Ángel Maturino Reséndiz

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1990s style wanted poster
FBI FUGITIVE
PUBLICITY		 TEN MOST WANTED FUGITIVE
WANTED BY THE FBI
Rafael Resendez-Ramirez
Rafael Resendez-Ramirez
Born: August 1, 1959(1959-08-01)
Mexico
Died: June 27, 2006 (aged 46)
Death Row, Huntsville, Texas
Crime: Railway serial killer
Date Added: June 21, 1999
Number on List: #457
Deceased
Had been located July 13, 1999

Angel Maturino Reséndiz, aka The Railway Killer/The Railroad Killer, (August 1, 1959 – June 27, 2006) was a convicted serial killer, executed in the U.S. state of Texas. He was an illegal alien from Mexico, who wandered the United States on trains to commit his alleged 24 murders. For the serial murders, on June 21, 1999 he briefly became the 457th fugitive listed by the FBI on the Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list.

He was 39 years old when he was arrested in July 1999. He had been chiefly known, and sought, under the alias Rafael Resendez-Ramirez up until that date but he had about thirty other aliases that he used. One of these, Ángel Reyes Reséndiz was very close to the name given on his birth certificate from Izúcar de Matamoros, Puebla: Ángel Leoncio Reyes Recendis [1].

Contents

[edit] Murders and methodology

He evaded authorities for a considerable time, having no fixed addresses, and making undocumented international transit between Mexico, the United States, and Canada until he was captured. Local residents in the area of the Benton and the Sirnics' murders were terrified that he might reappear, especially those living near train tracks.

Reséndiz killed as many as 15 people [2] with rocks and other objects, mainly in their homes, to steal jewelry and other items that he returned to his wife in Mexico. Much of the jewelry was sold or melted down. Some of the items that were removed from the homes were returned by his wife after his surrender/capture. Money was sometimes left at the scene, displayed, as if saying "I didn't do it for the money." He raped some of his female victims; rape served as a secondary intent. Most of his victims were found covered with a blanket, or otherwise obscured from immediate view.

[edit] Victims

The following deaths are attributed to Reséndiz:

1. August 29, 1997, Lexington, Kentucky, Christopher Maier, 21 years old. He was a University of Kentucky student walking along nearby railroad tracks with his girlfriend, Holly, when the two were attacked by Reséndiz, who bludgeoned Maier to death. Reséndiz raped and severely beat Maier's girlfriend, who nearly died as a result. Holly, the only known survivor went to appear on the Bio show I Survived, and help other victims of rape, sexual assault, and crime.

2. October 4, 1998, Hughes Springs, Texas, Leafie Mason, 81 years old. She was hammered to death with an antique flat iron by Reséndiz, who entered through a window. Fifty yards outside her door was the Kansas City-Southern Rail line.

3. December 17, 1998, West University Place, Texas, Claudia Benton, 39 years old. Benton, a paediatric neurologist at the Baylor College of Medicine, was raped, stabbed, and bludgeoned repeatedly after he entered her home, which is near the Union Pacific St. Louis Southwestern Railway train tracks. Police found her Jeep Cherokee in San Antonio and found Reséndiz's fingerprints on the steering column. After the murder, Reséndiz had a warrant for his arrest for burglary, but not yet for murder.

4 and 5. May 2, 1999, Weimar, Texas, Norman J. Sirnic, 46 years old, and Karen Sirnic, 47 years old. The Sirnics were bludgeoned to death by a sledgehammer in a parsonage of the United Church of Christ, where Norman Sirnic was a pastor. The building was located adjacent to a railroad. The Sirnics' red Mazda was also found in San Antonio three weeks later, and fingerprints link their case with the Claudia Benton case.

6. June 4, 1999, Houston, Texas, Noemi Dominguez, 26 years old. Dominguez, a schoolteacher at Houston Independent School District's Benjamin Franklin Elementary School, was bludgeoned to death in her apartment near the rail tracks. Seven days later, her white Honda Civic was discovered by state troopers on the International Bridge in Del Rio, Texas.

7. June 4, 1999, Fayette County, Texas, Josephine Konvicka, 73 years old. Konvicka was killed by the blow of a pointed garden tool on the head while she lay sleeping. Her farmhouse is not far from Weimar. Reséndiz attempted to steal the car but was unable to take it away since he could not find the car keys.

