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The Railroad Killer - Angel Reséndiz · Wicked and Grim: A True Crime Podcast

0:07
Speaker 1: For years, a phantom moved unseen across America, riding the
0:11
Speaker 1: shadows of its fast railroad system and leaving a trail
0:15
Speaker 1: of brutal murder in its wake. He struck without warning, beating, raping,
0:21
Speaker 1: and killing his victims in their own homes before vanishing
0:24
Speaker 1: into the night like a ghost. This is the story
0:29
Speaker 1: of Angel Maturino Riscindez, the man who became known as
0:34
Speaker 1: the Railroad Killer.
0:36
Speaker 2: My name's Ben, I'm Nicole, and you're listening to Wicked Ingrim,
0:40
Speaker 2: a true crime podcast.
0:43
Speaker 1: The following podcast material intended for a mature audience listener discretion.
0:52
Speaker 1: He advised, I feel like we've been starting way too
1:13
Speaker 1: many episodes like this recently, But I hope our voices
1:16
Speaker 1: don't sound too bad.
1:18
Speaker 2: I think we should be.
1:19
Speaker 1: Okay, you think so.
1:20
Speaker 2: Yeah, But it is funny because when people listen to
1:22
Speaker 2: someone really regularly, you notice like instantly. I remember as
1:26
Speaker 2: a kid watching like soaps with my mom. Oh yeah,
1:30
Speaker 2: and like those come out freaking daily, right Monday to Friday.
1:33
Speaker 2: And so if one of the actors was sick, you
1:36
Speaker 2: could I would always be able to tell, like right away.
1:39
Speaker 1: So our regulars can probably tell. But if you're just
1:42
Speaker 1: joining us. Hey, we probably sound not too bad to you,
1:44
Speaker 1: but we we didn't come out with last week's Friday
1:48
Speaker 1: episode because we didn't have voices, and then I was
1:52
Speaker 1: crashed out in the couch for like twenty four hours.
1:54
Speaker 1: After that. I thought I was fine until then the
1:56
Speaker 1: evening hit and then I was just screwed. But we're
1:59
Speaker 1: doing okay now, mm.
2:00
Speaker 2: Hmm, yeah, yeah on the men, right, yeah, on.
2:03
Speaker 1: The men, and right at the perfect time, because it's
2:06
Speaker 1: getting really hot and b it's getting really humid up
2:10
Speaker 1: here right now where we live and I'm dying in
2:13
Speaker 1: a different, different aspect.
2:15
Speaker 2: Now. Oh man, it's not that bad. You are a
2:18
Speaker 2: true Northern.
2:19
Speaker 1: Europe sweating a little bit right now, just sitting here.
2:22
Speaker 2: Seriously. Yeah, I could almost put a sweater on right now.
2:26
Speaker 1: Are you serious?
2:27
Speaker 2: Yes?
2:28
Speaker 1: Maybe it's the hot coffee I'm drinking.
2:30
Speaker 2: That's not I'm t get something hot too. I think
2:32
Speaker 2: you just like, I don't know, you could never live
2:35
Speaker 2: in Mexico or something.
2:36
Speaker 1: Could You probably not, But you're also a lizard.
2:40
Speaker 2: I could live in Mexico. I don't thrive.
2:42
Speaker 1: I don't think you could ever have it hot enough.
2:44
Speaker 1: So maybe we just need to try and find a
2:47
Speaker 1: balance in between. And that's the perfect person who can
2:50
Speaker 1: take the exact temperature.
2:51
Speaker 2: I don't know, yeah, who knows?
2:54
Speaker 1: Who knows? But we have an interesting case today, this
2:57
Speaker 1: one I've had sitting here research written in Ready to Go.
3:00
Speaker 1: It was supposed to come out on a Friday.
3:01
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yep.
3:03
Speaker 1: And so I might be a little rusty on this
3:06
Speaker 1: because I already researched it and I haven't looked at
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Speaker 1: it for a few days. So I'm sorry if I
3:10
Speaker 1: am a little rusty on it and I'm stumbling a
3:12
Speaker 1: little bit. But I think I got this. I think
3:14
Speaker 1: I still remember everything. Are you ready for it?
3:16
Speaker 2: Well? I think we have some patrons to thank, do
3:18
Speaker 2: we not?
3:18
Speaker 1: Oh that's right? How can I forget about the amazing
3:21
Speaker 1: people over on Patreon?
3:22
Speaker 2: That sounded so scripted, but you legitimately like, actually.
3:27
Speaker 1: Forgot No, that was totally scripted. What are you talking about?
3:31
Speaker 2: Well, I'm okay, carry on out us here. I'm just
3:35
Speaker 2: like that sounded almost too scripted that I was like,
3:38
Speaker 2: I can't not say something about that.
3:40
Speaker 1: We just played it off really well. Come on, pat
3:42
Speaker 1: us in the back sometimes, so shout out to Laura Quello,
3:46
Speaker 1: Jack Sophie Catherwood, Michelle Kresner, Danny Carlton, Josh Roth, and
3:52
Speaker 1: Elizabeth Lassek right on, right on. They get all that
3:55
Speaker 1: extra good stuff, and of course they get that exclusive
3:59
Speaker 1: episode that comes out of the end of every month
4:01
Speaker 1: that does not get released a public It only stays
4:03
Speaker 1: on Patreon.
4:05
Speaker 2: Yeah, and so news we have a little bit of
4:06
Speaker 2: fun with those episodes.
4:08
Speaker 1: So we do. So. Yeah, that episode's actually coming out
4:11
Speaker 1: pretty quick because hey, it is June twenty fourth. Yeah.
4:16
Speaker 2: Crazy.
4:16
Speaker 1: I said last week that it was like times flying,
4:19
Speaker 1: summer's going by. I mean it is officially summer now.
4:22
Speaker 2: So yeah. Well, and my wedding season is starting on
4:25
Speaker 2: the thirtieth. So ding dang, ding dang.
4:29
Speaker 1: Well let's get into this case, shall we.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, let's do it.
4:31
Speaker 1: Okay. Well, it is called the Railroad Killer, and it
4:34
Speaker 1: is called that for a good reason. It was a
4:36
Speaker 1: warm evening in August nineteen ninety seven, and Holly Dunn,
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Speaker 1: a twenty year old student at the University of Kentucky,
4:43
Speaker 1: was walking along the train tracks in Lexington with her boyfriend,
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Speaker 1: Christopher Mayer. The two had left a party and hadn't
4:50
Speaker 1: lived up to the expectations. You know. The party, you know,
4:53
Speaker 1: wasn't quite going exactly how they figured it would, so
4:55
Speaker 1: they decided to go for a quiet stroll instead. For
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Speaker 1: a while, everything felt normal, peaceful, even then, out of nowhere,
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Speaker 1: as they were walking, a man appeared from behind an
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Speaker 1: electrical box. He had a weapon in his hand too,
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Speaker 1: now a Holly, It looked like he was either an
5:11
Speaker 1: ice pick or a screwdriver. The first instinct was that
5:14
Speaker 1: this was a robbery, so they offered money, credit cards,
5:17
Speaker 1: and even the keys to a car. But this wasn't
5:21
Speaker 1: about money. It never was. The man tied up Christopher's
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Speaker 1: hands behind his back using a shoelace, and did the
5:27
Speaker 1: same to Holly with her belt. Then he marched them
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Speaker 1: off the train, off the trail, and down into a
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Speaker 1: ditch by the railroad. Holly, kneeling beside her boyfriend, stared
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Speaker 1: at the attacker there at the tracks. She took everything
5:39
Speaker 1: in his accent, a tattoo his face. She was already
5:43
Speaker 1: thinking about survival. Quote, if I live through this, I
5:48
Speaker 1: will find you. Oh that's the sort of attitude that
5:50
Speaker 1: she had.
