes were found near the site of the wreck, identical copies of the same message. The note criticized the federal government, particularly the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, for its handling of the 1993 Branch Davidian incident in Waco, Texas. It was signed “Sons of the Gestapo.”
An investigation revealed that the railroad tracks had been wrenched out of position, but connected by wires; this allowed the track circuits to remain closed, ensuring that the system that would have warned the engineer of damaged tracks ahead would not be triggered.
The derailment of the Sunset Limited remains unsolved. The FBI has never been able to identify any group using the Sons of the Gestapo name. Opinion among investigators is divided as to whether the sabotage was really perpetrated by right-wing extremists; many point out that the manner in which the tracks were shifted and the warning system circumvented indicates that the saboteur or saboteurs had at least a working knowledge of railroad technology, and that the crime was more likely to have been committed by a disgruntled rail employee.
In April of 2015, the Phoenix office of the FBI announced a $310K reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of those responsible for the derailment.
Culled from: Wikipedia
Submitted by Aimee
Morbid Photography Du Jour!
Dr. Harvey Cushing was a pioneer in brain surgery at Yale University. Recently, thousands of images were unearthed that document his patients. A few are available to peruse at the Daily Mail. Compelling images, to be sure! (Thanks to Ear for the link.)
