Girls create makeshift memorial to remember a friend

GRIEVING- Local resident Marisa Skoczylas, 17, strings a garland of silk flowers across a handmade sign as Cortney Jones, 22, lights a candle beneath an impromptu memorial created on a railway post near the train crossing at Los Angeles and Sequoia avenues on Tuesday. The girls' close friend, age 17, was killed at the crossing last Friday when she was struck by an Amtrak train. The Ventura County Medical Examiner's office has since ruled the incident a suicide. It is the newspaper's policy not to publish the names of suicide victims. IRIS SMOOT Acorn Newspapers