 INS PARTICIPATES IN MANHUNT FOR SUSPECTED SERIAL KILLER
The ongoing manhunt for Rafael Resendez-Ramirez, suspected in 8 murders in three states, has found people it was not targeted at undocumented immigrants. Resendez-Ramirez, a drifter, travels by jumping on trains. In inspecting trains in south Texas, authorities are discovering migrants. Authorities are also finding migrants when local residents call, reporting having seen someone matching Resendez-Ramirez’ description.
Since the manhunt began, federal officials revealed that Resendez-Ramirez had been taken into custody by the INS on June 1, just before the killing spree picked up speed, but they returned him to Mexico as an undocumented alien. Since then, Resendez-Ramirez has been put on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted List.
An FBI spokesman stressed that the fact that the FBI has only just now learned of Resendez-Ramirez's detention by another federal agency did not mean the fugitive "slipped through our fingers" or that his release suggests a lack of coordination between the two agencies. Rather, both the INS and the FBI emphasize that when the INS detained Resendez-Ramirez, the agency did not know who he was, and treated him like any other undocumented migrant, and returned him to Mexico.
Resendez-Ramirez is suspected in eight murders beginning in 1997 but has been charged in only two - the killings of George Morber and his daughter, Carolyn Frederick, in Gorham, Illinois. Seven of the killings have come within the last six months -- four between June 4 and June 15, an 11-day period. All of the killings have occurred near railroad tracks.
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