5:51
Speaker 2: Holy yeah, I kind of liked that, but I do
5:54
Speaker 2: not like what's going on here.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, then it happened, though without warning, the attacker picked
6:01
Speaker 1: up a fifty pound rock and brought it crashing down
6:04
Speaker 1: on Christopher's head. Yeah, Chris oh Peffer did not survive.
6:09
Speaker 1: It crushed his head.
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Speaker 2: Holy shit.
6:12
Speaker 1: Holly was now left alone. She was bound terrified, and
6:16
Speaker 1: from there she was beaten, raped, and bludgeoned with a
6:19
Speaker 1: wooden board until she stopped moving. Afterwards, her attacker then
6:24
Speaker 1: left the scene and left her for dead.
6:26
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh. And here they were just like going
6:28
Speaker 2: for a little stroll.
6:29
Speaker 1: Yeah.
6:30
Speaker 2: Oh, and if only the party was better.
6:33
Speaker 1: Right like that, if only one person at that party
6:35
Speaker 1: could carry a conversation.
6:37
Speaker 2: I hate scenarios like that, but I mean it's often
6:40
Speaker 2: like that, because like your day is just you know,
6:42
Speaker 2: made up and full of choices. Right yeah, so U.
6:46
Speaker 2: But they were very clearly in the wrong place at
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Speaker 2: the wrong time, exactly.
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Speaker 1: Now Here's the thing. Though, against all odds, Holly survived okay, So,
6:56
Speaker 1: with her jaw broken, her face bruised and bleeding, and
6:59
Speaker 1: her head split wide open, she managed to walk to
7:02
Speaker 1: a nearby house and call for help. DNA was then
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Speaker 1: collected from Holly's rape kit and entered into Cotis. The
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Speaker 1: FBI's national DNA database, but it came back with no match.
7:15
Speaker 1: A composite sketch was then drawn from Holly's memory and
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Speaker 1: everything that she made a point of remembering, right, but
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Speaker 1: it didn't lead anywhere. The man who attacked them had
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Speaker 1: left the scene like a ghost, vanishing back into the
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Speaker 1: world of the real railway yards in box cars, and Holly,
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Speaker 1: the only known survivor, was left with the memory in
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Speaker 1: a face that she'd.
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Speaker 2: Never forget, oh man, and like yeah, just like complete
7:38
Speaker 2: trauma exactly now.
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Speaker 1: It wasn't until December seventeenth, nineteen ninety eight, more than
7:44
Speaker 1: a year after the attack in Kentucky, that a man
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Speaker 1: by the name of Angel Riscendez even entered the conversation,
7:51
Speaker 1: and by then he'd unfortunately already struck again. So that
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Speaker 1: day in December, doctor Claudia Benson, thirty nine year old
8:00
Speaker 1: pediatric neurologist and mother of twin girls, had returned home
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Speaker 1: from work and was supposed to be enjoying a quiet
8:07
Speaker 1: evening at her home in West University Place in Houston, Texas.
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Speaker 1: Her husband, George Benton, and their children happened to be
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Speaker 1: out of town in this night, which made her especially
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Speaker 1: vulnerable as she sat alone in her quiet, upscale neighborhood,
8:19
Speaker 1: which sat near the train tracks. At some point during
8:23
Speaker 1: the night, someone broke into her home. Investigators believed they
8:27
Speaker 1: gained entry by prying open a window or a back door,
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Speaker 1: and once inside, they waited. Doctor Benton was then attacked
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Speaker 1: in the middle of the night while she slept. The
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Speaker 1: intruder beat her over the head with a bronze statue
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Speaker 1: nineteen times, causing multiple skull fractures. But he didn't stop there.
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Speaker 1: He then stabbed her three times in the back with
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Speaker 1: a large butcher knife and sexually assaulted her either before
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Speaker 1: or after she died.
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Speaker 2: Oh, she did die.
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Speaker 1: Her body was found in her bedroom after a welfare
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Speaker 1: check when she did not show up to work and
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Speaker 1: didn't answer her phone.
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Speaker 2: Brutal. You almost wonder if he was watching her then,
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Speaker 2: to know that she was like alone.
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Speaker 1: He most likely was. He waited till she was asleep, right,
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Speaker 1: she probably would have woke up and heard someone breaking in,
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Speaker 1: so he entered, waited till she went to sleep, and
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Speaker 1: then struck.
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Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, that's brutal.
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Speaker 1: When police arrived, the inside of the apartment was torn apart,
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Speaker 1: drawers rifled through furniture, overturned, and there was blood everywhere.
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Speaker 1: Claudia laid motionless in a pool of her own blood.
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Speaker 1: It was pure savagery. But amidst the horror, police found
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Speaker 1: a lead. In the garage, investigators discovered a piece of
9:44
Speaker 1: the jeep steering column lying on the floor. The attacker
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Speaker 1: had tried to hat wire doctor Benton's car after failing
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Speaker 1: to find the keys, and when he pried off the
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Speaker 1: plastic panel and left behind four fingerprints. It was the
10:00
Speaker 1: first major mistake.
10:02
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's major for sure.
10:05
Speaker 1: The prince came back to an alias Carlos Leon, but
10:09
Speaker 1: law enforcement quickly pieced together like that this was a
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Speaker 1: fake name used by a man with a long history
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Speaker 1: of petty crimes and illegal crossings into the US. The
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Speaker 1: real identity behind this Carlos was Angel Matarino Rissendez, a
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Speaker 1: Mexican national with over a dozen prior arrests and at
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Speaker 1: least seven deportations. Now they had a name, they had prints,
10:35
Speaker 1: and they also had DNA, and they were beginning to
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Speaker 1: see a pattern, a lethal one. Each murder seemed to
10:44
Speaker 1: share something in common. Proximity to train tracks, and Gal
10:48
Speaker 1: wasn't arriving in town by cars or bus. He was
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Speaker 1: riding the rails, literally, hopping freight trains crisscrossing the country
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Speaker 1: and the shadows of America's rail network. It was a
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Speaker 1: tactic that he gave, you know, it gave him nearly
11:01
Speaker 1: endless mobility, honestly, and until now it kept him one
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Speaker 1: step ahead in every jurisdiction that he entered.
11:07
Speaker 2: That sounds so old school, though, hey.
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Speaker 1: Very much so. But they weren't the only ones with
11:12
Speaker 1: questions because as words spread through law enforcement circles, other
11:16
Speaker 1: investigators started to take notice and to connect cases of
11:20
Speaker 1: their own and the commonalities they had.
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Speaker 2: Okay, I'm wondering because at one point you were like murders. Yeah,
11:27
Speaker 2: I was like, we only know of one at this point.
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Speaker 1: Well, the first major breakthrough came from Kentucky when Houston
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Speaker 1: detectives shared Angel's fingerprint and DNA profile with a broader
11:37
Speaker 1: network and they got a match with an unsolved case
11:39
Speaker 1: from August of nineteen ninety seven, a year and a
11:42
Speaker 1: half earlier, the case of Holly Dunn and her boyfriend
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Speaker 1: Christopher Mayer, who were the ones going.
11:47
Speaker 2: For the walk right, Yeah, oh I get okay, sorry,
11:49
Speaker 2: we did know of two murders because I forgot about
11:51
Speaker 2: the boyfriend there.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, well we do know of one attached to his name.
11:56
Speaker 1: Now we officially know of too. It is officially connected.
