Fifth death reported on train tracks

Jan. 25, 2010, 12:02 a.m.

Brian Bennion Taylor, a 19-year-old graduate of Palo Alto’s Gunn High School, was struck and killed by a southbound train at Meadow Drive at 11:45 p.m. Friday night, in an apparent suicide.

San Mateo County transit police are investigating the death as a suicide, though no official cause of death has been released as of press time. Taylor’s mother said her son, who graduated in 2008 and attended Brigham Young University, had a history of mental illness, according to the San Jose Mercury News.

Taylor was killed near the crossing at East Meadow Drive, the fifth death at the same intersection since last May. Three of the four people who had walked in front of moving trains last year were also students at Gunn High School.

The Palo Alto Police Department hired security guards and the community formed a volunteer watch at the crossing in reaction to the “cluster” of suicides last year.

A guard was on duty at the time of death but did not see anything, according to Christine Dunn, the spokeswoman for Caltrain.

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