The Man Who Came From the Railroad

[00:00:00] Today's episode contains true murder cases that may be disturbing to some audiences. Listener discretion is advised.

[00:00:09] It was the first week of classes at University of Kentucky. Chris Mayer and Holly Dunn were back for their junior year.

[00:00:16] The pair had met at a bar over the summer, and even though it hadn't been long, they were in love.

[00:00:21] He smiled at her and told her, I like your toenail color. And she looked down at her feet and then at him, and she laughed.

[00:00:28] They both had Birkenstock shoes on, and both of their toes were painted with silver nail polish.

[00:00:34] She laughed and he told her that his roommates had done his nails. From that moment, they were inseparable.

[00:00:40] They grew up in tight-knit, close families, and they both loved the outdoors.

[00:00:45] His smile took her breath away, and he was always smiling. They were made for each other.

[00:00:50] On August 28th, 1997, they drove together to a friend's party.

[00:00:55] After a few hours, Chris asked Holly if she wanted to go for a walk. She agreed.

[00:01:00] It was a warm summer night, and he grabbed his backpack and they set out.

[00:01:05] They walked along the nearby railroad tracks and found a spot along the railway and sat down.

[00:01:11] Chris took out some beers out of his backpack and they began talking.

[00:01:14] After some time, they decided to head back to the party.

[00:01:18] They held hands along the railroad tracks, laughing and joking.

[00:01:22] Then suddenly, a man came out of the shadows. He demanded money.

[00:01:29] Holly told the man that they didn't have any, not even a dollar.

[00:01:33] The man grabbed Chris and held a weapon to his neck.

[00:01:36] She couldn't tell what it was. It looked like a knife or an ice pick.

[00:01:40] Holly yelled, take our car. I have a credit card.

[00:01:42] She begged, but the man said no.

[00:01:44] The man pushed Chris onto his knees and grabbed his backpack.

[00:01:48] Holly thought that he was looking for something to steal.

[00:01:50] But the man yanked off the straps of the backpack.

[00:01:54] Then he used those straps to tie Chris's hands behind his back.

[00:01:58] He pointed the weapon at Holly, pulled her belt off and tied her hands.

[00:02:02] Chris begged him to take their car, but the man refused.

[00:02:06] He dragged Chris to the other side of the train tracks and Holly followed.

[00:02:09] He forced them down into a ditch that was to the side.

[00:02:13] Holly asked Chris if he was okay, but the man ordered them not to talk.

[00:02:17] He walked to the other side of the tracks and grabbed their shirt from a bag.

[00:02:21] The man ripped it into strips and walked back over to them.

[00:02:25] Holly loosened the belt and freed her hands.

[00:02:27] And she asked Chris, can you free your hands?

[00:02:30] But within seconds, the man was back.

[00:02:33] Holly pretended her hands were still tight.

[00:02:35] And when the man walked away, she pulled the gag from Chris's mouth.

[00:02:38] He told her that it was going to be okay.

[00:02:40] But as he finished his sentence, the man was back.

[00:02:43] He was carrying a huge rock and he dropped it on Chris's head.

[00:02:47] The loud thud was unbearable.

[00:02:50] Holly yelled to the man, turn his head.

[00:02:52] He's gurgling.

[00:02:53] He's going to choke.

[00:02:54] The man told her she didn't need to worry about her friend anymore.

[00:02:58] That he was gone now.

[00:03:00] The man climbed on top of her and told her, look how quickly I could kill you.

[00:03:05] Holly went into survival mode and she fought and kicked, but he was too strong.

[00:03:10] So she dug her nails into the ground because this was really happening and she was going

[00:03:15] to leave behind her DNA.

[00:03:18] The man was done and she pleaded with him.

[00:03:21] You can let me go.

[00:03:22] I won't tell anyone.

[00:03:24] The man didn't reply.

[00:03:27] He grabbed a plank of wood and began hitting her with it.

[00:03:30] Holly was drifting in and out of consciousness and she heard him walk away.

[00:03:35] He thought she was dead, but she was still alive.