12:00
Speaker 1: But at the time no one had any idea who
12:02
Speaker 1: had done it. There was no suspect nor arrest. Haully's
12:04
Speaker 1: detailed account right, including this, the sketch and all that
12:08
Speaker 1: sort of stuff, it led nowhere. But officially this it
12:12
Speaker 1: kind of linked because the DNA left behind it matched
12:15
Speaker 1: the DNA found in Claudia Benson's home as well. It
12:19
Speaker 1: was clear that the Kentucky and Texas murders, though one
12:22
Speaker 1: thousand miles apart, were committed by the same individual, and
12:25
Speaker 1: now thanks to those fingerprints in Houston, they finally had
12:28
Speaker 1: that name to tie them both together too. So Angel
12:31
Speaker 1: Risendez had officially become a multi state serial killer at
12:35
Speaker 1: this point. From there, the pieces began falling into place quickly,
12:40
Speaker 1: but it wasn't the end of the story. In April
12:43
Speaker 1: of nineteen ninety nine, a married couple, Norman and Karen Cernik,
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Speaker 1: were found murdered in their bedroom in Wheremar, Texas, a
12:51
Speaker 1: small town halfway between Houston and San Antonio. The crime
12:55
Speaker 1: was vicious and efficient Norman, who was a pastor, had
12:58
Speaker 1: been struck in the head with a sledgehammer while sleeping.
13:01
Speaker 1: Karen then woke up, only to be killed the exact
13:04
Speaker 1: same way. She was also sexually assaulted the house again
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Speaker 1: right by the train tracks.
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Speaker 2: Oh gosh, okay, I mean I don't like so far.
13:17
Speaker 2: I mean, the two I guess are kind of similar,
13:19
Speaker 2: but they don't seem like, you know, right away, you'd
13:22
Speaker 2: be like, that's the same guy, like that did this,
13:25
Speaker 2: you know.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, it's not necessarily like the same sort of like
13:29
Speaker 1: crime scene. I guess the last two they are. You
13:34
Speaker 1: have an individual who were killed, sleeping, bludgened over the head,
13:37
Speaker 1: sexually assaulted, and it's by the train tracks. The first
13:40
Speaker 1: one little bit different, but there is now this pattern
13:45
Speaker 1: beginning to emerge because the one thing that does connect
13:47
Speaker 1: them all is the train track.
13:49
Speaker 2: Yeah. True.
13:51
Speaker 1: Also the sexual assault. I guess that connects too.
13:54
Speaker 2: Yeah. But you just think of like some of these
13:56
Speaker 2: high and serial killers, right and they like they have
13:59
Speaker 2: little little things that they do, and it's very obvious
14:03
Speaker 2: that it's them, you know, or little trademarks or whatever
14:06
Speaker 2: they freaking do, which is pinpoints to them exactly.
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Speaker 1: I think in those cases. Those are more people who
14:14
Speaker 1: kill for the sake of killing, people who are serial killers,
14:18
Speaker 1: who are psychopath and are obsessed with the kill. They
14:22
Speaker 1: have their calling card, they have things that they specifically do,
14:26
Speaker 1: and Gel I don't think fits that profiling.
14:29
Speaker 2: Oh okay, okay, so we'll talk about it a.
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Speaker 1: Little bit though. Don't you worry Now? DNA from that
14:34
Speaker 1: scene matched what had been found in Houston and in Kentucky.
14:37
Speaker 1: The fingerprint evidence, the brutality, the signature, it all pointed
14:40
Speaker 1: to Angell than that signature, of course, being the railroad track.
14:45
Speaker 1: By the end of April, authorities from multiple states were
14:47
Speaker 1: meeting regularly, building a task force and sharing case files.
14:51
Speaker 1: What they saw horrified them. A pattern wasn't just real,
14:55
Speaker 1: it was now accelerating, and there was something else, like
15:00
Speaker 1: many serial offenders, and Gal didn't seem to be targeting
15:03
Speaker 1: specific types of victims, just kind of like what I
15:06
Speaker 1: was saying, right, men, women, young, old, He didn't really discriminate.
15:10
Speaker 1: What mattered was the opportunity. If you live close to
15:13
Speaker 1: the tracks and your home was easy to get into,
15:15
Speaker 1: you were at risk. With at least four murders now
15:19
Speaker 1: linked to him, law enforcement across the country was a
15:21
Speaker 1: high alert, but they had no idea where Angel would
15:24
Speaker 1: strike next. By May nineteen ninety nine, the scope of
15:28
Speaker 1: Bengel Riscendez and his crimes had moved from a terrifying
15:32
Speaker 1: situation to just a surreal one. He was no longer
15:35
Speaker 1: killing occasionally. He was on a spree, crisscrossing the country
15:39
Speaker 1: by freight train, appearing without warning and vanishing just as fast.
15:43
Speaker 1: Each time. The brutality seemed to escalate.
15:46
Speaker 2: Body, Oh, I was just going to say, that's terrifying,
15:49
Speaker 2: because it's that's such like a vast area you have
15:52
Speaker 2: just literally no idea exactly, like, that's that is scary.
15:56
Speaker 2: And how the hell to even go about trying to
15:58
Speaker 2: solve that?
15:59
Speaker 1: How do you even try and go about controlling it
16:01
Speaker 1: or mitigating it? Yeah you can't.
16:03
Speaker 2: Okay.
16:04
Speaker 1: How can you say someone over in Texas dies and
16:08
Speaker 1: you're like one thousand miles away. Okay? How can you
16:12
Speaker 1: go about say, oh, well that killer is in Texas,
16:15
Speaker 1: I'm safe. Yeah you can't. And how can authorities in
16:19
Speaker 1: Texas portray the threat being real to someone a thousand
16:23
Speaker 1: miles away?
16:23
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's almost just like impossible.
16:26
Speaker 1: Hey, yeah, exactly, that's the situation they're faced with now.
16:30
Speaker 1: On June fourth, just over a month later, and Gales
16:33
Speaker 1: struck again twice in one day. In fact, in Houston,
16:37
Speaker 1: twenty six year old Noemi Dominguez, a well liked school teacher,
16:42
Speaker 1: was found dead in her apartment. She'd been beaten to
16:44
Speaker 1: death with a pickaxe like object, most likely a metal rod.
16:49
Speaker 1: Her car, a Honda Civic, was missing from the scene.
16:53
Speaker 1: And later that same day, one hundred and thirty miles
16:55
Speaker 1: away in Fayette County, Texas, Josephine on Vika, a seventy
17:01
Speaker 1: three year old widow, was killed in her farmhouse near
17:04
Speaker 1: a rural rail line. She had been bludgeoned with the
17:07
Speaker 1: same kind of weapon.
17:10
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, two in one day like that, and
17:14
Speaker 2: then also just completely different victims.
17:17
Speaker 1: Yeah, Now, her jewelry was taken, but her car wasn't
17:21
Speaker 1: and Gal was still using the Honda Civic he took
17:25
Speaker 1: from Nuemi Dominiinguez. Now at this point the panic was
17:29
Speaker 1: setting in. Police now had forensic evidence linking all of
17:33
Speaker 1: these scenes, whether it was DNA fingerprints, stolen items, There
17:37
Speaker 1: was a consistent m as well homes near the train tracks,
17:41
Speaker 1: night attacks, brutal beating, sexual assault and stolen vehicles that
17:44
Speaker 1: would later be found abandoned near railway lines or railway hubs.
