DRUG TEST IS WRONG: WIFE OF TA MOTORMAN

JACKSON TOWNSHIP, N.J. - The wife of the motorman who tested positive for
cocaine after his B train derailed in downtown Brooklyn jumped to his
defense yesterday - insisting the tests were wrong.

"My husband does not do drugs," David Murray's wife said adamantly outside
the couple's neat, two-story wood-frame home.

Although she would not give her name, she insisted that Murray, 51, had a
perfect 23-year record with the Transit Authority.

"We don't want to say too much," she said. "We have to get a lawyer."

Murray, visibly upset, refused to comment, telling a reporter he was not
the motorman. But his wife confirmed that he was.

The couple, who moved to Jackson Township from Brooklyn a few months ago,
were surprised that a reporter tracked them down.

"How did you get our address?" the wife demanded.

Jackson Township, 100 miles from New York City, is the bucolic town where
11-year-old Eddie Werner was strangled and sexually molested by Sam Manzie,
15, on Sept. 26, 1997. Manzie is now serving a 70-year sentence for the crime.

Murray was driving the B train when it derailed Tuesday night as it was
leaving the DeKalb Avenue station in Brooklyn, injuring 95 people. Of
those, 53 were sent to area hospitals.

Murray tested positive for cocaine in drug and alcohol tests that are
automatically given after such accidents. He was immediately suspended and
the TA notified him it would seek his dismissal.

Tests on the conductor were negative.

Even so, the TA says it does not know what role drugs played in the
accident, which earlier was blamed on a faulty track switch.

A transit union official says Murray helped the injured after the
derailment and the motorman was blameless in the accident.

The union is promising to do everything in its power to help Murray.

The derailment came as the train was switching tracks. The first two cars
cleared the switch, but the third car skipped the rails, causing the
eight-car train to break in two and triggering the automatic brakes.

The gear-grinding smash-up sent terrified passengers hurtling through the
air. Three were seriously hurt, while dozens suffered cuts, bumps and bruises.

Murray has tested negative for drugs 10 times in the last nine years.

The TA began the drug-testing policy in 1991 after a drunken motorman fell
asleep on the job, leading to an accident at Union Square that killed five
people.