[00:03:39] And she swore to herself that she was going to get this man.

[00:03:43] She memorized every detail she was going to get him.

[00:03:47] Then everything went black.

[00:03:53] Hours later, Holly woke up.

[00:03:55] She staggered to a nearby house that happened to have their lights on.

[00:03:58] The door was open.

[00:04:00] She walked in and there was a guy sitting there, studying.

[00:04:03] He was, of course, terrified.

[00:04:05] She was covered in blood.

[00:04:08] Holly struggled to talk, but she managed to say, help.

[00:04:11] The guy called 911 and sat with Holly until they arrived.

[00:04:14] When they did, Holly told them that Chris was still out by the railroad tracks and that

[00:04:19] he needed help.

[00:04:21] She was put on a stretcher and then taken to the nearest hospital.

[00:04:24] The moment she was able to, she told her sister everything.

[00:04:28] She told her that she needed her help.

[00:04:31] She was going to put this man away.

[00:04:34] Investigators arrived and Holly told them every single horrifying detail about what happened at the railroad.

[00:04:41] It would be months before Holly, her family and Chris's family would know who the man was.

[00:04:46] They had no idea that this wasn't the first attack or the last.

[00:04:51] The terror at the railroad tracks would continue.

[00:04:58] Some people are said to be terrified of trains and tracks, but this offers an explanation,

[00:05:04] a new fear unlocked for walking along these places.

[00:05:09] My name is Edwin, and here's a horror story.

[00:05:16] Months after Holly's attack and 754 miles away, Leafy Mason was sleeping in her Hughes Springs, Texas home.

[00:05:25] In the darkness of the night, the man got off the train tracks in Leafy's neighborhood.

[00:05:30] Her house happened to be one of the closest to the railroad.

[00:05:33] It was 50 yards from the 4785 Kansas City rail line.

[00:05:38] The man snuck into her house and beat her with an antique iron in her house.

[00:05:42] The man ate her food, rummaged through her things and then left.

[00:05:47] The next morning, her neighbor knocked and knocked, and when Leafy didn't come to the door, she knew that something was wrong.

[00:05:52] She had always been so punctual, never late to anything, not even to answer her door.

[00:05:58] The sheriff eventually arrived and they found her dead in her room.

[00:06:03] They knew that even at 87 years old, Leafy fought back.

[00:06:06] She was feisty, demanding and outspoken.

[00:06:10] Her sister, Birdie, was her life.

[00:06:13] Every day, Leafy visited Birdie at her nursing home at 2pm, with food and a handwritten poem.

[00:06:19] There was no doubt that she would have fought to live to see Birdie again.

[00:06:24] The case went cold.

[00:06:26] The only clue was an open window that led to the railroad tracks.

[00:06:29] The small town of Hugh Spring, Texas, changed.

[00:06:34] This was a place where kids roamed free, played wherever they wanted.

[00:06:38] But after Leafy's gruesome murder, everything was different.

[00:06:44] Gun sales went through the roof and parents warned their children to stay away from the railroads.

[00:06:52] 715 miles away, Fanny Byers was in her home in Carl, Georgia.

[00:06:57] It was December, but it wasn't very cold.

[00:07:00] Fanny was with one of her neighbors, Patty, working on her front yard.

[00:07:05] Fanny was almost never alone, despite her living by herself.

[00:07:09] Carl was a very small town with a population of only 200 people.

[00:07:14] Everyone knew each other and everyone was always visiting her.

[00:07:18] Patty eventually went back to her house this evening for the first time in a very long time.

[00:07:23] Fanny was alone.

[00:07:25] She went inside her house for just a minute.

[00:07:27] But during that minute, the man came out of the bushes.

[00:07:32] Fanny had no idea, but he had been there for a while, watching, waiting for her to be alone.

[00:07:38] The man walked to her yard and picked up a pickaxe.

[00:07:41] He waited.

[00:07:43] Fanny came back out to her yard and he struck her once in the head.

[00:07:47] Then he ran over the tracks.