17:49
Speaker 1: However you put it, the message was becoming clear. Wherever
17:53
Speaker 1: the tracks went, he could go too. Just eleven days
17:57
Speaker 1: later and Gal was over a thousand north in Gorham, Illinois,
18:02
Speaker 1: and on June fifteenth, he broke into a mobile home
18:05
Speaker 1: shared by George Moeber, who was eighty years old and
18:08
Speaker 1: his daughter, Carolyn Frederick, who was fifty two. George was
18:13
Speaker 1: shot in the head with a shotgun from inside the home.
18:16
Speaker 1: Carolyn was then beaten to death with the same weapon.
18:20
Speaker 1: There is no time for neighbors to react. It was fast, brutal,
18:22
Speaker 1: and untraceable until a witness spotted Carolyn's red pickup truck
18:26
Speaker 1: being driven by a man matching Engel's description just miles
18:30
Speaker 1: from the scene. At this point, nine murders across five
18:35
Speaker 1: different states were linked to Engel, and the law enforcement
18:39
Speaker 1: were losing ground. By the end of June, the FBI
18:43
Speaker 1: added Engal to its ten Most Wanted Fugitives list. Posters
18:48
Speaker 1: with his face went up around train stations, gas stations, schools,
18:51
Speaker 1: and even post offices. He was now the most hunted
18:54
Speaker 1: man in America.
18:56
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, he is going on a freaking rampage here.
18:59
Speaker 1: This is is a literal spree. Yeah, and it's one
19:02
Speaker 1: that I don't see how authorities could honestly stop. And
19:07
Speaker 1: I say that knowing the end result in this case too,
19:11
Speaker 1: I don't understand how police could have stopped him. Just
19:17
Speaker 1: put it there. But let's continue now to put it
19:21
Speaker 1: in perspective to just how elusive he was. He didn't
19:25
Speaker 1: use credit cards, he didn't stand motels, he rarely interacted
19:29
Speaker 1: with people. He slipped in and out of towns at dark,
19:32
Speaker 1: living in railyards, sleeping in empty cars, unseen by the
19:36
Speaker 1: everyday world, and still even with half the country looking
19:40
Speaker 1: for him, no one could find them. It was impossible.
19:44
Speaker 1: That's because and Gil had something most fugitives didn't, a
19:48
Speaker 1: near invisible mode of transportation. The rail system, with its
19:52
Speaker 1: over one hundred and forty thousand miles of tracks and
19:55
Speaker 1: thousands of daily freight movements, made for a massive It's
19:59
Speaker 1: just this whole unregulated highway basically, and even if you
20:03
Speaker 1: try and police it, you can't. It's too vast. Box
20:06
Speaker 1: Cars don't have passenger manifests, Conductors don't check for stowaways.
20:11
Speaker 1: And even if they do, there's too many places to check.
20:14
Speaker 1: They can't check for every everywhere anything. They can only
20:18
Speaker 1: check a fraction of the line. If you knew how
20:21
Speaker 1: to ride the rails, you could vanish for days, weeks, months,
20:24
Speaker 1: and and Gail had been doing this for years. He
20:27
Speaker 1: was a master at it. Law enforcement ramped up fast.
20:33
Speaker 1: The FBI, Texas Rangers, Border patrol, and local police from
20:37
Speaker 1: every affected state joined forces in a nationwide search. Officers
20:42
Speaker 1: patrolled rail yards on horsebacks, helicopters scandal lines from above.
20:46
Speaker 1: Freight trains were even stopped mid route when possible sightings
20:49
Speaker 1: were called, in which of course would be massive. I mean,
20:54
Speaker 1: you're talking about stopping an entire train line, who has
20:57
Speaker 1: a destination shipping all this shit. Imagine the effect on
21:01
Speaker 1: the economy with that sort of stuff.
21:02
Speaker 2: No kidding, Yeah, this is a big deal. Well, and
21:05
Speaker 2: then also to someone could just you know, see someone
21:08
Speaker 2: like walking it innocently, but then everyone's so on edge
21:12
Speaker 2: that they're like, oh my gosh, that's that's him exactly.
21:15
Speaker 1: So now, one thing I also want to put into perspective.
21:19
Speaker 1: I kind of mentioned it earlier, but I haven't talked
21:21
Speaker 1: a whole lot about it and Gil he's Mexican, right,
21:25
Speaker 1: He's crossing the border constantly, so they don't even know
21:28
Speaker 1: if he's in the States or if he's in Mexico. Right,
21:31
Speaker 1: so when he wants, if he's super wanted in the
21:34
Speaker 1: in the States, and he can just be like, oh,
21:37
Speaker 1: I'm going to disappear for months in Mexico.
21:39
Speaker 2: Yeah, holy shit. This seems just like freaking impossible exactly.
21:46
Speaker 2: Oh but then literally everyone is kind of like at
21:49
Speaker 2: risk too, exactly, just has like this vast I don't
21:54
Speaker 2: know netlass potential really, so.
21:58
Speaker 1: How do you take care of this? Like we're panicking,
22:01
Speaker 1: Like residents near the tracks, like their houses there, they're
22:04
Speaker 1: living in fear. Police were, of course panicking. Many ev
22:07
Speaker 1: gel's victims had been murdered in their own homes while
22:10
Speaker 1: they slept, right, and randomness made people like paranoid if
22:15
Speaker 1: there was a rail line, rail line you know, near
22:17
Speaker 1: your home, your your neighborhood, even in your town, like
22:21
Speaker 1: you're no longer.
22:22
Speaker 2: Safe, no, no, how would you even like really sleep
22:25
Speaker 2: if say, if the rail line like backed up, was
22:28
Speaker 2: that the in your backyard basically, right, Like, how would
22:30
Speaker 2: you even rest?
22:34
Speaker 1: You can't? Yeah, So this is like he's a living
22:37
Speaker 1: cryptid at this point, because humans shouldn't be able to
22:40
Speaker 1: evade police like this, Humans shouldn't be able to get
22:43
Speaker 1: in and out of homes like this, disappear like this,
22:46
Speaker 1: travel this far like this. It's it. Everything about this
22:51
Speaker 1: says it's impossible. But he's doing it.
22:53
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's doing it.
22:55
Speaker 1: Now. Hotlines lit up with over a thousand tips a day,
22:59
Speaker 1: but most were falling alarms. He was being seen everywhere
23:02
Speaker 1: and nowhere, all at once at one point, and Gel
23:05
Speaker 1: was actually picked up by border patrol though near El Paso, Texas,
23:10
Speaker 1: trying to re enter the country. But incredibly, the system
23:14
Speaker 1: didn't flag him as a wanted man when they had
23:18
Speaker 1: him in custody.
23:19
Speaker 2: What the shit?
23:20
Speaker 1: How come despite being the prime suspect in multiple homicides
23:25
Speaker 1: and a known fugitive, the database failed. Agents had his fingerprints,
23:30
Speaker 1: his photograph, and they still let him go.
23:35
Speaker 2: Oh okay, how does that happen? Are the systems not
23:40
Speaker 2: like linked?
23:40
Speaker 1: I guess I don't know. I mean, honestly, like you're
23:43
Speaker 1: looking at like nineteen ninety nine at this point, I
23:45
Speaker 1: don't know how much of it is digital. But they
23:47
Speaker 1: just they're like, Okay, we got this dude who's entering
23:50
Speaker 1: in the country illegally and they just shipped him back.
23:52
Speaker 1: Basically that would be out cross checking.
23:56
Speaker 2: I don't know, the most frustrating shit that you you
24:00
Speaker 2: ever like encountered if you were, you know, actively like
24:04
Speaker 2: part of this investigation and the search and shit, Holy
24:06
Speaker 2: brig I couldn't even imagine.
