Rafael Ramirez

Mexican suspected serial killer, wanted by the FBI in July 1999 as Public Enemy No.1 for questioning in at least seven murders, two in Illinois and five in Kentucky. A migrant farm-worker with snake tattoos on his left arm, he is called the Railroad Killer as he hops rides on freight trains, murdering victims without mercy, those who lived in the vicinity of railroad tracks. The saga apparently began on 2 May 1999 when law officers were called to the home of a well-liked pastor, Rev. Norman Sirnic (on his 47th birthday) and his wife, Karen, to find them lying in their blood-spattered bed with their heads smashed. A 16-lb. sledgehammer was leaning against the wall. Within days, the police learned of a homicide five months earlier in an affluent Houston suburb in which Dr. Claudia Benton, 39, was found murdered by 19 blows to the head and stab wounds on her back, 17 December 1998. Evidence led to Ramirez, who turned out to have a long criminal record dating back to 1976, when he was a teenager. He has spent at least 11 years in various jails and prisons for everything from burglary to aggravated assault. On 4 July 1999, Josephine Konvicka, 73, a widowed grandmother of six was found dead in her bed from a blow to the head. Ramirez's prints were found on the scene. The following day, the body of Noemi Dominguez, 26, an elementary school teacher was found in her tidy apartment next to the rail line. On June 15th, retired prison guard George Morber, 79, and his daughter Carolyn Frederick, 51, were found dead and their pickup truck stolen. Once again, Ramirez left his fingerprints. In every case, the victim is attacked only on the head. Some of the women were raped after death. The killer then put a sheet or blanket over the victim. The crimes are sheerly wanton, and also were not done hastily. Apparently the killer takes his time to enjoy his brutality. Traveling frequently back and forth from Mexico to southern U.S., Ramirez was picked up on 1 June 1999 by immigration officers for being an undocumented alien. As the office was not connected to the files of other law enforcement agencies, his prints did not show up on the wanted list and he was released into Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. His home is in Rodeo, about 300 miles from the Texas border, where he lives with his common-law wife, Julieta Dominguez Reyes, a lab technician. They had a baby daughter, Liria, in March 1999. She said he had began crossing into the U.S. at 16 to work in the produce fields and at best, could send home $140 a month, a princely sum by local standards. On the side, he worked as a "coyote," one who helps smuggle illegal aliens into the U.S., from which he could make $400 a head. He also belonged to a hate group opposed to gays and abortion clinics. Quiet, polite and soft-spoken, he was known as a slightly eccentric loner. His dark streak was considered the result of a troubled childhood. His mom never married his dad but raised the boy alone until he was six, when she sent him to live with his uncle for the following six years. At the age of 13 or 14, he was sexually assaulted by a group of older boys. He has used at least 30 aliases and had five copies of birth certificates along with other bogus papers. A master of disguise, 5' 7", 150 lbs, he uses glasses and goes with and without facial hair. Police believe he is responsible for a brutal attack on two college student in August 1997, a robbery that included murder of the man and rape of the woman. In July 1999, the media put out a publicity campaign in an effort to locate Ramirez, as well as a warning to anyone living in the vicinity of a railroad line. After a six-week manhunt, he turned himself in to the authorities on 13 July 1999 and was charged with murder the following day. Subdued in appearance, he inquired of the judge, "Can all this be done very quickly so I can say I'm guilty?" Reséndiz had many aliases but was chiefly known and sought after as Rafael Resendez-Ramirez. One of his aliases, Ángel Reyes Reséndiz, was very close to the name Ángel Leoncio Reyes Recendis given on his birth certificate. He was executed in the Huntsville Unit in Huntsville, Texas, on 27 June 2006, by lethal injection, pronounced dead at 8:05 p.m. CDT. Link to Wikipedia biography