[00:07:49] And yet, somehow no one saw this.

[00:07:52] The next day, a neighbor arrived to fix Fanny's lock and he saw her dead in her yard.

[00:07:57] Then fear spread across a small town.

[00:07:59] They didn't even have their own police department.

[00:08:02] They hadn't needed it.

[00:08:04] Before Fanny, no one ever locked their homes.

[00:08:06] No one was scared to walk home alone.

[00:08:08] But after that day, no one went outside by themselves.

[00:08:13] In a place where people were used to visiting each other all the time, they were scared to let anyone stand in their yards.

[00:08:22] Exactly one week later, 841 miles away, Claudia Benton was in her house.

[00:08:28] It was off the Union Pacific Railroad tracks in West University, Texas.

[00:08:33] This town was a suburb of Houston, where well-to-do families lived.

[00:08:38] Claudia was alone on December 17th, 1998.

[00:08:41] Her husband and twin daughters had left that morning to visit family in Arizona.

[00:08:45] She stayed behind because she had to give a presentation the next day.

[00:08:49] Claudia was a pediatric neurologist at the Baylor College of Medicine.

[00:08:53] Her work focused on diagnosing childhood diseases and genetics.

[00:08:58] She finished looking over her papers and went to bed at 10 PM.

[00:09:02] And outside of her house, the man stood by her window.

[00:09:07] He had been watching and waiting for his chance to sneak in.

[00:09:11] He went straight to her bedroom, holding a knife.

[00:09:14] He began to attack her and Claudia fought back as hard as she could.

[00:09:17] He used a two-foot statue to beat her and his knife to stab her.

[00:09:23] He fled to her garage and stole her red Jeep.

[00:09:26] In the end, she didn't make it.

[00:09:30] The community was shocked.

[00:09:32] News of her murder received a lot of media attention in Houston

[00:09:35] and the Houston Police Department got involved in the investigation.

[00:09:38] The West University Texas Police Department just wasn't equipped to handle a crime scene like this one.

[00:09:43] They had never seen anything like it.

[00:09:46] The stolen Jeep was found the next day in San Antonio, Texas, three hours away.

[00:09:51] It had been abandoned at a Mattel parking lot near railroad tracks.

[00:09:55] The Houston Police Department was able to recover a fingerprint from the Jeep and ran it through their system.

[00:10:00] And they got a match.

[00:10:04] It was to a 1993 arrest from Carson County, Texas.

[00:10:08] A man had been arrested for stealing a car and evading arrest.

[00:10:12] But he did not have an ID at the time when this happened.

[00:10:15] Houston investigators figured he had given a fake name and they decided to run the fingerprints again on a different database.

[00:10:22] There was another match to a 1995 arrest in San Bernardino, California, for trespassing on railroad property.

[00:10:29] It was also for having a loaded gun and stolen property.

[00:10:32] And because of this, the prints were sent to the FBI's database.

[00:10:37] While waiting for the results, an arrest warrant was made for the burglary of Dr. Claudia Benton's home.

[00:10:43] But the DA felt that there wasn't enough evidence to file murder charges.

[00:10:47] But then, it was a match.

[00:10:50] This time, it was for a double homicide in Waymer, Texas.

[00:10:55] Norman and Karen Simic had been murdered in their home on April 30th, 1999.

[00:11:01] The case had gotten cold.

[00:11:05] I'll tell you all about this case up next.

[00:11:11] Norman Skip Simic and Karen Simic were not local to Waymer, Texas.

[00:11:16] He was from Pennsylvania and she was from Bryan, Texas.

[00:11:19] He was a pastor with the United Church of Christ and she was a biochemist.

[00:11:23] They met in Bryan and they knew that they were meant for each other.

[00:11:26] They got married in 1990 and after some time, he was hired as an interim pastor for the United Church of Christ in Waymer.

[00:11:33] This town was unlike any other they had lived before.

[00:11:37] It was between San Antonio and Houston.

[00:11:40] Nothing was open late and the economy relied on farming.

[00:11:44] The railroad played a big part in keeping the town alive.

