The Evil Within - A Top Murder Squad Detective Reveals The Chilling True Stories of The World's Most Notorious Killers (32 page)

On 9 November, he was officially sentenced to death 19 times. Ramirez chatted with his attorneys throughout. Afterwards, he added to his dark image with his rather incomprehensible speech to the court: ‘You do not understand me. I do not expect you to. You are not capable of it. I am beyond your experience. I am beyond good and evil. Legions of the night, night breed, repeat
not the errors of night prowler and show no mercy. I will be avenged. Lucifer dwells within us all.’

He denounced the court officials as liars, haters and parasitic worms. He said that he’d been misunderstood. He was led away eventually to join the 262 inmates already on death row in San Quentin. He remains there to this day, awaiting execution.

Of all the serial killers who have plagued the modern world, the Night Stalker was perhaps the most sensational in the way he committed his crimes. He was a living nightmare, a bogeyman who invaded bedrooms and tore innocent people from their dreams.

Ángel Reséndiz (b. 1959) first came to the attention of the police in 1979. He was arrested for car theft and assault in Florida and was sentenced to a 20-year prison term. He was paroled within six years and deported back to Mexico. But, undeterred, he continued crossing the border back to the USA and continued to commit crimes and receive prison sentences, being deported after each sentence.

In 1997, Reséndiz embarked on a murderous killing spree that would terrorise the residents of towns in the states of Texas. His MO was unique. He would illegally ride the railway that crisscrossed the state, jumping off whenever he felt the need to kill and rob. He would enter the homes of unsuspecting people near the rail tracks. If there was a man in the house, Reséndiz would bludgeon him with a heavy instrument. He would then attack the female, raping and killing her before stealing property, then leaving and jumping back on a passing train to make his getaway.

The dates of Reséndiz’s known murders and his victims are set out below.

• 28 August 1997, in Lexington, Kentucky. Christopher Maier was a 21-year-old University of Kentucky student. He was walking along the rail tracks with his girlfriend when they
  were attacked by Reséndiz, who bludgeoned Maier to death. Reséndiz raped and severely beat Maier’s girlfriend before leaving her for dead, but miraculously she survived.
  
• 4 October 1998, in Hughes Springs, Texas. Leafie Mason, an 81-year-old female, was beaten to death by Reséndiz, who entered her house through a window. He beat her savagely with a tyre lever. Fifty yards outside her door was the Kansas City Southern Rail line.
  
• 17 December 1998, at West University Place, Texas. Claudia Benton, 39, was raped, stabbed and bludgeoned repeatedly after Reséndiz entered her home, which was near the West University train tracks. He then made his getaway in her Jeep Cherokee, which police found in San Antonio, Texas. They found Reséndiz’s fingerprints on the steering column. Strangely enough, the police only issued a warrant for his arrest for burglary, but not for murder.
  
• 2 May 1999, in Weimar, Texas. Norman J Sirnic, 46, and his wife Karen Sirnic, 47, were both 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 railway. Reséndiz stole their red Mazda, which was also found in San Antonio, Texas, three weeks later. Reséndiz’s fingerprints were found within the vehicle, which gave the police a positive link to the previous murder of Claudia Benton.
  
• 4 June 1999, in Houston, Texas. Noemi Dominguez, a 26-year-old schoolteacher at Benjamin Franklin Elementary School, was also bludgeoned to death in her apartment near the rail tracks. Reséndiz then stole her white Honda Civic, which was found seven days later by police on the International Bridge in Del Rio, Texas. On the same date in Fayette County, Texas, Josephine Konvicka, 73, was murdered with a blow to the head from a pointed garden tool while she lay sleeping. Reséndiz attempted to steal the car but was unable to take it away as he could not find the car keys.
  
• 15 June 1999, in Gorham, Illinois. George Morber Senior, 80, and Carolyn Frederick, 52, were also brutally murdered by Reséndiz. He shot George Morber in the head with a shotgun and then clubbed Carolyn Frederick to death. Their house was located only 100yd from a railway line. A witness saw a man matching Reséndiz’s description driving Carolyn Frederick’s red pick-up truck in Cairo, Illinois, 60 miles south of Gorham.
  

