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Tamar Louis, 28, of Ivy Street, Stamford, died after she was struck around 9:30 a.m. Friday by a northbound express Metro-North train.
“Tamar was a strong, compassionate, hard-working young woman," Mark Sherman, who represented Louis when she was a victim in a criminal case, told the Daily Voice on Tuesday. "The suggestion she would take her own life undermines the perseverance and courage we saw in Tamar during our time together.”
Sherman also confirmed that the family will be conducting its own investigation into Louis's death, especially after the inconsistent findings in recent media reports, he said.
Metro-North spokesmen said investigators believed Louis had dropped a purse or wallet onto the tracks and went down to retrieve it. But they also reported that she had been sitting on the edge of the platform dangling her legs before she decided to descend to the tracks.
Louis, who died the day before her 29th birthday, suffered “blunt impact to the head, torso and extremities with fractures and visceral wounds,” and her death was the result of a suicide, the state's Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in Farmington said Monday.
A spokesman in the medical examiner’s office said it could discuss only the cause and manner of death, not how a determination was made, according to the Stamford Advocate.
"She was apparently sitting on the edge of the platform, with her legs dangling over the side, when she dropped her purse or bag, then lowered herself down to get it," MTA spokesman Salvatore Arena said Saturday, citing the accounts of eyewitnesses. "We're not sure why she dropped the bag. ...
"Then the train comes, and she's down there when she shouldn't be," he said.
Louis was killed by the New Haven-bound 8:29 a.m. out of Grand Central Terminal headed for New Haven, which was not due to stop in Cos Cob. Metro-North officials estimated that it was traveling at 45 mph when the accident occurred.
All express trains traveling through a station without stopping sound their horns, Arena said.
"An express train, it's not stopping," he said. "They're gonna hit that horn."
The investigation is continuing into the death.
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