[00:11:47] At least 40 trains came through every day.

[00:11:50] They had to get used to small town life, but it didn't take long.

[00:11:53] They both loved Waymer.

[00:11:55] It was where they felt the happiest.

[00:11:57] The people were genuine, friendly and kind.

[00:12:01] Karen and Skip felt like this is where they were meant to be.

[00:12:04] He was loved by the congregation and he was known to practice what he preached.

[00:12:09] He and Karen started a program called The Caregivers, where every member of the church had someone to check in on them.

[00:12:16] They started projects like food drives and Adopt the Flower Bed.

[00:12:19] He was the president of the county's Child Protective Services and he was a town's marriage counselor.

[00:12:24] And everything he did, Karen was right at his side.

[00:12:29] And that's why when he missed the 9.30 Sunday service at the church, everyone was worried.

[00:12:34] He never took a day off in his work.

[00:12:37] His congregation prayed together hoping nothing was wrong.

[00:12:40] But Ted Neely, the church president, was worried.

[00:12:44] As everyone else did communion together, he walked around the church.

[00:12:48] He then announced to everyone,

[00:12:50] I have a horrible statement to make.

[00:12:53] Skip and Karen are dead.

[00:12:55] Their home has been ransacked.

[00:12:58] The congregation sat in silence, shocked.

[00:13:01] No one could recall the last time a murder took place in Weimer.

[00:13:05] People started locking their doors and shutting their windows to sleep.

[00:13:08] They had done this for the first time that the oldest residents could remember.

[00:13:13] Many fled the town for a bit.

[00:13:15] Gun stores sold out of guns and locks.

[00:13:17] Security lights and alarms sold out.

[00:13:20] But investigators in Weimer were stopped.

[00:13:22] They had never seen anything like it.

[00:13:24] There were fingerprints lifted from the crime scene as well as their truck.

[00:13:28] It had been stolen and dumped in San Antonio,

[00:13:30] not very far from where Claudia's Jeep would be found in December of 1998.

[00:13:36] But there was nothing else investigators could do.

[00:13:39] But when these fingerprints matched Claudia's Benton's crime scenes,

[00:13:43] the similarities between the three murders became apparent.

[00:13:47] But that wasn't all.

[00:13:49] There was another match to the plays Holly Dunn fought for her life.

[00:13:53] The rape kit that was collected on that night was another match.

[00:13:57] It had been almost two years since Holly survived the brutal attack

[00:14:00] near the railroad tracks of Lexington, Kentucky.

[00:14:03] She had gone back to school and even graduated when she heard the identity of the man had been discovered.

[00:14:08] But he was still at large.

[00:14:10] There was an FBI task force made to try and find him.

[00:14:13] And Holly feared for her life.

[00:14:16] She had left the U.S. and stayed in London.

[00:14:18] She had a reason to be scared.

[00:14:19] The third murder the man had been connected to happened just one month

[00:14:23] before that third warrant had been issued.

[00:14:26] On May 28, 1999, the FBI obtained a third warrant for the man.

[00:14:31] This one charged him with unlawful flight to avoid persecution.

[00:14:35] By now, the man's pictures were up all along the U.S.-Mexico border.

[00:14:39] He was put on the FBI's most wanted list.

[00:14:41] But he wasn't done.

[00:14:43] June 1998, two more people were found murdered in Texas.

[00:14:48] Josephine Convinka was found murdered in her home hours later in Dubina, Texas.

[00:14:53] She was a widow and a grandmother to six grandkids.

[00:14:57] She lived 3.5 miles away from Weimer and one mile from the railroad tracks.

[00:15:02] Hours later, Noemi Dominguez was found dead in her Houston house.

[00:15:06] She was a 26-year-old elementary school teacher.

[00:15:09] The same weapon was used on both of them.

[00:15:13] And then 11 days later, George Morber and Carolyn Frederick were killed in Cornham, Illinois.

[00:15:20] They both lived within yards of the railroad track.

[00:15:23] George was an army veteran, and the man waited and hid.

