Families of Eight Amtrak Crash Victims Mourn Loved Ones

Just outside of Philadelphia’s 30th Street station, Amtrak Northeast Regional train 188 careened off the tracks on Tuesday night after speeding through a bend at more than 100mph. Eight people were killed in the crash and more than 200 injured. These are the stories of those who died. James Marshall Gaines III was a 48-year-old Associated Press journalist on his way home to Plainsboro, New Jersey, from meetings in Washington DC while aboard train 188. Rachel Jacobs, 39, was the chief executive of ApprenNet, an education company that focused on addressing a shortage of highly skilled workers using technology and apprentice-style learning. Derrick Griffith, 42, was dean of student affairs and enrollment management for Medgar Evers College in Brooklyn, New York. Robert Gildersleeve was a Baltimore-based 45-year-old vice-president of Ecolab’s corporate accounts. Justin Zemser, 20, was a US naval academy midshipman living in Annapolis, Maryland, when he was killed in the crash. Giuseppe Piras was 41-year-old wine and olive oil executive from from the Sassari province in Italy. Laura Finamore was a 47-year-old Manhattan resident, returning to New York from a memorial service for a college friend’s mother.