This is the ultimate love story. A couple in upstate New York have killed themselves in an apparent joint suicide by jumping in front of a freight train on Sunday.
Earl and Mary Myatt were killed by an oncoming train on tracks near Verona just moments after calling their son and apologizing for what was about to happen.
‘He called me at 1:35, and at 1:37, they were dead,’ the couple’s 30-year-old son Brad Myatt said.
‘He just said he loved me and he was sorry,’ Brad told the Utica Observer-Dispatch.
Police found a suicide note in Mr Myatt’s car and surveillance footage indicates that they were purposefully waiting for the right moment.
‘We have witnesses who said they heard a warning horn … but there is video that shows they stood right on the tracks waiting for it to come,’ state trooper spokesman Jack Keller told the Utica Observer-Dispatch.
Mr Keller said that is is not clear why they chose that particular point in the train’s path, as Verona is about six miles away from their hometown of Oneida.
He added that the investigation is still ongoing and they are talking to family and friends to get a better understanding of what happened leading up to their deaths.
Troopers will also be staging a reconstruction of the crash to see if the train slowed at all before hitting the long-married couple.
The stress of deteriorating health was weighing down heavily on the couple, who were both 59-years-old, as Mrs Myatt was diagnosed with a brain aneurysm in late January.
She spent a month in intensive care and underwent several surgeries, the most recent only two weeks ago.
Her two sons and husband visited her constantly but struggled to see her in pain as her motor functions and abilities were reduced to that of a toddler.
Even in her final moments, when Mr Myatt put his wife on the phone with Brad, he said ‘I’ll see you soon’ and he was unable to understand her response, which he said was common after the diagnosis.
‘He was saddened by what she had been reduced to… He missed his wife,’ Brad Myatt said.
‘We’re devastated… but I want everyone to know that my father was a good man, and my mother was an angel who would do anything for anybody.’
The couple met when they were 17 years old and had been married for 42 years at the time of their death.
He rearranged his work schedule at the Mohawk Valley Community College bookstore so that he started at 3.30am and was able to finish earlier in the afternoon in order to spend more time with his ailing wife.
‘We were spoiled in receiving two fantastic parents,’ Brad told Syracuse.com.
‘She was his world.’
So sad. My heart goes out to their family. 🙁
Source Daily Mail
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