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Thursday, August 22, 2013

Rafael Resendez-Ramirez: The Railroad Killer Whose Parade Inspired My Novel



In the summer of 1999, I was a part-time paralegal at a law firm on Main Street in downtown Houston. This was before our light rail took up the middle of the road, and Main Street was still the main thoroughfare of downtown.  Houston was on edge.  In June, the body of Noemi Dominguez, a schoolteacher in Houston who lived near the Union Pacific train tracks was found in her home, bludgeoned to death. Her Honda Civic was found seven days later on the International Bridge in Del Rio, Texas.  Police, the FBI and Texas Rangers linked her killer to that of Claudia Benton, who was murdered in her home in West University Place, Texas, a wealthy internal suburb of Houston a year earlier. She also lived next to the train tracks.

Police quickly linked this killer to other murders on or near train lines, including those of Norman Sirnic, a pastor, and his wife Karen Sirnic in Weimar, Texas. Rape was involved in some of the murders.  Some personal effects were missing from some of the houses.  So was some money and jewelry.  Many times, valuables were left behind.

A few days later, George Mober and Carolyn Fredrick were killed just north of Cairo, Illinois, near the border of Illinois, Missouri and Kentucky, also along train lines.

A manhunt of epic proportions ensued.  Other murders were linked up.  Texas’ then-Attorney General hoped publicly that every murder committed near railroad tracks was not blamed on the same killer.  He remembered the notorious case of Henry Lee Lucas, who confessed, wrongly, to hundreds of murders he didn’t commit, among the dozens he did, in the 1960’s.  Lucas will be profiled later.


The FBI found Ramirez’s sister in Mexico and convinced her to turn in her brother. She feared her brother would be killed by the FBI, or that he would kill others before he was caught. Resendez-Ramirez was met by the FBI agent on the International Bridge in Cuidad Juarez/El Paso, Texas and driven to Houston in black Suburbans.  They wound their way to the federal jail in downtown Houston. The news picked up the story around lunchtime as the black Suburbans were making their way down Main Street and an impromptu parade formed outside, thousands of people trying to get a look at the devil. I looked out the window onto the scene.

Resendez-Ramirez (born Angel Maturino Resendiz) was tried, found competent, and put to death in 2006.  In the end, he is reported to have 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."

The scene on Main Street, the hysteria of the city and the police work reported each night after Noemi Dominguez’s murder formed the background of the novel I wrote a decade later, Devils Walk Through Galveston.   It is entirely fictional.  I tried to capture the mood of the city and the players in the Resendez-Ramirez case as I saw them at the time.  Starting tomorrow, on Fridays, I’ll start posting portions of Devils Walk Through Galveston, and pieces of my second novel Fear of Cold Water and Blued Tattoos, along with writing from other authors, tying them loosely to real crimes and law stories that may serve as backdrop.  Please keep reading tomorrow and in the following weeks.  I hope you’ll enjoy them.

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