For a second day, a jury deliberated yesterday without deciding whether a young Berks County Pa. man intentionally pushed his ex-girlfriend's car into the path of a fast-moving freight train and murdered
four people.

The jurors in the possible death-penalty trial of Carlos Diaz, 23, of West Reading, convened at the Berks County Courthouse at 9 a.m. At 10:30 a.m., they asked that the testimony of three eyewitnesses be read
back to them.

Diaz faces four counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of his ex-girlfriend, Wertz, 20; her son, John Michael Cortez, 2; Wertz's friend Cynthia Jacques, 22;
and Jacques' daughter, Allissa, 2.

Berks County District Attorney Mark C. Baldwin, who is seeking the death penalty, told jurors that Diaz was furious with Wertz for ending their five-year
relationship and that he pursued her white Ford Tempo with his white Honda Accord in a wild chase across the west suburbs of this small town.

Wertz's car was struck by an 8,000-ton Norfolk Southern freight train rolling from Harrisburg to Morrisville, Pa.

Diaz told state police investigators that he did bump the back of his ex-girlfriend's car, but that it was an accident.

Scott Seaman, the train engineer, said it appeared to him that the second car pushed the first car onto the tracks, and that a cloud of blue smoke appeared when
the vehicles ran together.

Full story can be read at;
http://inq.philly.com/content/inquirer/2001/01/20/city/STRAIN20.htm