Courtesy photo.
Barbara Arteta, 63, of New Smyrna Beach, returning on an Amtrak train with her husband from a trip to New York, with an expected arrival in Sanford, was instead found dead Thursday on railroad tracks in southwestern Georgia She disappeared overnight Wednesday with her purse and $1,000 in cash. Only her shoes were left behind.Now law enforcement officials are trying to figure if she was pushed out of a window found open.
NEW SMYRNA BEACH -- The ride on an Amtrak train was New Smyrna Beach resident Barbara Arteta's first and last returning with her husband from a trip to New York to meet their newest grandchild. Her body was found alongside tracks Thursday in Jessup, Ga., near Savannah, even though the auto train hadn't stopped there, her death at this time labeled "suspicious" by authorities there.
Her husband, Eugene, discovered she was missing, along with her purse and the $1,000 in cash she had in it when the train pulled into the Sanford station Thursday morning, Georgia Bureau of Investigation officials said. All that was left behind were her shoes.
How the frail 63-year-old woman, with Parkinson's disease and cancer ended up on the tracks has not been determined, though she may have either fallen out or was pushed out of an opened window while her husband was sleeping.
We're treating this as a suspicious death," Georgia Bureau of Investigation Special Agent Mike McDaniel told reporters Friday.
Her husband was awakened at 2 a.m. Thursday by his shaking wife, the result of her Parkinson's and moved to a row of seats opposite her. When he awakened at 5:45 a.m., she was missing, according to Georgia and Florida authorities. It wasn't until hours after he had arrived in Sanford that his wife's body was found, Sanford police said.
Amtrak officials told Orlando media outlets that the train's doors cannot open while it is moving, but the windows can be opened.
The 72-year-old grief-stricken Eugene Arteta told an Orlando TV reporter: "I don't get it; how did she end up outside the train?"
He added, "I loved her so much; everybody loved her."