Kenly teen was hanging out by tracks before being struck and killed by Amtrak train

Cindy Joyner was told by a sheriff’s investigator that her stepson was messing around and throwing chairs at a friend’s house when one of the chairs ended up on the train tracks. A freight train came barreling down the southbound tracks at the same time Kyle Joyner went to retrieve the chair.

“One train was coming by, and he didn’t hear the other train,” said Kyle Joyner’s father, Dean Joyner.

“It didn’t seem real and it doesn’t seem real now,” said Cindy Joyner. “It doesn’t seem real.”

Dean and Cindy Joyner were out of town when they received a call about the accident. The couple had gone to Virginia to celebrate the birth of Cindy Joyner’s first grandchild. Kyle Joyner had stayed at home to hang out at his friend’s house near the railroad tracks.

An Amtrak spokesperson said Sunday morning that train No. 98 hit Joyner in Kenly near the intersection of highways 301 and 581 at around 2:45 a.m. The train was headed to New York City- a place Kyle Joyner had dreamed of visiting one day.

“He wanted to do a lot of traveling and see the world mostly,” said Cindy Joyner.

According to his father and stepmother, Kyle Joyner liked to fish, hunt and listen to music. He was also able to make his friends and family laugh.

Cindy Joyner, who knew Kyle Joyner for four years, said that she felt a close bond with him.

“I just feel like he’s my son because I just connected with him,” said Cindy Joyner. “[He was] hilariously funny, so smart, so a typical teenager, but not.”

Friend Corey Clark said that the impact Kyle Joyner had on him extends beyond friendship.

“He was a very lovable person and it was too early for him,” said Clark. “Words can’t explain how he was and what he meant to me.”