HOUSTON, TEXAS - Since his arrest, the man known as the Railroad Killer has given authorities crucial details that have helped close four murder cases in three states, including one in which another man had been charged.
Yet, Angel Maturino Resendiz, 43, who sits on Texas death row for one of 14 murders in which he is the likely killer, including a northeast Georgia woman, has failed to convince investigators he committed the June 1998 slaying of a southeast Harris County, Tex., man. Lawyers for two people serving life sentences for the crime believe Maturino Resendiz could be the key to their clients prison cells.
"Nobody seems to be interested in these cases," Maturino Resendiz said recently from death row. "One thing you can take back on this case, they can never prove one case that I've claimed that I haven't done."
Indeed, information and descriptions given by Maturino Resendiz led to the discovery of a body in Florida and have allowed authorities to conclude he was the killer in two slayings there, one in Bexar County, Tex., and another in Barrow County, Ga., where authorities dropped charges against another man.
In all, authorities believe Maturino Resendiz is responsible for seven killings in Texas, two each in Florida and Illinois and one each in California, Kentucky and Georgia, all near the freight train lines he rode from coast to coast.
A Texas Ranger got Maturino Resendiz to cross the border into El Paso and surrender on July 13, 1999, ending weeks of fear over the string of random killings.
Yet despite a similar confession in the slaying of Darryl Kolojaco, including accurate scene descriptions and a blow-by-blow account of events Maturino Resendiz claims occurred June 13, 1998, prosecutors believe his oft-repeated statement is among several bogus admissions the Mexican citizen has made.
Prosecutor Vic Wisner, who successfully convinced two juries that Kolojacos' wife got her lover to commit the murder using the lure of a $100,000 life insurance payment, said details given by Maturino Resendiz didn't add up.
Following are 14 slayings in which rail-riding serial killer Angel Maturino Resendiz either has been charged or is considered the prime suspect. He has given confessions in all of the following killings and says he has committed several others to which investigators have not definitively linked him.
1. BEXAR COUNTY, 1986 _ Unidentified homeless woman shot to death four times with a .38-caliber weapon and dumped in an abandoned farmhouse. After his July 13, 1999, arrest, Maturino Resendiz gives authorities details only the killer could have known. (Prime suspect)
2-3. BELLEVIEW, Fla., March 23, 1997 _ Body of 19-year-old Jesse Howell discovered near railroad tracks. Maturino Resendiz later directs authorities to hidden remains of 16-year-old Illinois runaway Wendy Von Huben _ Howells traveling companion _ about 15 miles away near Ocala. (Prime suspect, immune from prosecution)
4. COLTON, Calif. July 1997 _ Unidentified transient beaten to death in a rail yard. (Prime suspect)
5. LEXINGTON, Ky., Aug. 29, 1997 _ University of Kentucky student Christopher Maier, 21, killed as he and his girlfriend take shortcut along railroad tracks from one party to another. The woman was raped and beaten, but survived. (Charged)
6. HUGHES SPRINGS, Texas, Oct. 2, 1998 _ Leafie Mason, 87, found beaten to death with her own antique iron. (Charged)
7. CARL, Ga., Dec. 11, 1998 _ Fannie Whitner Byers, 81, found bludgeoned to death in her home. Maturino Resendiz provides information linking him to the crime, causing Barrow County authorities to drop charges against another man. (Charged)
8. WEST UNIVERSITY PLACE, Texas, Dec. 17, 1998 _ Dr. Claudia Benton found sexually assaulted, stabbed and beaten to death inside her Houston-area home near railroad tracks. (Charged, convicted and condemned)
9-10. WEIMAR, Texas, May 2, 1999 _ Minister Norman Sirnic, 46, and his wife, Karen Sirnic, 47, found dead inside their home near railroad tracks in Weimar. (Charged)
11. FAYETTE COUNTY, Texas, June 4, 1999 _ Josephine Konvicka, 73, found slain with an ax in her rural home near railroad tracks. (Charged)
12. HOUSTON, June 5, 1999 _ Noemi Dominguez, 26-year-old Houston schoolteacher, found beaten to death in her home. (Charged)
13-14. GORHAM, Ill., June 15, 1999 _ Bodies of George Morber, 80, and his daughter, Carolyn Frederick, 51, discovered at their rural home near railroad tracks. (Charged)
Monday
January 27th, 2025
6:22AM
