HAWKINS — Police have classified the deaths of two runaway teenagers as suicides after they were struck by a train last week as they lay on the tracks near Tyler.

Chris Hill, 17, of Dallas, and Harry Tyrone Rutledge, 15, of Bastrop, were killed by a Union Pacific train traveling about 30 mph. The train's engineer told authorities that he sounded his horn and applied the brakes but the boys didn't move.

Hawkins police originally investigated the deaths as homicides, but investigator A.J. Randell said Wednesday that the deaths had been ruled suicides.

Randell said a pathologist reviewed autopsies of the teens' bodies and determined they were alive when the train struck them.

Police won't see official autopsy results for at least a week and toxicology results will take longer, Randell said.

Hill and Rutledge were wards of the state who ran away from Azleway Boys' Ranch on Sept. 16. The ranch, located just outside Tyler, is a foster home for at-risk, abused and neglected youths.

Police said the boys spent several days hanging out in Hawkins, about 90 miles east of Dallas and nearly 25 miles away from the foster home.

After the boys were killed last Thursday, a Union Pacific spokesman said crew members applied the emergency brake when they saw people on the tracks. But it takes moving trains at least a half mile to come to a stop once the brake is applied.

Monte Osburn, director at Azleway Boy's Ranch, said he finds it hard to believe that the teenagers committed suicide.

"(The investigator's ruling) doesn't change my opinion," he said. "I'm anxious to see the final reports."

Shari Pulliam, a spokesman for the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services, said Hill had been under Child Protective Service care since March 2004, while Rutledge came under CPS care in March 2006.

"Our agency is awaiting the coroner report to find out the official cause of death," she said.