24:08
Speaker 1: Yeah, so he was basically just sent back to Mexico
24:10
Speaker 1: and deportated again. Deportated, deported, deportorted, deportated is that even
24:16
Speaker 1: a word?
24:17
Speaker 2: I don't know.
24:17
Speaker 1: Deported He was deported again. There we go. But yeah,
24:21
Speaker 1: just like that, he vanished into Mexico just again gone just.
24:25
Speaker 2: To probably be back soon enough doing it.
24:27
Speaker 1: And again, well here's the thing. For weeks there was silence,
24:31
Speaker 1: There was no sightings, no murders, and investigators feared he'd
24:34
Speaker 1: actually disappeared for good this time. I mean, like, honestly,
24:37
Speaker 1: there's good in that. But what they feared was like,
24:39
Speaker 1: he's either dead hiding in Mexico and he's gonna get
24:41
Speaker 1: away with it, right, yeah, maybe riding the rails. Who knows,
24:44
Speaker 1: Maybe he's planning his next attack. And that's the scary part.
24:48
Speaker 1: And then came a surprising call Juliette Riscendez, claiming to
24:54
Speaker 1: be Angel's common law wife, reached out from Mexico. She
25:00
Speaker 1: been receiving jewelry in the mail sent by Engel himself,
25:04
Speaker 1: items that were later confirmed to have belonged to several
25:08
Speaker 1: of the murdered victims. What the law enforcement now had
25:12
Speaker 1: physical evidence linking him directly to his victims via the belongings.
25:18
Speaker 2: Okay, he had a freaking wife.
25:20
Speaker 1: Yeah, and he was sending them murdered victims jewelry.
25:24
Speaker 2: Oh my, okay, this just get this just keeps turning
25:28
Speaker 2: and turning and turning, Like what is even this case
25:31
Speaker 2: is bizarre?
25:32
Speaker 1: Well, then there was another twist because, in a move
25:35
Speaker 1: no one expected, authorities reached out to someone else, manuela
25:39
Speaker 1: Angel's older sister who lived in New Mexico. It was
25:43
Speaker 1: a gamble. Could a sister convince like her brother, now
25:47
Speaker 1: the most wanted man in America to potentially surrender.
25:50
Speaker 2: Huh? I mean if he's this kind of person, then yes,
25:56
Speaker 2: But also like yeah, the bond of siblings is and
25:58
Speaker 2: like immediate family, So you think.
26:00
Speaker 1: That she's going to be able to convince him to surrender.
26:03
Speaker 2: Oh I thought they were Okay, I get it. I
26:05
Speaker 2: thought they were going to set him up or something
26:08
Speaker 2: like he comes to see his sister, okay, but she's
26:11
Speaker 2: supposed to like convince him. Oh no, yeah.
26:15
Speaker 1: No, because he's transient, like he's not staying anywhere. Yeah,
26:18
Speaker 1: he's just going wherever the wind takes him, wherever he
26:20
Speaker 1: feels like.
26:20
Speaker 2: Well then no, probably not, Like it doesn't sound like
26:23
Speaker 2: this guy gives a fuck.
26:25
Speaker 1: No, I mean he really doesn't. But there was a
26:28
Speaker 1: Texas ranger, Drew Carter, who thought it was worth a
26:30
Speaker 1: shot to try and get his sister to convince him
26:34
Speaker 1: to surrender. So he spoke directly with Manuela and made
26:37
Speaker 1: her three promises that her brother would be kept safe
26:41
Speaker 1: in custody, that he would be allowed to visit have
26:44
Speaker 1: visits sorry from his family, and he would be given
26:47
Speaker 1: a full psychiatric evaluation. Manuela hesitated from like like this offer.
26:53
Speaker 1: If you want to say, it's that she feared the
26:55
Speaker 1: FBI would kill her brother the moment they saw him,
26:59
Speaker 1: but they convinced her otherwise and she agreed to try.
27:04
Speaker 1: What followed was a series of secret messages, back channel negotiations,
27:09
Speaker 1: and handwritten notes passed between family members across the border.
27:13
Speaker 1: After weeks of coordination. It happened on July thirteenth, nineteen
27:19
Speaker 1: ninety nine, just after nine am, A dusty blue pickup
27:23
Speaker 1: truck pulled up to the Zaragoza International Bridge connecting Ciudad Jurez,
27:30
Speaker 1: Mexico to El Paso, Texas. Inside was a gaunt man
27:35
Speaker 1: in dirty jeans, muddy boots and a hollow stare. It
27:39
Speaker 1: was and gel Matta Reino Riscindez. He stepped out, nodded
27:45
Speaker 1: to authorities and quietly gave himself up.
27:50
Speaker 2: This it's so interesting to me that they just they
27:53
Speaker 2: knew who they're like searching for right this whole time basically,
27:57
Speaker 2: and that it was this hard and had they actually
28:01
Speaker 2: had to get him to freaking surrender to catch him.
28:04
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's why I was saying earlier. I researched this,
28:07
Speaker 1: I know how it ends, and I still think it
28:09
Speaker 1: would have been impossible for police to catch him, huh,
28:12
Speaker 1: because he just turned himself in.
28:14
Speaker 2: Wow.
28:15
Speaker 1: If he didn't turn himself in, I don't think he
28:17
Speaker 1: ever would have been caught.
28:18
Speaker 2: Like why did he? I wonder just done with this
28:21
Speaker 2: or why?
28:21
Speaker 1: I have no idea, no clue.
28:23
Speaker 2: Because I'm sorry, but like if someone doing these type
28:27
Speaker 2: of horrific acts and crimes like why would you exactly
28:32
Speaker 2: you know your fate?
28:33
Speaker 1: Yeah, Now, the manhunt was over and authorities were relieved
28:37
Speaker 1: but not satisfied. His surrender had ended a wave of terror,
28:41
Speaker 1: but what followed would be a battle of accountability, motive,
28:43
Speaker 1: and mental stability. By the time the trial began in
28:47
Speaker 1: May of two thousand, prosecutors had formerly linked and Gale
28:50
Speaker 1: to at least nine murders spanning from Florida to Illinois,
28:55
Speaker 1: though he claimed in interviews that he'd killed as many
28:59
Speaker 1: as forty people.
29:01
Speaker 2: Seriously or perhaps even more, what the heck is wrong
29:06
Speaker 2: with this guy? Like what is he doing?
29:08
Speaker 1: Yeah? Now, the state of Texas made a strategic decision
29:13
Speaker 1: rather than charge him for every murder across multiple jurisdictions,
29:17
Speaker 1: they would focus solely on one case, one brutal air
29:22
Speaker 1: type case, one that they knew they would get a
29:26
Speaker 1: conviction on for sure. The case was the murder of
29:29
Speaker 1: doctor Claudia Benton.
29:31
Speaker 2: Okay, that makes sense, but they also got to make
29:33
Speaker 2: sure that it's like full conviction and like life and stuff. Oh,
29:38
Speaker 2: you know, like he's not getting out for sure.
29:40
Speaker 1: Now, the evidence against him in Claudia's killings was overwhelming,
29:44
Speaker 1: the DNA fingerprints, eyewitness accounts of him driving her stolen car,
29:47
Speaker 1: the stolen jewelry sent to his common law wife. Prosecutors
29:52
Speaker 1: saw this as inn like the cleanest path to securing
29:55
Speaker 1: what they were after, which was the death penalty.
29:58
Speaker 2: Oh okay, so they think this is basically a slam
30:01
Speaker 2: dunk conry.
