Angel Maturino Reséndiz (August 1, 1959 – June 27, 2006), also known as The Railroad Killer, was a Mexican serial killer suspected in as many as 23 murders across the United States and Mexico during the 1990s.
Some also involved sexual assault.
He had become known as "The Railroad Killer", as most of his crimes were committed near railroads, where he had jumped off the trains which he was using to travel around the country.
1973
United States government records show that he had been deported to Mexico at least four times since first entering the U.S. in 1973.
Reséndiz killed at least 15 people with rocks, a pickaxe, and other blunt objects, mainly in their homes.
He was sometimes referred to as The Railway Killer or The Railcar Killer.
After each murder, he would linger in the homes for a while, mainly to eat.
Reséndiz took sentimental items, and also laid out the victims' driver's licenses to learn about their lives.
He stole jewelry and other items, and gave them to his wife and mother, who lived in Rodeo, Durango, Mexico.
Much of the jewelry was sold or melted down.
After Reséndiz's surrender, some of the stolen items that had been removed from his victims' homes were returned by his wife and mother.
Money was sometimes left at the scene.
He raped some of his female victims; however, rape was probably a secondary intent.
As Reséndiz himself was of small stature, he did not attack large victims, who could have overpowered him.
Most of his victims were found covered with a blanket, or otherwise obscured from immediate view.
Reséndiz was tried and sentenced to death for the Benton murder.
Prior to surrendering at the El Paso bridge, the U.S. Border Patrol had arrested Reséndiz and deported him back to Mexico.
Reséndiz's sister, Manuela, had seen her brother's FBI's Most Wanted Poster and feared that her brother might kill someone else, or be killed by Mexican bounty hunters, so she contacted the police.
1998
Reséndiz's defense attorney along with the assistance of Mexican consul-general in Houston Rodulfo Figueroa Aramoni (consul general, 1998–1999) and other Mexican government officials combined efforts to negotiate with the state of Texas for an extradition to Mexico in hopes to spare Reséndiz's life from the death penalty.
1999
On June 21, 1999, he briefly became the 457th fugitive listed by the FBI on its Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list, before he surrendered to the Texas authorities on July 13, 1999.
On July 12, 1999, a Texas Ranger, Drew Carter, accompanied by Kimberley Barkhausen (FBI), Manuela and a spiritual guide, met up with Reséndiz on a bridge connecting El Paso, Texas with Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua.
Reséndiz surrendered to Carter.
During a court appearance, Reséndiz accused Carter of lying under oath because Reséndiz's family was under the impression that he would be spared the death penalty.
Reséndiz's ultimate fate, however, was decided by a jury, not Carter.
In 1999, former Texas Attorney General Jim Mattox, wary of the controversy miring the many confessions and recantations by serial killer Henry Lee Lucas, remarked of Reséndiz, "I hope they don't start pinning on him every crime that happens near a railroad track."
2000
He was sentenced to death on May 22, 2000, by a Texas court.
2006
He was convicted of capital murder in Texas, and executed by lethal injection in 2006.
Ángel Leoncio Reyes Recendis was born in Izúcar de Matamoros, Puebla, Mexico.
By illegally jumping on and off trains within and across Mexico, Canada, and the United States, generally crossing borders illegally, Reséndiz was able to evade authorities for a considerable time.
He used many aliases, but was chiefly known and sought after as Rafael Resendez-Ramirez.
His birth name was Ángel Leoncio Reyes Recendis.
In 2006, Mexican presidential spokesman Ruben Aguilar said at a press conference that Mexican Foreign Relations Secretary Luis Ernesto Derbez had contacted then Texas Governor Rick Perry to ask for clemency for Maturino Reséndiz.
"We will continue fighting (for the condemned man) because we believe that the death penalty does not solve absolutely anything," Mexican presidential spokesman Ruben Aguilar said.
On June 21, 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 also described himself as half-man and half-angel and told psychiatrists he could not be executed because he did not believe he could die.
These and similar statements led Dr. Pablo Stewart, a bilingual psychiatrist who evaluated Reséndiz on two occasions in 2006, to conclude that Reséndiz was not then competent to be executed as "...delusions had completely taken over [Reséndiz's] thought processes..."
Despite an appeal pending with the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Reséndiz's death warrant was signed for the murder of Claudia Benton.
He was housed in the Polunsky Unit in West Livingston, Texas awaiting execution.
He was executed in the Huntsville Unit in Huntsville, Texas, on June 27, 2006, by lethal injection.
