Ladner Case vs. Ives & Henry Case

[Mastermind]

I don't understand why the Ives/Henry incident would not be on file with the FRA, if that's truly the case. One person walking down railroad tracks is considered a reportable incident to the FRA (and there are many of those in the archive), as are grade crossing accidents, derailments, spillages of any sort, personnel injuries, etc...and certainly people being run over by trains.

Does the FRA have investigative powers or jursidiction?

Are homicides, suicides or felonies in those files as well as accidents? Is it might be possible that because the case involves possible homicide or suicide that it would not be part of the file?

[MegtheEgg86]

Originally Posted by Mastermind

Does the FRA have investigative powers or jursidiction?

Are homicides, suicides or felonies in those files as well as accidents? Is it might be possible that because the case involves possible homicide or suicide that it would not be part of the file?

The FRA is a regulatory agency, so its primary role is to develop national safety standards, and, in the event of an incident, investigate it--but only in terms of its imposed safety regulations, not state or federal law (which the FRA has no power to enforce, as it is not a LE entity).
All incidents involving fatalities on railroad property are reported to and investigated by the FRA, no matter the circumstances. The FRA will not distinguish an accident from suicide or homicide in its reports; it will simply list the incident as "Fatality" and describe briefly what happened and what action was taken. Any criminal investigation is then, of course, handled by local, state, or federal LE, depending on where the incident transpired.

I took another look around last night and found a report that closely resembles the Ives/Henry incident, but if it is, it was incorrectly reported. It gives the victims' ages as 21 and indicates the incident occured in Pulaski County, AR, although Ives and Henry were 17 and 16, respectively, and impacted by the train in Saline County, just south of Pulaski County.

This last bit, however, is what makes me think this might be the boys' file. I noticed on a map the site of impact is almost exactly one mile from the Saline/Pulaski County line. The northbound train took nearly half a mile to stop after Steve Shroyer put the locomotive in emergency stop, so whomever drafted the report very well may have made an understandable error, believing the train at least came to a halt in Pulaski Co, if not impacted the boys there as well. That doesn't explain the age error, although the report does describe the "trespassers" as being on the tracks and is dated August (no day given) 1987.

The FRA reports only this fatality case as well as an additional one in a farther county for the Union Pacific Railroad in the state of Arkansas for August 1987. Its file name is UP198708K2887, if you're interested.


As well, I searched fatalities for all railroads in the state of Oklahoma throughout January-December 1984. These are the closest matches to Ives/Henry similarity as far as I could determine from the reports (all were listed as 'Sitting or lying on tracks', but are not detailed enough to distinguish):

UP1984035823
KCS198406521174
BNSF198407140784301

Files are named by railroad involved, year incident occured, month it occured, and then a report number. So here, we have Union Pacific, March 1984; Kansas City Southern, June 1984; and Burlington Northern Santa Fe, July 1984.

I'd be interested to see system maps of these railroads, specifically in the general AR/OK/TX area. The UP tracks in Bryant run along I-35, which was allegedly a hot drug trafficking route in the vicinity during the 1980s. I wonder if any of these railroads have track near or in Hodgen, OK (the site of the "similar case") that run along I-35. I've been trying to dig up information on the case (a newspaper headline was shown in the segment), but it's taking some work. I'm pretty confident I can eventually find it, though.

Sorry for the long post. This is a case I'm extremely passionate about.

[Thiussat]

Originally Posted by MegtheEgg86

The FRA is a regulatory agency, so its primary role is to develop national safety standards, and, in the event of an incident, investigate it--but only in terms of its imposed safety regulations, not state or federal law (which the FRA has no power to enforce, as it is not a LE entity).
All incidents involving fatalities on railroad property are reported to and investigated by the FRA, no matter the circumstances. The FRA will not distinguish an accident from suicide or homicide in its reports; it will simply list the incident as "Fatality" and describe briefly what happened and what action was taken. Any criminal investigation is then, of course, handled by local, state, or federal LE, depending on where the incident transpired.

I took another look around last night and found a report that closely resembles the Ives/Henry incident, but if it is, it was incorrectly reported. It gives the victims' ages as 21 and indicates the incident occured in Pulaski County, AR, although Ives and Henry were 17 and 16, respectively, and impacted by the train in Saline County, just south of Pulaski County.