8. and 9. June 15, 1999, Gorham, Illinois, George Morber Senior, 80 years old, and Carolyn Frederick, 52 years old. Reséndiz shot George Morber in the head with a shotgun and then clubbed Carolyn Frederick to death. Their house was located only 100 yards (90 m) away from a railroad line. Later, an onlooker sees a man matching Reséndiz's description driving Carolyn Frederick's red pickup truck in Cairo, Illinois, which is located 60 miles south of Gorham.

In addition, Reséndiz admitted to four earlier killings:

1. March 23, 1997, Ocala, Florida, Jesse Howell, 19 years old. He was bludgeoned to death with an air hose coupling and left beside the tracks [3].

2. March 23, 1997, Sumter County, Florida, Wendy Von Huben, 16 years old. She was raped, strangled, suffocated and buried in a shallow grave approximately 30 miles (48 km) away from her fiancé, Jesse Howell [4].

3. Resendiz is suspected in the death of Fannie Whitney Byers, 81, who was found Dec. 10, 1998, bludgeoned to death in her Carl, Georgia home located near CSX Transportation railroad tracks. A Lexington man and his girlfriend first were charged in the Barrow County murder, but Resendiz admitted to an FBI agent that he killed Byers, according to authorities [5].

4. On Wednesday, April 12, 2006, the San Antonio Police Department announced it had cleared the unsolved murder of Michael White, who was found shot to death in July of 1991 in the front yard of a vacant house in downtown San Antonio. According to San Antonio police, Angel Reséndiz gave them precise details about the murder, and was named the primary suspect [6].

[edit] Arrest and trial

The police tracked down Reséndiz's sister, Manuela. Manuela feared that her brother might kill someone else or be killed by the FBI, so she agreed to help the police. A Texas Ranger, Drew Carter, accompanied by Manuela and a spiritual guide met up with Reséndiz on a bridge connecting El Paso, Texas, with Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua.

Reséndiz surrendered to him.

In 1999, former Texas Attorney General Jim Mattox — wary of the controversy miring the many confessions and recantations by Henry Lee Lucas — remarked of Reséndiz that "I hope they don't start pinning on him every crime that happens near a railroad track." [7]

[edit] Mental health

On June 21, 2006, a Houston judge ruled that Reséndiz was mentally competent to be executed. Upon hearing the judge's ruling, Reséndiz said, "I don't believe in death. I know the body is going to go to waste. But me, as a person, I'm eternal. I'm going to be alive forever." He also described himself as half-man and half-angel and told psychiatrists he couldn't be executed because he didn't believe he could die.

However, statements like the above have led specialists to conclude in the contrary — that Reséndiz is not competent to be executed. In the words of a bilingual psychiatrist who evaluated Reséndiz on two occasions in 2006, “delusions had completely taken over [Reséndiz’s] thought processes.” [8]

[edit] Death

Ángel Maturino Reséndiz received an execution date set for June 27, 2006, by lethal injection. Although he did have an appeal pending with the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, he had the death warrant signed for the murder of Dr. Claudia Benton, a Houston-area physician killed in her home a week before Christmas 1998.

Ángel Reséndiz was executed in Huntsville, Texas, on June 27, 2006, by lethal injection. In his final statement, Reséndiz said "I want to ask if it is in your heart to forgive me. You don't have to. I know I allowed the devil to rule my life. I just ask you to forgive me and ask the Lord to forgive me for allowing the devil to deceive me. I thank God for having patience in me. I don't deserve to cause you pain. You do not deserve this. I deserve what I am getting". Reséndiz was pronounced dead at 8:05 p.m. CDT (01:05 UTC on 28 June 2006).[9] The execution was the 13th of the year in the nation's most active death penalty state.

George Benton, Dr. Claudia Benton's husband, was present at the execution and said Reséndiz was "evil contained in human form, a creature without a soul, no conscience, no sense of remorse, no regard for the sanctity of human life." [10]

[edit] Media

Ángel Maturino Reséndiz case was featured in two criminal documentaries,

"Crime Stories" at Discovery Channel and Biography Channel.

"The FBI Files:Tracks of a Killer". (2003)

[edit] External links