PAIR KILLED BY TRAIN HAD DRUG PROBLEMS, FAMILY SAYS

ELIZABETH, N.J., May 14 - Theresa LaMarca and Damien J. Connors walked off
a train platform here on Monday afternoon, crossed one set of tracks,
squatted down on a second set, embraced, then waited for a train that was
speeding toward them. The train, the Amtrak No. 650 on its way from
Harrisburg, Pa., to New York City, killed them instantly.

The police said the couple, who left their wallets on the platform, left
behind no suicide note. But Ms. LaMarca's relatives said today that there
was little mystery to the couple's end: both, they said, were drug addicts
who had run out of money to support their habit.

"Everybody's trying to paint this out to be some kind of love story," said
Ms. LaMarca's brother, Michael LaMarca, 19. "It was really two people who
got involved with drugs, and it pushed them to the limit."

At the home of Mr. Connors's family, in Roselle Park, a man who said he was
Mr. Connors's brother did not want to discuss the deaths. A sign on the
front door of the home was hand-lettered with a message: "No comment.
Please respect our grief!"

But at the Hillside home of the family of Ms. LaMarca, 22, relatives said
that though they had not heard from her in months, they knew she had an
addiction that had caused her to become estranged from the close-knit
family, and even to steal from her parents.

"She didn't have this problem when she was little," her brother said. "She
had plans even recently about what she would do with her life. She did have
dreams. But drugs became a big part of her life."

She and Mr. Connors, 26, her boyfriend of about a year, lived together in
Elizabeth, but were evicted recently because they failed to pay the rent,
family members said.

Mr. LaMarca said that his parents, Barbara and John, had tried to help his
sister, but that she stayed aloof.

"My mother would send her cards out of love, but when somebody's on drugs,
they have other priorities," he said at the family home, a two-story green
house in a tidy neighborhood.

Mr. LaMarca said his parents worked hard to send him and Theresa and their
sister, Anna, to Roman Catholic schools. All three graduated from St. Mary
of the Assumption High School in Elizabeth. Anna will graduate from
Montclair State University in a few weeks, her mother said, and Michael is
on the varsity swim team at Montclair State, where he is majoring in
business. But Theresa turned to drugs.

Mrs. LaMarca said her daughter apparently broke into their house through a
basement window on April 29 and stole nine checks from the back of a checkbook.

Family members did not know any checks were missing until last Thursday,
when they realized five had been cashed for a total of $5,000, she said.

"It was the drugs," Mrs. LaMarca said. "She used to be so focused on what
she wanted to do in life, but the drugs just changed her focus and messed
her up."

Mrs. LaMarca said Theresa had studied computer science at Union County
College, but dropped out. Theresa had received a $58,000 settlement from an
automobile accident on the Garden State Parkway in which she was seriously
injured. But Mrs. LaMarca said her daughter quickly spent that money to
finance a drug habit that the police said was costing her $200 to $300 a day.

"You always think, could you have done more?" Mrs. LaMarca said, beginning
to cry.

On Monday, Kevin Transue, an Amtrak engineer who witnessed the deaths, told
the police he felt just as helpless, said Capt. Mark Kurdyla of the
Elizabeth police.

"He said he tried to stop them," Captain Kurdyla said, "but he couldn't."