30:02
Speaker 1: Yeah, but Angel was an entering court quietly. His attorneys
30:07
Speaker 1: mounted an insanity defense, claiming their client was mentally ill
30:11
Speaker 1: and legally incompetent at the time of the murder. They
30:14
Speaker 1: argued that he was schizophrenic, had suffered from head trauma
30:17
Speaker 1: as a child, and was incapable of distinguishing right from wrong.
30:21
Speaker 1: In the courtroom, and Gal leaned into that image as well.
30:25
Speaker 1: He rambled about being half man, half angel, about God
30:28
Speaker 1: telling him to kill sinners, about his body being a
30:31
Speaker 1: shell for another entity. He claimed the murders weren't really
30:35
Speaker 1: his doing, they were divine punishment carried out through him.
30:39
Speaker 1: Psychiatrists hired by the defense described him as paranoid, delusional,
30:43
Speaker 1: and suffering from hallucinations. They said he believed he could
30:47
Speaker 1: cause earthquakes, floods, and plagues, and that his victims were
30:50
Speaker 1: all evil but prosecutors, they pushed back hard. They focus
30:56
Speaker 1: not just on the brutality of Angal's crime, but the
30:58
Speaker 1: planning behind them. He didn't wander into these homes. He
31:02
Speaker 1: watched his victims. He waited for them while they're sleeping,
31:07
Speaker 1: and he used cover from the passing trains to conceal
31:10
Speaker 1: his entries. He took cash, jewelry, cars, He removed light
31:14
Speaker 1: bulbs from car domes to avoid detection when driving. They
31:17
Speaker 1: weren't the actions of someone lost in psychosis. They were deliberate, methodical,
31:22
Speaker 1: and self serving actions. A fellow inmate from a Florida
31:27
Speaker 1: prison also testified that Angel had spent significant time in
31:32
Speaker 1: the law library researching the insanity defense. He even helped
31:36
Speaker 1: other inmates build similar strategies. It painted a chilling picture
31:40
Speaker 1: not of a man gripped by madness, but of someone
31:44
Speaker 1: playing the system.
31:46
Speaker 2: No kidding like this is not okay.
31:49
Speaker 1: But the most emotional moment came when Hally Dunne, the
31:53
Speaker 1: lone survivor from nineteen ninety seven in her attack in Kentucky.
31:58
Speaker 1: When she took the stand, facing her attacker for the
32:01
Speaker 1: first time since that night, Holly Dunn described in detail
32:06
Speaker 1: how Angel had tied her up, had raped her, and
32:09
Speaker 1: left her for dead beside her murdered boyfriend on the tracks.
32:14
Speaker 1: She told the jury about her injuries, the broken jaw,
32:16
Speaker 1: the cut staple shut, the trauma she carried, and then
32:21
Speaker 1: when asked to identify her attacker, she looked directly at
32:24
Speaker 1: him and said, he's wearing a white buttoned down shirt.
32:30
Speaker 1: It was the first and only time she made eye
32:33
Speaker 1: contact with that man who tried to kill her.
32:35
Speaker 2: Oh that would like that is some strength, really, hey,
32:39
Speaker 2: to be able to go and do that.
32:41
Speaker 1: She is our badass of the day, just saying so.
32:43
Speaker 1: Hitting now May twenty second, two thousand. The jury took
32:47
Speaker 1: seven hours to reach a verdict guilty of capital murder.
32:52
Speaker 1: Next came sentencing. Prosecutors pushed for the death penalty, arguing
32:56
Speaker 1: that Ungel's crimes were not only premeditated, but part of
32:59
Speaker 1: a passat of thrill seeking brutality, and the jury agreed.
33:05
Speaker 1: Angell Mattino Risendez was sentenced to death by lethal injection.
33:12
Speaker 1: But the story wasn't over. Not yet. After his conviction,
33:17
Speaker 1: Angel was transferred to death row in the Terial Unit
33:20
Speaker 1: in Livingston, Texas, a maximum security facility housing some of
33:24
Speaker 1: the most dangerous criminals in the state. He would spend
33:27
Speaker 1: his next six years there, appealing his sentence and altering
33:30
Speaker 1: between long stretches of silence and bizarre outbursts. At times,
33:34
Speaker 1: he spoke of God and redemption. Other times he insisted
33:37
Speaker 1: that the murders had not been committed by him, but
33:40
Speaker 1: by a spiritual force that used his body. He said
33:45
Speaker 1: that he was an angel sent by God, not a man.
33:49
Speaker 1: Angell's legal team filed appeals based on the mental state,
33:52
Speaker 1: arguing he was not competent to be executed. His mother
33:56
Speaker 1: testified that he had suffered multiple head injuries as a
33:59
Speaker 1: child and long exhibited signs of schizophrenia. His lawyers pointed
34:03
Speaker 1: out his delusions, including the belief he would rise from
34:06
Speaker 1: the dead three days after his execution, as proof he
34:09
Speaker 1: was not sane enough to face that death sentence, but
34:13
Speaker 1: the courts didn't agree. On June twenty one, two thousand
34:17
Speaker 1: and six, a judge in Houston ruled that Angel was
34:20
Speaker 1: legally competent. Court appointed psychiatrists acknowledged that while he experienced delusions,
34:26
Speaker 1: he understood the nature of his crimes, the punishment he faced,
34:30
Speaker 1: and the finality of execution. That was enough to meet
34:34
Speaker 1: the legal standard. His final appeals were denied. The state
34:39
Speaker 1: of Texas set an execution date July twenty seventh, two
34:43
Speaker 1: thousand and six. As a day approached, there was no
34:46
Speaker 1: sign of remorse, and in an interview before his execution,
34:50
Speaker 1: and Gell reportedly said he felt no emotion towards his victims,
34:54
Speaker 1: that they were sinners.
34:56
Speaker 2: Quote unquote, that is just so disturbing.
35:00
Speaker 1: And that they deserve to die.
35:02
Speaker 2: Wow.
35:03
Speaker 1: He maintained that he was an agent of God and
35:05
Speaker 1: that his life was temporary and his spirit would live on.
35:09
Speaker 1: And when the day finally came, it was at eight
35:12
Speaker 1: five pm when Angal Metavino Riscendez was pronounced dead by
35:17
Speaker 1: lethal injection. He left behind no final writings, no public
35:21
Speaker 1: confession to the many other murders he hinted at, just silence.
35:27
Speaker 1: But the questions didn't die with them. Was he truly
35:31
Speaker 1: insane or was it part of a performance. How many
35:34
Speaker 1: people did he actually kill? And how many more might
35:38
Speaker 1: be out there, buried, nameless and forgotten near the same
35:41
Speaker 1: railroads that he rode like a phantom. Those answers may
35:45
Speaker 1: never come. Trying to understand and Gal Riscendez is like
35:50
Speaker 1: trying to look into a cracked mirror. Everything about him
35:55
Speaker 1: seems real until you try to make sense of it,
35:57
Speaker 1: and it just becomes distorted and a mess. To some,
36:01
Speaker 1: he was a man gripped by madness, and to others
36:04
Speaker 1: he was a cold, cunning predator who used the illusion
36:07
Speaker 1: of insanity to justify unimaginable cruelty. Psychiatrists who interviewed him
36:12
Speaker 1: found evidence of delusions, particularly around religion. He believed that
36:17
Speaker 1: people he killed were evil and spoke about visions causing earthquakes, floods,
36:21
Speaker 1: all these sort of things. He said his victims would
36:24
Speaker 1: thank him in the afterlife. But dig deeper and a
36:28
Speaker 1: different picture starts to emerge. And Gell was an erratic
36:32
Speaker 1: in the same way many psychotic offenders are. He didn't
36:37
Speaker 1: lash out in public, he didn't spiral into incoherence. Instead,
36:42
Speaker 1: he waited, he planned, and he chose his moments carefully.