By now, the police search to trace and arrest Reséndiz had gained momentum. In June 1999, the FBI placed the Railroad Killer on its Ten Most Wanted list. The FBI’s initial reward of $50,000 for information leading to Reséndiz’s capture escalated within days to $125,000. In the meantime, police in Jackson County, Illinois, officially linked Reséndiz with the murder of the Gorham killings after his fingerprints were matched. The police in Louisville, Kentucky, were able to do this as well. On 1 July, police in Fayette County, Texas, identified DNA from Noemi Dominguez in Josephine Konvicka’s home, indicating that after Reséndiz had killed the younger woman, he drove her car to the other woman’s home and committed a second murder.

Police missed the opportunity of making an arrest when, on 2 June, the Border Patrol apprehended Reséndiz near El Paso as he was attempting to cross the US–Mexico border illegally. While he was in custody, the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service performed a computer search on him, checking his fingerprints and photo against a list of possible fugitives. Because the system failed to identify him as a wanted man, he was deported back to Mexico.

The slip-up proved to be much more than an embarrassment. It was an error of immense proportions. After his release, Reséndiz immediately found his way back into the US where, within 48 hours, as a result of a computer error, he went on to kill four more innocent people.

On 7 July 1999, the FBI enlisted the help of Reséndiz’s
common-law wife, Julietta Reyes. Surprisingly, Julietta handed over to the FBI 93 items of jewellery that she had been sent by Reséndiz. She believed they belonged to his victims, and this turned out to be correct. Relatives of Noemi Dominguez quickly identified 13 of the items. George Benton, husband of the murdered Claudia Benton, also identified several items of her property.

The Texas Rangers decided to try another plan to arrest him. They had traced Reséndiz to Mexico, where he had absconded after the double murder in Illinois. At that point he was believed to be hiding near the town of Ciudad Juarez. They contacted his sister Manuela, who was very close to him. They wanted her to try to persuade him to give himself up in an effort to prevent him killing again, or being killed by police should he be located within the US. If he surrendered himself, they said he would be assured of three things. First, his personal safety would be guaranteed while in jail. Second, he would have regular visiting rights so that his wife, sister and others could visit him. Third, he would have a psychological evaluation while he was in custody. The District Attorney endorsed these proposals in writing. Reséndiz, surprisingly, agreed to give himself up and, on 13 July, crossed the border back into the US where he was met and arrested by a single Texas Ranger in company with his sister.

The police were puzzled as to why Reséndiz surrendered so freely in a state that has executed more people than any other. He must have known that, if convicted of any of the murders in Texas, which seemed very likely, he would face the death penalty. The surrender agreement was very concise in detail. In no way was it set out to mislead or confuse Reséndiz into believing he would be spared due punishment. One possible speculation for Reséndiz’s easy surrender was that he feared bounty hunters who, it was known, had gathered in Mexico to collect the reward. Another theory is that the Mexican authorities were currently investigating similar crimes, which he may have been responsible for.

Reséndiz was formally charged with seven murders but only convicted of one of those killings, that of Claudia Benton. In addition, he admitted to two earlier killings on 23 March 1997, in Ocala, Florida. Jesse Howell, 19, was bludgeoned to death with an air-hose coupling and left beside the railway tracks. His girlfriend, Wendy Von Huben, 16, was raped, strangled, suffocated and buried in a shallow grave.

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

Prior to his case coming to trial, his defence team tried to raise a defence of insanity. However, he was deemed fit to stand trial. He was found guilty and sentenced to death by lethal injection. On 21 June 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 was executed on 27 June 2006, in Huntsville, Texas. When asked if he had any last words he made a statement directed at the husband of Claudia Benton, who was there to watch his execution. He said: ‘Yes sir. 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 with me. I don’t deserve to cause you pain. You did not deserve this. I deserve what I am getting.’

