From the Syracuse, NY; Post-Standard 18 Oct 2022
Steve Mercarter was hit by a train and killed in September. He had lost touch with his family, but Burger King workers looked out for him for the past 10 years. When they found out he died, they made a memorial in one of his favorite booths.
He never asked for anything.
That was Steve.
They didn’t know his last name. They didn’t know where he lived. But for 10 years, Steve came nearly every day, sometimes twice a day, to the Burger King at the corner of Geddes and West Genesee streets in Syracuse.
He’d show up in the freezing cold at 4:30 a.m., before the restaurant opened.
Sometimes, they had to remind him to change his clothes and take a shower. They had to remind him to
dress warmly.
Steve had been on the train tracks behind Destiny USA, police said. A freight train was coming toward him after 5 p.m. Sept. 24. The engineer blared the horn over and over. Steve stayed on the tracks. His back was to the train.
The train engineer could not stop. He was too close.
The locomotive plowed over Steve, killing him instantly.
They don’t know if it was suicide or drugs, Steve’s sister, Nancy Intorcia said. The police are still investigating, she said.
Steve was not homeless, but he had lived on the fragile edge of mental illness and drug addiction for decades, his sister said.
Intorcia said she had not seen him for at least 15 years. Their mother, Rose Mercarter, searched for him, but could not find him.
What they never did was ask him to leave. Steve was quiet. He’d just get his sandwich, sit by the window and watch the world.
“He was part of the woodwork here,” said Sue Spencer, the Burger King manager.
On Sept. 25, Steve did not come. That was weird, but not alarming. Sometimes, Steve missed one day. But then, for several days, Steve did not come.
They started asking around, Spencer said. They started worrying.
Then the police came. They had an answer, Spencer said. Steve was 49-year-old Steven Mercarter and he was dead.
.
Steve Mercarter was hit by a train and killed in September. He had lost touch with his family, but Burger King workers looked out for him for the past 10 years. When they found out he died, they made a memorial in one of his favorite booths.
He never asked for anything.
That was Steve.
They didn’t know his last name. They didn’t know where he lived. But for 10 years, Steve came nearly every day, sometimes twice a day, to the Burger King at the corner of Geddes and West Genesee streets in Syracuse.
He’d show up in the freezing cold at 4:30 a.m., before the restaurant opened.
Sometimes, they had to remind him to change his clothes and take a shower. They had to remind him to
dress warmly.
Steve had been on the train tracks behind Destiny USA, police said. A freight train was coming toward him after 5 p.m. Sept. 24. The engineer blared the horn over and over. Steve stayed on the tracks. His back was to the train.
The train engineer could not stop. He was too close.
The locomotive plowed over Steve, killing him instantly.
They don’t know if it was suicide or drugs, Steve’s sister, Nancy Intorcia said. The police are still investigating, she said.
Steve was not homeless, but he had lived on the fragile edge of mental illness and drug addiction for decades, his sister said.
Intorcia said she had not seen him for at least 15 years. Their mother, Rose Mercarter, searched for him, but could not find him.
What they never did was ask him to leave. Steve was quiet. He’d just get his sandwich, sit by the window and watch the world.
“He was part of the woodwork here,” said Sue Spencer, the Burger King manager.
On Sept. 25, Steve did not come. That was weird, but not alarming. Sometimes, Steve missed one day. But then, for several days, Steve did not come.
They started asking around, Spencer said. They started worrying.
Then the police came. They had an answer, Spencer said. Steve was 49-year-old Steven Mercarter and he was dead.
.
