Friday, June 25, 1999
Kentucky edgy over suspect in rail killings
FBI offers authorities tips on manhunt
BY SAUNDRA AMRHEIN
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Resendez-Ramirez
|
LEXINGTON, Ky. — In the city where Rafael Resendez-Ramirez is suspected of claiming his first victim two years ago, Kentucky law enforcement officials gathered Thursday to alert the entire state to their worst fear: his return.
Seven victims in two states after Mr. Ramirez is believed to have killed a University of Kentucky student, about 75 law-enforcement officials from three dozen agencies met with an FBI agent from Houston who is an expert on the suspect.
The agent, Mark Young, told officials about clues to help spot the work of the 39-year-old Mexican native, a suspected serial killer who ferried among crime scenes from Texas to Illinois aboard trains.
Mr. Ramirez is well-educated, police say, and has tutored people in algebra, geometry and English.
The FBI placed the suspected killer on its most-wanted list Monday.
Authorities are on alert because he was seen last weekend in Louisville and told witnesses he planned to return to Lexington for migrant work.
“Today is about making sure everyone in the state of Kentucky knows about Rafael Resendez-Ramirez,” Lexington Police Sgt. Mark Barnard said during a news conference after the two-hour meeting with state and local police.
“People should be on high alert until he's caught.”
Mr. Ramirez has family members in the Lexington area who are cooperating with Lexington police.
Authorities have plastered the city with postcard-sized pictures of Mr. Ramirez, whose name makes students and visitors at UK particularly disturbed.
UK student Christopher Maier, 21, was attacked and killed in 1997 while walking with his girlfriend near railroad tracks, the common thread in Mr. Ramirez's alleged crimes.The girlfriend was raped but survived.
“It made me a little nervous,” said Steve Sullivan, 17, of Harrodsburg, while walking on campus. He is attending a three-day youth conference on business at the university.
He and fellow students were instructed by conference leaders to walk in groups.
“I know that a lot of my friends here for summer school are afraid of walking around at night,” said 19-year-old Cinnamon Butler, a UK sophomore attending the conference.
After Mr. Ramirez killed Mr. Maier, police said, he returned to his job as a migrant worker on a tobacco farm in Russell County, in southern Kentucky. He had worked there previously.
The suspect has past convictions for burglary, firearms vio lations, and attempting to obtain false identification. Police believe he may have been killing since the first murder.
The murder spree came to light last December in a suburb of Houston, where Mr. Ramirez is suspected of killing and robbing a doctor.
He also has been connected to four other killings in Texas since April, and has been charged with the June 15 slayings of a father and daughter in the southern Illinois town of Gorham. His fingerprints were discovered in a truck stolen from the victims and abandoned in Cairo, Ill.
Police believe he knows they are after him.
“Don't make the mistake of thinking Rafael Ramirez (is) an illegal alien who doesn't know the United States and is not educated,” Sgt. Barnard said. “That is not the fact.”
Lexington police linked him to the 1997 crime earlier this month when a profile of him in a federal law enforcement database matched one entered by Texas police.
DNA evidence sealed his role in the crime, police say.
For the man on the case since that August day, the match sparked an adrenaline rush tempered only by the lack of an arrest.
“I've been chasing a ghost for two years,” said Lexington police Detec tive Craig Sorrell. “All I had was a composite and DNA and nothing to match it to.”
Even while friends and co-workers told him the case would never be solved, Detective Sorrell hunted down hundreds of leads.
He keeps in regular contact with the first victim's family and former girlfriend and hopes to call them soon with news of Mr. Ramirez' capture.
Police fear more victims could follow first, noting the frequency of Mr. Ramirez' recent attacks in Texas and Illinois.
“Do I think he's going to stop? No,” said Sgt. Barnard. “If he's not apprehended soon, unfortunately we could be going to another crime scene.”
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