“There’s a graveyard out there…”
PERSEVERING DETECTIVE GETS THE SERIAL KILLER FROM HELL 
TO CONFESS MULTIPLE MURDERS


	Chances are Robert Silveria wasn’t planning to kill when he 
walked up a dirt road alongside the Southern Pacific railroad tracks 
in a small town just outside of San Francisco.  But then he wandered 
into the campsite of James Mclean, a down-on-his-luck Viet Nam veteran.  
Before the night of drinking, drugging and sharing tales of life on 
the rails was over, Mclean lay on the ground grimacing in pain, blood 
pouring from the knife wound to his chest.  His mouth and eyes wide 
open in shock, he seemed to be asking, Why? Why me?
	 Detective Sergeant Bill Palmini, seasoned by working many 
high-crime cases and assigned to head the investigation, also asks 
himself “Why,” but with a gnawing, prescient feeling in his gut that 
this murder may be just the tip of the iceberg.  MURDER ON THE RAILS: 
THE TRUE STORY OF THE DETECTIVE WHO UNLOCKED THE SHOCKING SECRETS OF 
THE BOXCAR SERIAL KILLER (New Horizon Press, October 2004) by 
William G. Palmini and Tanya Chalupa is the chilling real-life story 
of a cop, a killer and a little-known, sinister world of violence and 
sudden death that exists side-by-side with our own. 
	Barking orders to his men, Palmini embeds an informant into the 
dark subculture of rail hoppers who ride the nation’s trains drifting 
from place to place. Following the killer’s bloody trail of death and 
terror over the course of eight months, the police finally capture 
Silveria in 1996.  As Palmini interrogates him, a strange, inexplicable 
bond forms between them and the killer, who confides he wants “a clean slate” 
when he meets God, confesses to multiple murders in twenty-eight states 
over a fourteen year period, horrifying and drawing the veteran cop into a 
hellish world of mindless killing sprees and a vicious, predatory gang of 
criminals to which the serial killer belongs: the Freight Train Riders of 
America or FTRA. 
	As the detective and the suspect continue to talk, the list of 
confirmed and possible murders by Silveria grows until the number reaches 100.  
Horrified, Palmini realizes the true number will never be verified, because 
the serial killer has told of pushing untold numbers of bodies into rivers, 
lakes and ravines from moving trains.  Tagged the Boxcar Serial Killer by 
the press, Silveria is tried, convicted and sentenced to life in prison in 
Oregon, but Palmini cannot put the case behind him.  The pack of criminals 
who form the FTRA, estimated to be between one and five thousand strong 
(Southern Poverty Law Center Report, 1998) continue to assault, rob and kill 
fellow rail riders and Palmini joins with the FBI and other police agencies 
to crack down on the vicious gang of psychopathic freight train hoppers and 
make the nation’s rails safer for all of us.  
	In 2004, members of the Freight Train Riders of America still live by 
an elaborate code of violence, thievery, drugs and secrecy, while various 
arms—the Goon Squad, the Enforcers, the Death Squad—continue to wreak havoc 
on the rails.  If you have railroad tracks running through your town or city, 
says a law enforcement expert on the gang, “you already have FTRA members 
nearby.”    

ABOUT THE AUTHORS:
William G. Palmini, a thirty-four year veteran of the Albany, CA Police Department, 
holds a masters degree in Public Administration from Golden Gate University in 
San Francisco.  A colorful, one-of-a-kind police officer, he uses his talents 
as an Elvis impersonator to present traffic safety programs to children and teens, 
for which he received an honorary Gold Record from the Recording Industry of 
America. A past recipient of the J. Standard Baker Award from the International 
Association of Police Chiefs, he now is a private investigator in Novato, CA, 
near San Francisco, where he resides.   

Tanya Chalupa, a journalist and communications professional specializing in law 
enforcement and traffic safety issues, is a graduate of Queens College, CUNY. She 
has received awards from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 
California Senate Rules Committee and the National Association of Governors’ 
Highway Safety Representatives. She and her husband live in Davis, CA, outside 
Sacramento. 


MURDER ON THE RAILS
THE TRUE STORY OF THE DETECTIVE WHO UNLOCKED 
THE SHOCKING SECRETS OF THE BOXCAR SERIAL KILLER
by William G. Palmini and Tanya Chalupa 
New Horizon Press
October 2004      
$23.95, Hardcover
ISBN: 0-88282-243-8