Task Force Combs Nation for Transient Serial Killer

Sometimes he combs his hair back and shaves the center of his black mustache, leaving only the corners. Other times he dons thick glasses and wears an untrimmed beard.

Rafael Resendez-Ramirez changes his looks frequently and his name just as often, authorities say, using at least a dozen aliases. But he almost always travels by freight train. And he rolls from town to town, officials believe, killing people.

Across much of the Midwest on Tuesday, many who live near railroad tracks were locking their doors and watching the windows. And a task force of more than 200 investigators was chasing an alleged serial killer believed responsible for at least eight murders in two years--a man accused of rape, robbery and other crimes but who primarily seems to enjoy killing, some said, usually beating his victims to death.

“He’s going to be hard to catch,” said FBI spokesman Ross Rice in Chicago. “It’s not like you’re looking for someone with a permanent address. He’s a loner. He’s a drifter. And we don’t know what his motives are.”

Ramirez, 39, was placed on the FBI’s 10 Most Wanted List on Monday after authorities linked him by fingerprints to the slayings of a father and daughter in Murphysboro, Ill., 110 miles southeast of St. Louis.

Authorities say Ramirez broke into George Morber Sr.’s mobile home, 50 yards from the Union Pacific railroad tracks, and shot the 80-year-old in the head with a shotgun. He then used the gun to bash in the head of Morber’s daughter, 52-year-old Carolyn Frederick, investigators say.

The slayings were the latest in a string that officials believe began in Kentucky in 1997, continued in Texas and last week stretched into southern Illinois.

As word spread of Ramirez’s alleged crimes Tuesday, a dozen law enforcement agencies chased hundreds of leads in several states.

In Columbus, Ohio, police stopped and searched a 75-car freight train and the surrounding neighborhood after receiving a tip that Ramirez might be aboard. He was not.

In rural East Texas, Texas Rangers were revisiting the unsolved case of an 87-year-old woman beaten to death this spring in her home near some railroad tracks.

In Wisconsin, FBI agents were told to be on the lookout for a Latino man of medium build with scars on his right ring finger and forehead and a snake tattoo on his left forearm.

Said Morber’s grieving son, Bill: “Everyone is scared. They’re on edge. And I think they will be until this Ramirez is caught.”

A native of Puebla, Mexico, Ramirez is believed to have first crossed into the United States illegally in 1976. Since then, he has had numerous brushes with the law, providing authorities with at least four Social Security numbers and six different birth dates. It is believed he was deported at least once.

He served time in Florida and New Mexico prisons, according to the Texas Department of Public Safety, but most of the charges against him were for nonviolent crimes--including burglary, car theft, trespassing on railroad property, illegal possession of a concealed weapon and giving false statements to a federal officer. Ramirez also has been arrested on aggravated assault and battery charges, say officials.

In 1997, after 20 years spent bumping into authorities from California to Florida, Michigan to Texas, Ramirez allegedly began a string of vicious, apparently random murders--every one of which occurred on or very near railroad tracks.

In August of that year, a young couple on their way to a party at the University of Kentucky in Lexington took a shortcut near some tracks and were attacked. Christopher Maier, a 21-year-old student, was beaten to death. His date was raped, bludgeoned and left for dead. But she survived and gave police a description of the attacker. Police believe it was Ramirez.

In December 1998, Houston physician Claudia Benton was found dead in her home near some railroad tracks. She had been raped and stabbed, but it was a blow to the skull that killed her, medical examiners said. Her Jeep Cherokee later was found in San Antonio. Inside was a fingerprint belonging to Ramirez.

In May, authorities allege, Ramirez broke into the Weimar, Texas, home of Norman and Karen Sirnic and beat the couple to death as they lay sleeping.

A month later, police say, Ramirez sneaked into another home three miles away and killed 73-year-old Josephine Konvicka with blows to the skull. She, too, was asleep in her bed.

The next night, 26-year-old Houston schoolteacher Noemi Dominguez was raped and beaten to death in her home, which is just down the rail line from Konvicka’s house.

People in the rural towns of East Texas were snapping up handguns--with some stores reporting a twentyfold increase in sales--when investigators discovered Dominguez’s car a few days later in the town of Del Rio, near a bridge leading into Mexico, prompting speculation that Ramirez had fled to his native country.

Then Morber and his daughter were found dead in Murphysboro, more than 1,000 miles north of Del Rio. Ramirez’s fingerprints, authorities say, were found in Morber’s pickup truck.

“He seems to be everywhere,” said Tom Vinegar of the Texas Department of Public Safety.

--- UNPUBLISHED NOTE ---

Rafael Resendez-Ramirez was later determined to be an alias. Stories July 14-29, 1999 use the name Angel Maturino Resendez; stories after July 29, 1999 use the spelling Angel Maturino Resendiz.

--- END NOTE ---