This last bit, however, is what makes me think this might be the boys' file. I noticed on a map the site of impact is almost exactly one mile from the Saline/Pulaski County line. The northbound train took nearly half a mile to stop after Steve Shroyer put the locomotive in emergency stop, so whomever drafted the report very well may have made an understandable error, believing the train at least came to a halt in Pulaski Co, if not impacted the boys there as well. That doesn't explain the age error, although the report does describe the "trespassers" as being on the tracks and is dated August (no day given) 1987.

The FRA reports only this fatality case as well as an additional one in a farther county for the Union Pacific Railroad in the state of Arkansas for August 1987. Its file name is UP198708K2887, if you're interested.


As well, I searched fatalities for all railroads in the state of Oklahoma throughout January-December 1984. These are the closest matches to Ives/Henry similarity as far as I could determine from the reports (all were listed as 'Sitting or lying on tracks', but are not detailed enough to distinguish):

UP1984035823
KCS198406521174
BNSF198407140784301

Files are named by railroad involved, year incident occured, month it occured, and then a report number. So here, we have Union Pacific, March 1984; Kansas City Southern, June 1984; and Burlington Northern Santa Fe, July 1984.

I'd be interested to see system maps of these railroads, specifically in the general AR/OK/TX area. The UP tracks in Bryant run along I-35, which was allegedly a hot drug trafficking route in the vicinity during the 1980s. I wonder if any of these railroads have track near or in Hodgen, OK (the site of the "similar case") that run along I-35. I've been trying to dig up information on the case (a newspaper headline was shown in the segment), but it's taking some work. I'm pretty confident I can eventually find it, though.

Sorry for the long post. This is a case I'm extremely passionate about.

Great work.

The Ives/Henry case is in my top 5 of best UM cases ever, and one of the questions I had immediately after I saw the segment was about who the Hogden, OK victims were and what the circumstances were surrounding their deaths. Typically, UM segments will often delve into similar incidents like this, or at least give more information than a mere "a similar case happened in another state" blurb. And since this happened in the 1980's before the Internet was popular and before we had cable news channels covering every murder case for hours at night, this means someone from OK must have contacted the AR authorities to tell them of the prior incident. My point is, the incidents must have occurred geographically close enough for "word of mouth" to have taken place.

After looking at Google maps, this appears to indeed be the case. Hogden, OK is only 10 miles from the Arkansas border, and is right along the Quachita National Forest. If there was ever a good route for drug smuggling it would be through a remote national forest.

Now, as to your question about what railroads run through Hogden: well Hogden sits 3.5 miles south of a town called Heavener. According to Wikipedia, Heavener's main industry is, yep you guessed it, a railroad.

Quote from Wikipedia:

The Kansas City Southern Railway operates a large repair depot in Heavener that has been the town's largest employer for over seventy years.

Now, I have no idea how railroads operate or if different railroads operate in the same area, but it seems likely that the KCS report you mentioned from June 1984 is the one we are looking for. Unfortunately, Google is turning up nothing about any deaths in 1984 in Hodgen, OK. It seems it will take digging up obituary columns or contacting authorities in that area to get the information.

Now for an interesting tidbit about Bryant, AR which you may or may not know (I cant remember if the segment mentioned it or not), but Google maps reveals that there is a regional airport in Bryant, Arkansas which sits about 500 yards from the railroad tracks. So, we have railroad tracks that run from Oklahoma through a rural national forest into a small town in Arkansas which also has an airport.

[CowboyStudTied]

THERE IS A MATCH SOMEHWERE IN THIS CASE ITS LIKE THE iVE AND hENRY CASE

[Kyte]

Originally Posted by Zlatko

I'm surprised that no one has brought up the two boys who were killed in Oklahoma. It's been said that they were killed in the same fashion as Don, and Kevin. Both were lying motionless on a train track. I've been trying to find more details on the case, but to no avail.

Where did you hear about this case? I'd like to learn more.

[Thiussat]

Originally Posted by Kyte

Where did you hear about this case? I'd like to learn more.

It's mentioned in the Ives/Henry UM segment, but no details are given.

[UMFaninMD]

I remember reading some speculation that the three deaths were carried out by the Dixie Mafia so the boys wouldn't expose their illegal drug operations, but again, no evidence has ever proven that.

[CowboyStudTied]

Ive's/ Henry and Ladner cases have the word Sabotage.. for example the bullet they found where Ladner died was 2 inches in the ground and the bullet they found on the survice of the ground was different...

and the stab wounds in the one shirt of Henry and Ive's and ......


theres a connection