36:47
Speaker 1: His crimes followed a method. Stake out a home near
36:50
Speaker 1: railroad tracks, wait until late at night, break in quietly,
36:54
Speaker 1: and kill with whatever was on hand a hammer, a
36:58
Speaker 1: statue of pickaxe. Then he'd clean up just enough to
37:02
Speaker 1: get away and vanish into the night on another freight train.
37:07
Speaker 1: His methodical approach led many forensic psychologists to label him
37:11
Speaker 1: as disorganized serial killer with organized traits, someone whose crimes
37:18
Speaker 1: showed a chaotic violence but were executed with intention and awareness.
37:23
Speaker 1: He didn't have a single victim type. His killings were opportunistic,
37:27
Speaker 1: but often driven by the chance to rob or the
37:31
Speaker 1: ease of access, But he was undeniably fueled by rage
37:36
Speaker 1: and dominance. One unsettling detail repeated across multiple crime scenes.
37:41
Speaker 1: After murdering his victims, many of whom were elderly or female,
37:46
Speaker 1: he often covered the bodies with blankets. Now, this small act,
37:50
Speaker 1: seen in serial killer profiling, is sometimes interpreted as a
37:54
Speaker 1: twisted form of remorse or control, an attempt to symbolically
37:59
Speaker 1: hide the crime after committing it. His specific reasoning, who
38:04
Speaker 1: knows now. In the end, the psychiatric community remained divided.
38:09
Speaker 1: Was Engal Resendez mentally ill? Most certainly, was he legally insane,
38:14
Speaker 1: incapable of understanding right from wrong? Well, the jury didn't
38:17
Speaker 1: think so. Was he dangerous? Unquestionably? When Engellmentarito Resendez died
38:24
Speaker 1: by lethal injection on July twenty seventh, two thousand and six,
38:27
Speaker 1: it marked the end of a terrifying chapter in American
38:30
Speaker 1: criminal history. His crimes cut across at least six US states,
38:35
Speaker 1: from Florida to Illinois to Texas, and possibly into Mexico
38:38
Speaker 1: as well. Angell himself claimed to have killed more than
38:43
Speaker 1: forty people, though only a total of fifteen murders were
38:47
Speaker 1: formally linked to him.
38:50
Speaker 2: That is still a shit ton, yeap.
38:53
Speaker 1: Some investigators privately suspected the real.
38:55
Speaker 2: Number was much higher then fifteen, or then forty.
39:01
Speaker 1: I mean fifteen, Okay, yeah, forty. That's a claim coming
39:06
Speaker 1: directly from him. It's possible, definitely possible, and it's possible
39:10
Speaker 1: it is higher than that. But connecting anything is another thing.
39:14
Speaker 2: Yep.
39:16
Speaker 1: So, because he moved primarily by freight train, slipping from
39:18
Speaker 1: town to town undetected, we may never know the true
39:20
Speaker 1: scope of his violence. Holly Dunn, the only known survivor
39:24
Speaker 1: and Gel's attacks, became a voice for the voiceless, and
39:28
Speaker 1: the years after her recovery, she launched Holly's House, a
39:31
Speaker 1: nonprofit organization dedicated to helping victims of violent crimes. Her
39:37
Speaker 1: advocacy turned pain into purpose, and her testimony in court
39:41
Speaker 1: helped put Angel away. Just more reasons why Holly's are
39:45
Speaker 1: badass of the Day yeah, totally. Now, for all the lessons,
39:49
Speaker 1: all the details, all the facts and everything from this case,
39:53
Speaker 1: the railroad killer story, it still rings with a sense
39:56
Speaker 1: of unease. He didn't fit neatly into any mold, not
40:00
Speaker 1: anything that we can generally think of, like I was
40:02
Speaker 1: saying earlier, stereotypical serial killers who are out for something. Yeah,
40:07
Speaker 1: you know, he wasn't a product of a single trauma
40:10
Speaker 1: or alone, you know, a psychological disorder, or even a
40:13
Speaker 1: classical criminal profile. He was invisible, drifting between towns, identities,
40:17
Speaker 1: and realities. And for years he lived, jumping borders, evading detection,
40:22
Speaker 1: and killing without pattern in a way and gel Risceendez.
40:26
Speaker 1: And his greatest weapon wasn't a hammer, wasn't a knife
40:29
Speaker 1: or any other blunt object he found. It wasn't a train.
40:33
Speaker 1: It was movement. He moved faster than systems. He moved
40:38
Speaker 1: past people's assumptions. He moved in and out of nightmares,
40:41
Speaker 1: and often no one knew he had ever been there
40:44
Speaker 1: until it was far too late. Now, decades later, the
40:48
Speaker 1: rails he used, they're still running, trains still whistle through
40:51
Speaker 1: the small towns at night. But the fear he once
40:54
Speaker 1: carried with him that at least it has passed. What
40:58
Speaker 1: remains is the memory of the lives he ended and
41:01
Speaker 1: the justice that finally caught up with him. In the end,
41:05
Speaker 1: on Gal Risendez met the fate he gave so many others,
41:09
Speaker 1: but it still wasn't enough. He handed himself over. He
41:13
Speaker 1: never felt the fear he forced on his victims. He
41:16
Speaker 1: never cared. It was all always on his own terms.
41:20
Speaker 1: He had the power until the very end. Maybe that's
41:24
Speaker 1: what makes his case so undeniably haunting. And that's a
41:28
Speaker 1: story of a Gale ris Endez, the railroad killer.
41:33
Speaker 2: I don't like that he has the power until the
41:36
Speaker 2: very end.
41:37
Speaker 1: I think he did. He did. I hate it, but
41:41
Speaker 1: I think he did just.
41:42
Speaker 2: To note something you had said, just to make sure
41:45
Speaker 2: I didn't hear this wrong. That he was like, how
41:49
Speaker 2: do I word this? Educating people about how to get
41:53
Speaker 2: away with pleading insanity or whatever.
41:56
Speaker 1: Yeah, so there was someone a cellmate who said that
42:01
Speaker 1: Angel was researching like insanity please while in prison and
42:06
Speaker 1: you know, before his trial, and yeah, he was helping
42:09
Speaker 1: others do the same thing.
42:11
Speaker 2: WHOA Okay, because that that right there doesn't necessarily seem
42:16
Speaker 2: like like that you would that you actually are you.
42:21
Speaker 1: Know, yeah, well, exactly what the prosecutors were pointing out.
42:26
Speaker 1: How can this be an insane man? Yeah, and he's
42:29
Speaker 1: literally researching it educa to do. Yeah, that's not insanity. No,
42:34
Speaker 1: that's very clearly a sane person.
42:37
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, and I find it very frustrating too that
42:40
Speaker 2: he had so many victims, so many families that he impacted,
42:45
Speaker 2: and they're not necessarily getting the closure of him being
42:49
Speaker 2: charged with like, you know, the crimes he did to them,
42:53
Speaker 2: Oh for sure.
42:54
Speaker 1: I mean they chose to only charge him for the
42:58
Speaker 1: one because they knew it was full proof, right.
43:00
Speaker 2: Yeah.
43:00
Speaker 1: But yeah, that's that's another way of looking at it.
43:02
Speaker 1: You're totally right, is that's taking away the closure from
43:04
Speaker 1: the other families. Yeah.
