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July 3, 1999
Web posted at: 2:53 a.m. EDT (0653 GMT)

By CNN Justice Department Correspondent Pierre Thomas

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The June 2 release of serial killer suspect Rafael Resendez-Ramirez may be blamed in part on a limited Immigration and Naturalization Service computer database and how the INS logs attempts to enter the country, sources tell CNN.

Resendez-Ramirez, a suspect in eight killings who has been charged in two, could have been arrested and detained for prosecution because he had been deported before -- in 1985, 1987 and 1991.

But Justice Department sources tell CNN the INS computer system, known as IDENT, only contains files about criminal aliens who have been deported since 1997.

INS officials can prosecute anyone who has been deported and tries to sneak back into the United States.

But because the deportations occurred before 1997, INS officials didn't have that crosscheck when Border Patrol agents caught Resendez-Ramirez June 2 trying to sneak into Texas and sent him back to Mexico.

It marked the eighth time since January 1998 that immigration officials had caught Resendez-Ramirez and turned him back when he couldn't prove he was entitled to be in the United States.

Ramirez's common-law wife never suspected her husband was more than "the good man she lived with for five years"

Although Resendez-Ramirez was fingerprinted each time at each location, none of the entry attempts was enough to warrant prosecution, because the computer system didn't tell INS agents he had been deported.

In Durango, Mexico, on Friday, the fugitive's common-law wife, Julieta Dominguez, told CNN's Harris Whitbeck she has spent five years living with a "good man" she knows as "Angel" Resendez-Ramirez. The worse thing he did that she knows about is smuggle illegal aliens across the border.

"For me, it just doesn't seem possible for him to go commit a hideous murder one day and come home and hug his baby daughter the next," she said.

But, she added, "If he is guilty, if he committed those crimes ... he should stop running. In the same way he touched death he should face death since that is the punishment they say he would be dealt."

The Justice Department is launching an Inspector General investigation into why Resendez-Ramirez was released repeatedly after being caught illegally entering the United States.

In addition, the investigation will focus on why INS did not take steps to detain Resendez-Ramirez -- even after local police alerted an INS official about him months earlier.

In December 1998, Houston police contacted the local INS office about a burglary-homicide case and said they were looking for a suspect later identified as Resendez-Ramirez. Acting on the information, the INS conducted a records check and in February 1999 provided the police with photos and fingerprints of Resendez-Ramirez.

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