A Compton Dumb ass who caused the largest Metrolink disaster to date by staging a fake suicide to gain the sympathy of his wife is finally tried . It seems that in the past he used fake suicide attempts to get her back. Three years ago he parked his Jeep on the train tracks and ran out of the way. The Jeep derailed the train killing 11 passengers. The train cars wreck is pictured below as it is transported.

His plan did however work, he now has his wife back and probably her sympathy since he is facing Life in Prison on 11 counts of murder.

The Jeep / train wreck from the LA Times - A Compton man willfully caused a deadly commuter train wreck three years ago in an extreme, but apparently successful, attempt to regain the affections of his estranged wife, prosecutors said Monday.

“He needed to do something big to get her attention,” prosecutor Cathryn Brougham said during opening statements in the trial of Juan Manuel Alvarez, who on Jan. 26, 2005, parked his vehicle over railway tracks and fled minutes before it was hit by an oncoming Metrolink train.

The prosecution accused Alvarez of conducting a “pretend suicide” similar to several such acts he had allegedly committed in the past.

“He would use these pretend suicide attempts throughout his life in order to get attention, sympathy and pity,” Brougham said.

Alvarez was hooked on meth, suffered delusions and kept accusing his wife, Carmelita, of having an affair, the prosecutor said. He became increasingly obsessive and threatened to kill her. By October 2004, Carmelita had kicked him out. When he continued to hound her, she got a restraining order.

“The defendant chose the path of destruction,” Brougham said. But “instead of deciding to kill his wife, he decided to murder 11 strangers.”

Prosecutors said Alvarez’s ploy succeeded in winning back his wife.

When Alvarez was charged with murder and jailed, his wife withdrew the restraining order and began to visit him, the prosecutor said.

If convicted of first-degree murder, he could face the death penalty