On 15 August 1982, Robert Ainsworth was sailing a raft down the Green River towards the edge of Seattle’s city limits. As he drifted slowly downstream, he noticed a middle-aged balding
man standing by the riverbank and a second, younger man sitting in a nearby pick-up truck. Ainsworth thought that the men were out for a day’s fishing. As he passed them by, he acknowledged them; little did he know that moments later he would stumble across a river of death.

As Ainsworth peered into the clear waters, staring eyes met his gaze. He thought he saw the face of a black woman floating just beneath the surface of the water. His immediate thought was that it was a mannequin and, being curious, he tried to dislodge it. As he did so, he overturned his raft and fell into the river. To his horror, he realised that the figure was not a mannequin, but a dead woman. Seconds later, he saw another floating corpse of a half-naked black woman, partially submerged in the water. He managed to scramble out of the river in terror and contacted the police.

Soon after they arrived at the scene, detectives sealed off the area and began a search for evidence. During the search, a detective made another macabre discovery. He found a third body, that of a young girl who was partially clothed. Unlike the other two girls, this one was found in a grassy area less than 10yd from where the other victims lay in the water. It was obvious that she had died from asphyxiation. The girl had a pair of blue trousers knotted around her neck. She also showed signs of a struggle, because she had bruises on her arms and legs. She was later identified as Opal Mills, 16. It was believed that she had been murdered within 24 hours prior to her discovery.

Following an examination of the bodies at the scene, Chief Medical Examiner Donald Reay determined that all three females had died of strangulation. The two females found in the water were later identified as Marcia Chapman, 31, and Cynthia Hinds, 17, and both were found to have pyramid-shaped rocks lodged in their vaginal cavities. They had both been weighted down in the water by rocks. Reay further determined that Chapman, a mother of two who had gone missing two weeks earlier, had been dead for over a week. She showed advanced
signs of decomposition. However, Hinds was believed to have been in the river for a period of only several days. The three bodies were not the only ones to be found in and around Washington State’s Green River. Several days earlier, the body of a woman named Deborah Bonner had been discovered. Her naked body had been found slumped over a log in the Green River. She too had been strangled to death.

Just a month earlier, another young girl, identified as Wendy Lee Coffield, had been found strangled and floating in the Green River. Moreover, six months prior to Coffield’s discovery, the body of her friend, Leanne Wilcox, was found several miles from the river in an area of wasteland. Within the space of six months, six bodies had been discovered in or near the river. The detectives at the scene quickly realised that there was a serial killer on the loose. The massive police investigation that followed was initially deluged with an influx of information, so much so that the police at that time did not have the means to process the ever-increasing amount of data and evidence and much of it was lost, misplaced or overlooked entirely. In fact, the situation got so bad that at one point they called for volunteers to assist in the ongoing investigation.

During their investigation, the police ascertained that many of the murdered women knew each other and shared a similar history of prostitution. They decided to commence their search for the killer in the area the girls were known to frequent. They conducted hundreds of interviews with many prostitutes who worked the main strip in Seattle. Investigators tried to obtain information on any suspicious people the women might have encountered. However, many of the prostitutes were reluctant to talk because of their blatant mistrust of the police.

The police reviewed reports of assaults made by prostitutes, which they thought might be related to the Green River murders. Two of these reports, made by two separate prostitutes, claimed that a man in a blue-and-white truck had abducted them and attempted to kill them. According to one account given by Susan
Widmark, 21, a middle-aged man in a blue-and-white truck had solicited her. Once Widmark was in his truck, he pointed a pistol to her head and sped off towards the highway. He took her to a desolate road, turned off the engine and proceeded to rape her violently. Following the rape, he allowed her to dress while he began to drive away from the scene with her still in the car. While driving, he made reference to the recent river murders, while continuing to hold a gun to her head. Fearing for her life, she managed to escape from the vehicle while at a red light. Widmark was able to make out part of the registration number of the truck before the man sped away.