BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KGET) – More than two months later, we have positive identification on a June 30 pedestrian fatality involving a train — and the victim, it turns out, was a beloved local character.
Back in early July , 17 News told you about the death of 48-year-old Marques Morrison — the Dancing Cowboy, as he was known — who entertained and uplifted motorists from his usual spot at the northwest corner of California Avenue and Stockdale Highway.
For 15 years, Morrison performed like a perpetual motion machine, making people smile with his exuberant, sign-spinning dance moves, ostensibly in the name of Little Ceasar’s Pizza. Then he disappeared — dead, his family announced, under undisclosed circumstances.
Now we know what happened. What we don’t know is why.
The Kern County Sheriff’s Office, Coroners Division, announced on Sept. 1 that it was Morrison who was struck by a Union Pacific train in the pre-dawn hours of June 30. He died on the tracks near the historic Sumner Train Depot and was discovered at 5:52 a.m. The coroner ruled his death an accident.