Train runs down N.Z. couple on tracks

Press, 29 April 1989, Page 10

Train runs down N.Z. couple on tracks

PA Wellington Two young New Zealand lovers were seen hugging and kissing seconds before an express train ran them down in the Sydney suburb of Beverly Hills last evening, in what the police assume was a lovers’ suicide pact. A Sydney police spokesman said driver of the Sydney-Campbelltown train saw the pair on the tracks but could only watch as they embraced just before the train struck them. Paepaeuli Pelesevna, aged 19, died instantly but her boyfriend, Jason Ling, also aged 19, died on his way to hospital after paramedics had tried to resuscitate him on the tracks. The pair were just metres from Paepaeuli’s relatives’ house where they were staying. They had been in Sydney two months. It is not known what part of New Zealand they were from.

Mr Pooaisaako, Paepaeuli’s brother-in-law, told Sydney’s “Daily Mirror” newspaper he stumbled across the tragedy when he saw police and ambulance officers huddling over the tracks outside his home. “They were very much in love Noone knows why this would happen,” he said. The pair were very happy, had found work and were planning to move into a place of their own, he said. The last he saw of them was when they told him they were going to the shops. “It’s hard to believe what has happened,” Mr Pooaisaako said. The police spokesman said they had no clues as to why the pair wanted to kill themselves. “We can only guess that was what they wanted — they just stood there, hugging and kissing, despite the best efforts of the driver to alert them and stop the train.”