Deadly "Ghost Train" game kills two teens

Officer inspects tracks after deadly accident

ST. LOUIS (AP) — Two Missouri girls struck and killed by an Amtrak train were playing a deadly game, a coroner said Tuesday.

Butler County Coroner Jim Akers said the teens were playing a game called "Ghost Train," in which a car is parked on the tracks, purportedly awaiting the arrival of a "ghost train" involved in a fatal derailment many years ago. Occupants let the windows fog up in the scary setting. If a train approaches, they drive off.

But Akers said that as the Amtrak train neared the 1995 Jeep Grand Cherokee, the vehicle wouldn't start. Three teens got out but two panicked and couldn't unbuckle their seat belts. One returned and unbuckled the other girls and was still inside the Jeep when the train slammed into it.

"It's crazy," said Akers, who had never heard of the game before the accident. "It's horrible. I really don't have words yet. I wish I had some smart, poetic way of saying something to stop kids from doing things like this."

The accident happened at 12:30 a.m. Tuesday at a railroad crossing near Poplar Bluff in southeast Missouri. The Missouri State Highway Patrol identified the girls who died as Victoria Swanson, 15, and Haley Whitmer, 17, both of Poplar Bluff.