[00:15:27] When he got a chance, he snuck in through an open window and he killed George and then began going through his belongings.

[00:15:33] That's when Carolyn, George's daughter, stopped by her dad's house.

[00:15:37] She usually stopped by to help him clean.

[00:15:39] When she walked in, the man struck her in the head with his gun, assaulted her, and then he beat her to death.

[00:15:45] When she was taking too long to return, Carolyn's husband stopped by and came across the scene.

[00:15:51] By now, officers had an idea what the man was doing and they found themselves always one step behind him.

[00:15:57] They located his wife, who said that he was completely normal and a loving father to their newborn daughter.

[00:16:03] She had no idea he was doing this, but she did know he traveled back and forth from the U.S. to Mexico for work using the railroads.

[00:16:12] He had left a few weeks ago, but investigators knew this because all four June murders were connected to him through fingerprints.

[00:16:19] They continued to search, but were coming up empty.

[00:16:23] Back in Mexico, Manuela, the man's sister, saw him on an FBI Most Wanted poster.

[00:16:29] She was scared that he would kill again and she contacted police.

[00:16:33] She told them that she could get him to turn himself in, but they all had to agree to get him mental health treatment and not shoot him.

[00:16:44] On July 12th, 1999, Drew Carter, a Texas Ranger, Manuela, a spiritual guide, and the man, all met on a bridge between El Paso and Ciudad Juarez.

[00:16:55] The man turned himself in.

[00:16:57] He went by many names.

[00:16:59] The man who caused terror across small railroad towns was finally in custody.

[00:17:05] His name was Angel Maturino Resendiz.

[00:17:09] His trial took place the following year, and in May of 2000, he was found guilty.

[00:17:14] Holly Dunn, Chris Mayer's family, Dr. Claudia Benton's husband, everyone spoke.

[00:17:20] A man that destroyed families and tried to destroy Holly's life was found guilty.

[00:17:24] He was sentenced to death.

[00:17:28] His death didn't happen until 2006.

[00:17:32] During the trial, he was connected to 15 murders.

[00:17:35] They were of an unidentified man and woman.

[00:17:38] Michael White, Jesse Howell, Wendy Von Heuben, Roberto Casto, Christopher Meyer, Leafy Mason, Fanny Whitney Byers, Claudia Benton, Norman and Karen Cernick, Noemi Dominguez, Josephine Convica, George Morber, and Carolyn Frederick.

[00:18:00] Across small towns in the United States, a sound that used to bring joy to so many started causing something else.

[00:18:07] Holly Dunn used to feel a pang of anxiety when she heard the train whistle.

[00:18:11] She swore she was going to get the man, and after 2006, it was finally gone.

[00:18:16] Her DNA and the actions she took when the attack happened were instrumental for breaking the case.

[00:18:22] The man may have destroyed lives, but so many tried to rebuild.

[00:18:26] Claudia Benton's husband donated money they received for her death to the Texas Children's Hospital.

[00:18:32] Holly wrote a book around her experience called Soul Survivor.

[00:18:35] She started a charity called Holly's House to support survivors of crime and abuse.

[00:18:40] She is a mother of two boys, and she has made sure that they know how special Chris Mayer was.

[00:18:47] In the end, the man and his motives, his reasons, they don't matter.

[00:18:52] What matters is who he hurt, his victims, and the survivors.

[00:18:59] You can find Holly telling her own story in her book, Soul Survivor.

[00:19:03] But it can also be found in The FBI Files, I Survived, 48 Hours Mystery, and the podcast called Dead Man Talking.

[00:19:12] This episode of Horror Story was researched and written by Christina Lomaghi with production by me, Edwin Covarrubias.

[00:19:19] You can get this podcast without ads by trying out Scary Plus over on scaryplus.com or directly within your app.

[00:19:26] If you're already following the show, I will talk to you next week.

[00:19:29] Thank you very much for listening.

[00:19:31] Keep it scary, everyone.

[00:19:34] See you soon.

[00:19:34] We'll talk to you soon.

[00:19:34] Thank you.