The death of a 63-year-old Smithsonian photo archivist whose body was found on Metro’s train tracks last month has been ruled an accident, according to the medical examiner’s office. Lou Stancari’s body was found on the tracks at the Farragut North station around noon on Jan. 15, apparently having been hit by a Red Line train. An autopsy found that he died from multiple blunt impact injuries, said D.C. Office of the Chief Medical Examiner spokeswoman Beverly Fields. She said the death was ruled an accident, not a suicide or homicide. The medical examiner’s office makes such determinations by sending an investigator to the scene of the death, plus gathering information from law enforcement officers and emergency responders, she said.
Metro spokeswoman Lisa Farbstein declined to comment on the finding other than to say that its transit police are continuing a “thorough investigation” into the death.
The determination makes Stancari’s killing at least the fourth accidental death on Metro’s train tracks in the past two years.
| Recent accidental deaths on Metro |
| Jan. 15, 2011: The body of Lou Stancari, 63, was found on the tracks at the Farragut North station, apparently hit by a train. |
| July 4, 2010: Joseph Doyle, a 28-year-old law school student, died after falling into the tracks at the Minnesota Avenue station. |
| Dec. 27, 2009: A blind man, whose name was not released, fell from the Gallery Place platform, and subsequently died of his injuries. |
| March 15, 2009: Kevin Deiss, 22, was killed when he was struck by a train at East Falls Church station after he fell onto the tracks. |
His death had surprised colleagues and friends, but those who knew the man said the autopsy finding itself wasn’t surprising.
“It never seemed to any of us it could be anything other than an accident,” said Holly Stewart, who worked with him at the National Museum of the American Indian.
Stancari had brought passion to his job curating the more than 120,000 images at the museum. He had a “fantastic visual mind,” Stewart said, and huge reserves of energy that helped others do their jobs.
He also had “wicked sense of humor,” Stewart said. Her memory of those years working together comes with a long script of Stancari wisecracks.
He was also an award-winning set designer who worked with the Signature Theater and was known for his elaborate sets of carved foam core. The Capitol Hill resident was a regular at Mr. Henry’s Restaurant on Pennsylvania Avenue, a local institution where singer Roberta Flack honed her career. He was also known for wearing all black with colorful socks.
“It’s impossible to imagine Lou being depressed and not telling you — loudly,” Stewart said.
It is not clear what happened to Stancari to put him in the path of the train, though. Metro has not released information on how long Stancari’s body lay in the tracks before he was found.
Metro has been grappling with a problem of people using the transit system to kill themselves, after some 15 suicides in a year and a half. But it also has had a number of riders slip and fall into the track beds.
Metro has been installing raised, bumpy tiles along platforms to help blind riders feel the edge. The agency has also started replacing the slick terra cotta hexagon tiles with textured pavers on some outdoor train platforms to make them less slippery.
Some riders also have been saved in time. A Metro train operator saved a man’s life in November by stopping her train. Another rider who fell was saved by a visiting police officer during President Obama’s 2009 inauguration.
