Mi Kyung Kim, a 27-year-old Korean American woman, left work on the evening of December 7, 1993 and took the familiar Long Island Rail Road commuter run that began at Penn Station in Manhattan and made its stop through Jamaica Station in Queens, a routine ride that was supposed to carry tired passengers back toward Long Island. Instead, a man named Colin Ferguson boarded with a handgun, multiple loaded magazines, and a large supply of ammunition, and the ordinary rhythm of the train turned into
a countdown nobody could see coming.
As the train moved past the New Hyde Park area and approached the Merillon Avenue Station in Garden City Park, Ferguson rose and began firing down the aisle, shooting at passengers seated to either side as panic erupted in the narrow car. People tried to fold themselves beneath seats, pressed into corners, or pushed toward doors that felt too far away; in the chaos, Kim was struck in the head, and the injury was catastrophic—later described as a single bullet piercing her left temple and exiting near the base of her skull.
Rescuers rushed the wounded from the train and the platform, and Kim was flown by helicopter for emergency treatment, initially unidentified and listed as a Jane Doe while doctors fought to keep her alive. She was placed on life support, but by the following afternoon—December 8—she died at 3:45 p.m. at Nassau County Medical Center, becoming one of the victims who did not make it out of that ride.
Inside the car, the attack ended not because Ferguson ran out of intent, but because he ran out of time: as he reloaded, several passengers charged him, tackled him, and pinned him across a row of seats until an off-duty Long Island Rail Road police officer arrived and snapped handcuffs onto his wrists. Ferguson was taken into custody at the scene and was arraigned the next day, held without bail as investigators examined what happened and why, including notes found on him that authorities described as laying out “reasons for this” and referencing a prior arrest from 1992.
The case moved through court with drama that only deepened the horror for survivors and families: Ferguson cycled through lawyers, rejected an insanity-based strategy, and insisted on representing himself, even questioning wounded witnesses during the trial. A jury ultimately convicted him on the major charges tied to the massacre—six counts of second-degree murder and nineteen counts of attempted murder among them—and he received a sentence intended to ensure he would never return to society, reported in later accounts as a 315-year prison term.
