'He's taunting, challenging the authorities'

June 28, 1999
Web posted at: 8:20 p.m. EDT (0020 GMT)

In this story: Investigators find 'real' name of suspect Evidence 'chilling' to veteran crime fighter Other murders under investigation RELATED STORIES, SITES

HOUSTON (CNN) -- An expert on the criminal mind said Monday that the so-called "railway killer" is getting more and more enraged and is probably unable to stop his killing spree.

"What we have is almost like a boulder rolling down a hill," said Clinton Van Zandt, who spent many of his 25 years with the FBI as a profiler in its Behavioral Science unit. "This is someone who is not going to stop until the authorities find him."

And the violence of the murders has impressed law enforcement agents.

Sgt. Drew Carter, a Texas Ranger, said the main suspect, Rafael Resendez-Ramirez, is "very violent, very brutal in his approach. Homicide is a brutal thing, but his approach is very brutal. ... It is the worst that I've seen."

The suspect's undoing, Carter said, could very well be his drifter lifestyle, which has made him dependent on outside work for money.

"It puts him out there in the public in situations where he's going to get approached by other law officers and positions where he's going to be seen by a lot of people -- and that ultimately is going to lead to his capture," Carter said.

Investigators find 'real' name of suspect

Also on Monday, the FBI announced that investigators have determined from a birth certificate located in the Mexican state of Puebla that the real name of the main suspect in the railway killings is Angel Leoncio Reyes Recendis.

Profiler Van Zandt believes the 'railway killer' is challenging police to catch him

He was born in the town of Matamoros on August 1, 1959, according to an affidavit sworn to by his mother, Virginia Recendis, before a notary public on March 9, 1960, the FBI said.

Federal authorities plan to continue using the name Rafael Resendez-Ramirez during their investigation.

"I don't want the public to be confused about these names," said FBI task force leader Don Clark. "I want the public to be focused on what this person looks like and (on) as much information as we can tell them about his habits."

Police say Resendez-Ramirez has used more than 30 aliases, four birthdates, and four Social Security numbers. He is also known by three identification numbers by the Immigration and Naturalization Service, which has had him in custody at least seven times.

Clark also said law enforcement agencies in both the United States and Mexico are distributing new wanted posters for Resendez-Ramirez -- with one side printed in English and the other in Spanish.

The FBI said that more than 500 new tips have come in after Resendez-Ramirez was featured on the television program "America's Most Wanted" over the weekend.

Evidence 'chilling' to veteran crime fighter

Profiler Van Zandt thinks the pressure, created by recent publicity, may be law enforcement's best weapon to stop the killer from striking again.

"This is the fox and the hounds right now. We have to keep this man on the run," said the former FBI agent.

After he retired from the FBI, it was Van Zandt who linked Theodore Kaczynski's writings to the Unabomber manifesto.

"It's almost as if this person is out of control," said Van Zandt of the suspected railway killer.

At least eight known killings are allegedly tied to suspect Resendez-Ramirez, beginning in 1997. Seven of those have come in the last six months -- four over an 11-day period between June 4 and June 15 -- from Texas north to Illinois.

He has been charged with killing two people in Illinois and authorities say he is tied by physical evidence to the six other killings in Texas and Kentucky.

All have taken place in the dark of night near railroad tracks. The murderer has left fingerprints and bodily fluid at the crime scenes, and at the home of the last two victims in Illinois he left writings on the wall.

"He's taunting, he's challenging the authorities -- someone who is just saying, 'I dare you to identify me, I dare you to catch me,'" Van Zandt said.

"When you start to see someone writing on a wall with some type of instrument or whatever type of fluids they are using to do that, that again is usually indicative of someone who is just ... he's losing it psychologically," said the profiler.

Other evidence has left the veteran law enforcement agent chilled. Some of the female victims reportedly were sexually assaulted -- after they were killed.

"It's his anger, it's his rage, and it's one last way to put that victim down," he said.

Other murders under investigation

Sources say local police agencies around the country have brought at least 10 unsolved murder cases to federal officials in recent days.

The FBI said it will work with any law enforcement agency that suspects that Resendez-Ramirez has killed in their area.

"If a police agency makes a request, trying to clear a homicide that's on their book, we will provide them with whatever information that we can and let that agency make the determination if there's a connectivity, not us, they will do that," said Clark.

A young mother and daughter brutally stabbed to death in Gibson County, Tennessee, are the latest unsolved murders to be examined by police and the FBI for possible links to Resendez-Ramirez.

Correspondents Pierre Thomas and Charles Zewe and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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