Police Investigating Whether Couple Killed on NYC Subway Tracks Were Intoxicated at the Time

New York City police are still investigating the reason a couple found themselves on the subway tracks and didn’t seem to notice or be bothered by an oncoming train that struck and killed them both.

According to a statement from the NYPD obtained by People, police responded to the Spring Street subway station in Manhattan around 3:14 a.m. on September 13. Upon arrival, first responders declared a 24-year-old man and a 24-year-old woman dead at the scene after being struck by a southbound 4 train.

The victims were later identified as Navam Kaul and Malaika Chitre.

Law enforcement sources told The New York Post that Kaul either fell or climbed onto the tracks for an unknown reason. Chitre, a friend, then jumped down to help him. The duo didn’t seem to be in a hurry, and either didn’t notice or didn’t care that the 4 train was incoming. The train’s operator — who reportedly tried to hit the emergency brakes but didn’t have enough time to stop the train entirely before impact — said Chitre appeared to be laughing as she pulled Kaul up just before the train hit them.

Video of the incident shared on social media shows the couple sitting on the tracks calmly before the train hits them.

The New York Post reports that investigators are looking into whether both victims were too intoxicated to understand the gravity of their situation or even register that the train was coming. However, that is just one theory they have about the incident. Although no letters were found, authorities have not ruled out suicide as a cause for the incident.

Both Kaul and Chitre were reportedly Rutgers University graduates with good jobs. She worked as an operations specialist at Acadia Pharmaceuticals and he was a financial data analyst at Bloomberg, according to their respective LinkedIn profiles.