The many faces of suspected serial killer Rafael Resendez-Ramirez
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July 1, 1999
Web posted at: 3:23 p.m. EDT (1923 GMT)

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From staff and wire reports

WASHINGTON -- The Immigration and Naturalization Service detained and released serial killer suspect Rafael Resendez- Ramirez in June, even though the INS had been told by Texas police last year he was wanted on murder and burglary charges, Justice Department officials said Thursday.

The new details were revealed one day after INS Commissioner Doris Meissner requested her own agency be investigated by the Justice Department's top watchdog.

Meissner said the agency's failure to identify the 38-year- old drifter charged in two murders and linked to six other slayings, "has raised serious questions about the INS' knowledge of the case and procedures used in encounters with" him.

The investigation by the Justice Department's inspector general will examine why Resendez-Ramirez was released repeatedly after being caught entering the United States illegally. The inspector general's office investigates waste, fraud and abuse.

"We're going to learn a lot from this review," Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder said Thursday.

"There are a huge number of people who cross our borders every year, I mean it's in the millions," he said at a Washington news conference, "and we want to try to make the system as complete as we possibly can."

"Part of this review will help us in that regard to determine ... what we don't have in the system that perhaps we need to have," Holder said.

Holder says the INS should learn a lot from the review

Word that the INS unknowingly freed a murder suspect came from other Justice Department officials.

A Justice Department spokeswoman said INS officials in Texas were contacted by Houston police last December about the Mexican-born suspect. The notification was given after the killing of a doctor during a burglary at her home in the Houston area.

Spokeswoman Carole Florman said Houston police asked the INS for information on Resendez-Ramirez, and that INS officials provided photos of him to the police during a meeting in February.

The INS arrested Resendez-Ramirez in the El Paso area either late on June 1 or during the early morning hours of June 2 for being in this country illegally and deported him to Mexico later that day, officials said.

Two days after his release, authorities believe he killed a 73-year-old woman west of Houston. The following day, they believe he killed a 26-year-old Houston schoolteacher at her home.

His fingerprints then were found June 15 in Gorham, Illinois, at the scene of the murder of an 79-year-old man and his 51- year-old daughter.

INS officials said that when Resendez-Ramirez was in the custody of the Border Patrol, they didn't have any information on his criminal records or of any outstanding warrants.

But Meissner said the INS had multiple entries on Resendez- Ramirez in a photo and fingerprint database that provides immediate identification of aliens apprehended by the Border Patrol.

The system became widely available in 1997 and 1998. Prior to that, INS relied on a text database of names.

INS first encountered Resendez-Ramirez in 1976 after he was arrested in Michigan. He was returned to Mexico, but since that time has been deported from the U.S. on three occasions in 1985, 1987 and 1991.

He was also apprehended by Border Patrol agents eight times between January 1998 and the present.

Meissner said the inspector general will look at why Resendez-Ramirez "was not detained and whether INS knew about Resendez-Ramirez criminal activities after being contacted by local law enforcement earlier this year."

Correspondent Pierre Thomas and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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