Two Deaths on Long Island Rails: Was the Second a Lover’s Suicide?

Late in the afternoon of Saturday July 30, Donald Bryne was struck and killed by a Long Island Railroad train. Eight days later the woman he loved, Lorraine Scheele, died. She was killed by a train driven by the same engineer at the same time on a fading summer day and practically on the same spot at the Massapequa Park Station.

Moments before the express train hit her, Miss Scheele, who would have turned 23 this Saturday, extended her arms toward it, making the sign of the cross and then, as the train whistle screamed, covered her ears with her hands, according to police reports based on witness accounts.

The police said that Mr. Bryne, a 29 year old Vietnam vet had stumbled off the station platform apparently drunk, just as the eastbound train hurtled down the tracks toward Babylon. According to police he and Miss Sheele had had an argument earlier that muggy afternoon at a party they had attended. Miss Scheele did not approve of his drinking.

Excerpt from Pranay Gupte Aug 10, 1977 New York Times