Student who wanted to commit suicide in subway charged

A despondent college student who wanted to commit suicide in a subway tunnel was arrested on criminal trespass charges Friday after setting off a security scare, officials said.

Aaron Fetto, 20, of Manhattan, was awaiting arraignment late Friday after being found on the tracks by subway workers earlier in the day with a backpack filled with water and sodium cyanide, police said.

Fetto, a student at Pace University in Manhattan, got into the subway tunnels at Fulton Street by jumping a turnstile and said he wanted to find a lonely alcove where he could commit suicide, said NYPD spokesman Paul Browne.

Although Fetto was dressed in a white construction hard hat and was wearing a reflective vest, subway workers on a passing work train took him on board and turned him over to police at about 5:20 a.m. when he didn't show them any identification, Browne said. The transit workers initially thought Fetto was just another track worker, he added.

Fetto told detectives he planned to ingest one or more of the cyanide pills with water, according to Browne. "He didn't want anybody to know what he had done," said Browne, referring to the reason why Fetto allegedly wanted to find a hidden place to attempt suicide.

A spokesman for Pace confirmed Fetto is a sophomore political science major at the school but declined to comment further because of confidentiality restrictions.

Police said sodium cyanide is a commercially available substance often used to clean jewelry. It is not explosive but is highly toxic and can be fatal if ingested, according to police.