Thank you very much Watson (I really should adopt the moniker of Sherlock Holmes).
The insight about jewelry is interesting because Africa has a major blood diamond war. Indeed, this casts my mind back to the mysterious death of a woman in a car in New Jersey who, having investigated, was associated with a jewelers of some sort. This was some years ago, and the investigation went cold.
Her death was particularly suspicious because depending on which eyewitness report you went by, she was either forced in-front of the train in the rail crossing (and thus could not escape), or her car jolted forward by itself for seemingly no reason at all.
Having investigated her car model, it was vulnerable to remote hacking.
Furthermore, the story by the train engineer was even more circumspect. He was able to escape the train from the front, BUT, people in the carriage immediately behind died in a fire.
Analysis of the train wreckage revealed that it was impossible for the engineer to escape via the front (after all, the door was wrecked, and the car was on fire like the train).
The only way possible was out via the passenger doors from behind the cockpit of the train. But to do so, the engineer would need to pass the passengers in that section who died. It was inferred he likely locked the doors as he left.
Onboard the train were US government officials. They weren't the ones killed. Highly circumspect by all counts, and the jewelry incidence here made me think that perhaps the car driver was involved in some illegal blood diamond smuggling ring, and was being disposed of as a loose end.
The only agency with remote car hacking assets at the time were the CIA.
Even more creepy, the location was in… Valhalla. A place in Norse mythology reserved for the dead.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2940537/Did-mother-three-not-realize-crossed-train-s-path-Witness-says-SUV-driver-confused-stopped-tracks-dark-caused-fiery-train-crash-killed-five-others.html
"Cell phone records show that Brody's husband Alan called and spoke to her for almost nine minutes at 6:11, during which time she was apparently still on the Taconic. He told investigators later that during the call he gave her directions to the Scarsdale meeting"
"Alan, who had once worked as a conductor in his native South Africa,[14] did not believe she was familiar with the area she was driving through,"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valhalla_train_crash
Mere coincidence to our case?