43:05
Speaker 2: I mean I get why they did it and stuff,
43:07
Speaker 2: but then also I just feel that would be hard,
43:11
Speaker 2: I guess in your healing journey a little bit, you know,
43:14
Speaker 2: and you know, like I said, find the closure.
43:16
Speaker 1: So yeah, but it's still it's not full closure. I mean, sure,
43:20
Speaker 1: maybe he got charged from it from every single one
43:24
Speaker 1: of them. Say there is over forty that he did
43:26
Speaker 1: did kill, and say he got charged for every single
43:29
Speaker 1: one of them. It's just hypothetical situation here, he's still
43:34
Speaker 1: at the end. He didn't care. Yeah, he had no remorse.
43:37
Speaker 1: He's like, I don't care, wasn't me? They're the sinners.
43:41
Speaker 1: I'm good and I'm I don't care that I'm dying
43:44
Speaker 1: because I'm going to live on anyways. That's why he
43:47
Speaker 1: had the power to the very end.
43:49
Speaker 2: This is unbelievable, and I don't find that, you know,
43:53
Speaker 2: that forty number far fetched.
43:55
Speaker 1: I don't either, I really don't, which is really.
43:58
Speaker 2: Disturbing because there's so many just like unsolved things right
44:01
Speaker 2: in the world, and it's because freaking assholes like this
44:04
Speaker 2: are doing it.
44:05
Speaker 1: Yeah. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not like comparing
44:08
Speaker 1: cases here. We've covered some gruesome cases, some very horrifying cases,
44:13
Speaker 1: some very terrifying individuals, But I think Angel is one
44:16
Speaker 1: of the most terrifying individuals that we have covered on
44:21
Speaker 1: this show because of what he was capable of and because.
44:25
Speaker 2: Unstoppable basical basically he was.
44:28
Speaker 1: He was unfucking stoppable, and he chose to let the
44:34
Speaker 1: cops take him in.
44:35
Speaker 2: Yeah, and didn't give a shit. Yeah, he easily could
44:39
Speaker 2: just carry on doing that for the rest of his life.
44:42
Speaker 2: Probably killing people has no remorse, doesn't give a shit.
44:45
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's it, and that's that's what's terrifying. That's it.
44:49
Speaker 1: He doesn't care. He just sure like it probably didn't
44:53
Speaker 1: really take that much to convince him, Oh you should
44:56
Speaker 1: turn yourself in. H sure, I guess why not? Like
45:00
Speaker 1: fuck all right?
45:01
Speaker 2: And that's where though, I'm like, they have to be
45:03
Speaker 2: insane to be able to just take that many people's
45:06
Speaker 2: life lives and just ruin you know, other people's lives
45:10
Speaker 2: that you know are their loved ones and just not
45:12
Speaker 2: give a flying shit.
45:14
Speaker 1: Yeah he's so fucking scary. Oh yeah, So anyways, if
45:22
Speaker 1: you live by a railroad track, make sure you lock
45:23
Speaker 1: your door at night.
45:25
Speaker 2: Anyone, just lock your Oh yeah really.
45:27
Speaker 1: I feel like every time we cover a story, it's
45:29
Speaker 1: just a new reason to lock your door, uh huh,
45:32
Speaker 1: and not trust people.
45:34
Speaker 2: Yeah. I just have to say one more thing, because
45:36
Speaker 2: he almost seemed like he was just he didn't have
45:40
Speaker 2: like any physical needs himself, right, Like he was easily
45:43
Speaker 2: able to just be transient, like you said, sleep in
45:47
Speaker 2: these railcars. When he turned himself in, he was like,
45:50
Speaker 2: I don't think super taking care of himself.
45:52
Speaker 1: No, he wasn't.
45:53
Speaker 2: So it was just like he was just almost like
45:55
Speaker 2: this like robotic machine that just like I don't know,
45:59
Speaker 2: I don't know. Well, this one's fucking with me a
46:01
Speaker 2: little bit because he just like goes and does these
46:04
Speaker 2: murders and then moves on to the next one, and
46:07
Speaker 2: it seems almost kind of like robotic ish.
46:10
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, you have to think of it in
46:11
Speaker 1: the way of like a transient individual, like someone who
46:14
Speaker 1: is unfortunately unhomed. They have to live by, you know,
46:19
Speaker 1: day to day situations. He was living by a day
46:22
Speaker 1: to day situation. He was going where he needed to go,
46:25
Speaker 1: going where he wanted to go, doing what he needed
46:27
Speaker 1: to do. However, most people in that situation do that
46:31
Speaker 1: for survival. He wasn't doing it for survival. What he
46:35
Speaker 1: was doing it for who fucking knows. Who knows what
46:39
Speaker 1: his motive was, what his drive was to go to
46:42
Speaker 1: the next town, what his drive was to break into
46:44
Speaker 1: a place? Was he breaking into a place to kill someone?
46:48
Speaker 1: Was he breaking into a place to sexually assault someone?
46:51
Speaker 1: Was he breaking into a place for food? Was he
46:54
Speaker 1: breaking into a place to steal jewelry and send to
46:56
Speaker 1: his family in Mexico so they could have better money
46:58
Speaker 1: and live better. We don't know why huh, what's his reason?
47:04
Speaker 1: Most people do it for survival, for food. He had
47:07
Speaker 1: many reasons, but he was we still don't know, because
47:11
Speaker 1: he was just doing all this shit.
47:13
Speaker 2: Huh. Yeah. I mean maybe that's why. It's also a
47:16
Speaker 2: bit terrifying too, because a lot of the other ones,
47:19
Speaker 2: you know, they had this need. They were serial killer,
47:23
Speaker 2: psychopaths or whatever, and they're fulfilling a need. But it's
47:26
Speaker 2: harder to understand I guess his need. I don't think
47:29
Speaker 2: he had a need necessarily.
47:30
Speaker 1: And don't get me wrong, I don't think any of
47:32
Speaker 1: these serial killers have a need. It's a desire.
47:34
Speaker 2: A desire. Okay, poor choice of words, but do you
47:37
Speaker 2: know what I mean?
47:38
Speaker 1: What you mean? Yeah, no, but he didn't have I
47:42
Speaker 1: don't think he had a desire. I don't think he
47:44
Speaker 1: had a drive. I think he was just.
47:47
Speaker 2: I don't know.
47:47
Speaker 1: I'm just doing it for the sake of doing it.
47:50
Speaker 2: Is this a well known one.
47:52
Speaker 1: And it's relatively well known? Yeah, okay, I mean it's
47:54
Speaker 1: not like a huge it's it's a huge case, but
47:56
Speaker 1: it's not like it's not an a list.
48:00
Speaker 2: On Netflix stock on it yet.
48:02
Speaker 1: Actually, I don't know if there is.
48:03
Speaker 2: It didn't look out, just look up to see if
48:04
Speaker 2: there was Okay, there should be.
48:06
Speaker 1: There should be. But anyways, thanks for being here. Hopefully
48:09
Speaker 1: you guys can stay safe out there, and if you
48:11
Speaker 1: do lock your doors, you'll just be a little bit
48:13
Speaker 1: more safe, you know, try and do those things to
48:16
Speaker 1: keep people like this out of your home because that's terrifying. Anyways,
48:21
Speaker 1: thank you for being here. There's stuff in the description.
48:24
Speaker 1: Go check it out. We're an indie podcast. It's just us.
48:28
Speaker 1: My voice is fading. I don't know if you can tell. Yes,
48:30
Speaker 1: I almost cough there, which is why I was positive
48:32
Speaker 1: like three times. But anyways, thank you for being here.
48:35
Speaker 1: We appreciate you, and until next time, stay wicked.