D.C. Metro crash: The victims' stories
June 24, 2009
The people on Red Line trains 112 and 214 were mostly strangers to each other when they boarded. They are now known to — and mourned by — entire communities of strangers.
Metro officials said Tuesday that they would immediately establish a $250,000 fund for the victims and their families.
The nine lives that were ended by that horrific late-afternoon crash Monday were a snapshot of the life and breath of the nation’s capital.
The dead ranged from a general fresh into his retirement to a woman trying to raise six kids while cleaning houses at night; from an aspiring beautician to a former expatriate who liked to be called “cowgirl.”
They were:
David and Ann Wherley
Retired Maj. Gen. David Wherley, former commander of the D.C. Army and Air National Guard, and his wife, Ann, were among the fatalities. The Wherleys were both 62.
David Wherley commanded the 113th Wing at Andrews Air Force Base. The couple lived in Washington’s Hill East neighborhood, and the general could often be seen walking to and from the armory.
Mayor Adrian Fenty on Tuesday called Wherley a “fine public servant.”
He joined the Army Reserve as a second lieutenant in 1969. After a brief tour of active duty, he joined the D.C. Air Guard. According to his National Guard biography, he was deputy operations group commander for fighters in Saudi Arabia.
Wherley was the officer who scrambled fighters into Washington’s skies on the day of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
“Most of our members have lived in the D.C. area for much of their lives,” Wherley said in an interview a few days after the attacks. “To be patrolling and looking down on their homes, that has been an emotional moment.”
The couple were enjoying retired life and had recently celebrated the birth of a grandchild, neighbors said.
Ann Wherley had worked as a loan officer for many years and was a member of a garden club, neighbors said. She “just had a sweet disposition,” neighbor Thomas Roy said. – Bill Myers and Alan Suderman
Ana Fernandez
Fernandez was a 40-year-old mother of six on her way to a housecleaning job in the District when she died, according to family members.
Fernandez’s children range in age from nearly 2 years old to 21. Originally from El Salvador, she’d been in this country for about 10 years, friends said.
Family and friends gathered outside her Hyattsville apartment Tuesday to grieve and remember her.
They described her as an active churchgoer who liked to sing gospel songs loudly around her apartment.
Her husband, Oscar Flores, said through a translator they’d been legally married for a year but planned on having a traditional ceremony in a church sometime in the near future. He said she’d recently bought a wedding dress on a trip to El Salvador.
Though his eyes were bloodshot from crying, Flores smiled when he recalled for reporters that he’d once teased his wife after she’d gotten a haircut she didn’t like.
Asked what he’d remember most about her, Flores responded “todos,” meaning everything. – Alan Suderman
Jeanice McMillan
Her neighbors knew her as Janice, but Metro officials called her Jeanice E. McMillan. She’s now known as the 42-year-old operator whose aging rail car slammed into the back of a stopped train Monday on the Red Line.
McMillan began working for the transit agency in January 2007 as a bus driver. A National Transportation Safety Board official said McMillan began operating trains for Metro in March.
McMillan’s son, Jordan — home for the summer after finishing his freshman year at a college in Virginia — first heard the news of his mother’s death 7 p.m. Monday when a reporter called her Springfield apartment looking for details, neighbor Joanne Harrison said.
Harrison had rushed across the hall to McMillan’s apartment, knowing Jordan would be there alone and worrying about his mother.
“We knew it was a female operator,” Harrison said. “Jordan said he had called [McMillan’s] cell phone, but there was no answer.”
Harrison, McMillan and another neighbor, Alisha Anderson, were a tight-knit group on the fourth floor of the high-rise at 6700 Metropolitan Center Drive.
“I just want to tell them all that Janice is sorry to be involved in this accident,” Harrison said, referring to the families of the riders who died in Monday’s accident. “She would be brokenhearted if it was her fault.” – Freeman Klopott and Elinor Flynn
Mandy Doolittle
Doolittle, 59, was on her way home from her job at the American Nurses Association in Silver Spring when the crash occurred.
“She was a bright spot in everybody’s day,” said her boss, Jeanne Floyd. “She was just attuned to everyone around her. Her day was, ‘What can I do for you?’ ”
Doolittle was originally from Texas and loved traveling out West. She and Floyd, another Westerner, called each other “cowgirl.” Doolittle and her partner were planning on a trip next month, Floyd recalled.
Jada Leng, another co-worker of Doolittle’s, had been on an earlier train back to the District and saw the television report about the crash.
“I was thinking about all my co-workers who take it,” Leng said. “This morning, we went around to see who was here and who wasn’t.”
Nurses Association spokeswoman Mary McNamara said that one other association employee was injured in Monday’s crash.
Doolittle had worked as a senior administrative assistant since 1998, handling the credentials of overseas nursing schools, McNamara said. Having lived in Italy in her younger days, Doolittle was adept at cultivating the respect of health care officials everywhere, Floyd said.
“This went across the world,” she said. – Bill Myers
LaVonda King
King, 23, was heading to pick up her two sons from day care when she was killed, close friend Danita Delaney said.
King was engaged, Delaney said, and just three weeks ago had bought a hair salon in Forestville and named it “LaVonda’s House of Beauty.”
“After she established herself as a cosmetologist, she also wanted to buy a car,” Delaney said. “She was trying to make a better life for her family.”
King had spoken to her mother on the phone right before she boarded the train.
“I liked the fact that she was very prim and proper, very ladylike,” Delaney remembered. – Hayley Peterson
Dennis Hawkins
Hawkins, 64, had left for the day from Whittier Education Center in Northwest, where a co-worker said he was a data entry clerk.
Loretta Smith said Hawkins was single and “a marvelous, wonderful man.”
“He was a church-going man,” she added.
Smith said she worked at the desk next to Hawkins for five years.
“The last thing he said to me was ‘See you tomorrow, Smitty!’ ” she said. – Maria Schmitt
Veronica Dubose
Dubose’s stepmother said the 29-year-old worked and went to school in the evenings to support two young children.
YaVonne Dubose said her stepdaughter Veronica was heading to her first day of school Monday for certification classes that might have allowed her to work 9-to-5 hours as a certified nursing assistant.
Her 8-year-old son, Raja, and 18-month-old daughter, Ava, were her top priority, her stepmother said.
“She was a trooper,” Dubose said. “If she was on the side of the road with a flat tire, she would change it herself before she would ask for help.” – AP
Cameron Williams
Authorities on Tuesday night released Williams’ name as one of the crash fatalities. No further information on him was immediately available.
