UTU News Digest - Tuesday, June 29, 1999

UTU Daily News Digest

Information of interest to operating railroad and transportation employees

Tuesday, June 29, 1999

TEXAS: Railway killer probably unable to stop killing

HOUSTON -- An expert on the criminal mind said Monday that the so-called "railway killer" is getting more and more enraged and is probably unable to stop his killing spree.

"What we have is almost like a boulder rolling down a hill," said Clinton Van Zandt, who spent many of his 25 years with the FBI as a profiler in its Behavioral Science unit. "This is someone who is not going to stop until the authorities find him."

And the violence of the murders has impressed law enforcement agents.

Sgt. Drew Carter, a Texas Ranger, said the main suspect, Rafael Resendez-Ramirez, is "very violent, very brutal in his approach. Homicide is a brutal thing, but his approach is very brutal. ... It is the worst that I've seen."

The suspect's undoing, Carter said, could very well be his drifter lifestyle, which has made him dependent on outside work for money.

"It puts him out there in the public in situations where he's going to get approached by other law officers and positions where he's going to be seen by a lot of people -- and that ultimately is going to lead to his capture," Carter said.

Also on Monday, the FBI announced that investigators have determined from a birth certificate located in the Mexican state of Puebla that the real name of the main suspect in the railway killings is Angel Leoncio Reyes Recendis.

He was born in the town of Matamoros on August 1, 1959, according to an affidavit sworn to by his mother, Virginia Recendis, before a notary public on March 9, 1960, the FBI said.

Federal authorities plan to continue using the name Rafael Resendez-Ramirez during their investigation.

"I don't want the public to be confused about these names," said FBI task force leader Don Clark. "I want the public to be focused on what this person looks like and (on) as much information as we can tell them about his habits."

Police say Resendez-Ramirez has used more than 30 aliases, four birthdates, and four Social Security numbers. He is also known by three identification numbers by the Immigration and Naturalization Service, which has had him in custody at least seven times.

Clark also said law enforcement agencies in both the United States and Mexico are distributing new wanted posters for Resendez-Ramirez -- with one side printed in English and the other in Spanish.

The FBI said that more than 500 new tips have come in after Resendez-Ramirez was featured on the television program "America's Most Wanted" over the weekend.

Profiler Van Zandt thinks the pressure, created by recent publicity, may be law enforcement's best weapon to stop the killer from striking again.

"This is the fox and the hounds right now. We have to keep this man on the run," said the former FBI agent.

After he retired from the FBI, it was Van Zandt who linked Theodore Kaczynski's writings to the Unabomber manifesto.

"It's almost as if this person is out of control," said Van Zandt of the suspected railway killer.

At least eight known killings are allegedly tied to suspect Resendez-Ramirez, beginning in 1997. Seven of those have come in the last six months -- four over an 11-day period between June 4 and June 15 -- from Texas north to Illinois.

He has been charged with killing two people in Illinois and authorities say he is tied by physical evidence to the six other killings in Texas and Kentucky.

All have taken place in the dark of night near railroad tracks. The murderer has left fingerprints and bodily fluid at the crime scenes, and at the home of the last two victims in Illinois he left writings on the wall.

"He's taunting, he's challenging the authorities -- someone who is just saying, 'I dare you to identify me, I dare you to catch me,'" Van Zandt said.

"When you start to see someone writing on a wall with some type of instrument or whatever type of fluids they are using to do that, that again is usually indicative of someone who is just ... he's losing it psychologically," said the profiler.

Other evidence has left the veteran law enforcement agent chilled. Some of the female victims reportedly were sexually assaulted -- after they were killed.

"It's his anger, it's his rage, and it's one last way to put that victim down," he said.

Sources say local police agencies around the country have brought at least 10 unsolved murder cases to federal officials in recent days.

The FBI said it will work with any law enforcement agency that suspects that Resendez-Ramirez has killed in their area.

"If a police agency makes a request, trying to clear a homicide that's on their book, we will provide them with whatever information that we can and let that agency make the determination if there's a connectivity, not us, they will do that," said Clark.

A young mother and daughter brutally stabbed to death in Gibson County, Tennessee, are the latest unsolved murders to be examined by police and the FBI for possible links to Resendez-Ramirez.

CANADA: CN, IC sign implementing agreements with shop supervisors

MONTREAL -- Canadian National Railway Company and Illinois Central Corporation announced today they have negotiated implementing labor agreements with their shop supervisors, represented by the American Railway and Airway Supervisors Association, and the Brotherhood of Railway Carmen.

These agreements resolve outstanding labor issues related to the merger of CN and IC.

CN and IC have now signed implementing labor agreements and, in one case, a letter of commitment regarding an implementing agreement, with unions representing almost 80 percent of the organized workforce of CN and IC in the United States.

The CN/IC merger received final written approval from the United States Surface Transportation Board (STB) on May 25, 1999. A step-by-step integration of the two railroads will commence July 1, 1999.

Canadian National operates approximately 13,750 route-miles of track in eight Canadian provinces and six U.S. states, with principal routes to every major metropolitan area in Canada and to the major U.S. rail hubs of Buffalo, Detroit, Duluth/Superior, Wis., and Chicago. CN is North America's only transcontinental railroad, and Canada's largest railroad serving all five major Canadian ports on the Atlantic and Pacific oceans and the Great Lakes.

Illinois Central, whose principal subsidiary is the Illinois Central Railroad Company, operates approximately 3,450 route-miles of track running north-south between Chicago and the Gulf of Mexico, and east-west between Chicago, Iowa, and Nebraska.

IC's main north-south route reaches the major metropolitan areas of St. Louis, Memphis, Tenn., New Orleans, and Baton Rouge, La. IC's east-west route extends from Sioux City, Iowa, and Omaha, Neb., to Chicago.

ENGLAND: Stagecoach receives favorable opinion from STB for acquisition of Coach USA

LONDON -- Stagecoach Holdings plc today announced that it has received a favorable informal advisory opinion from the United States Surface Transportation Board (STB) regarding its proposed use of a voting trust in the tender offer by its subsidiary, SCH Holdings Corp., for all outstanding shares of common stock of Coach USA, Inc. at a price of $42.00 per share. The receipt of the informal advisory opinion, assuming it is not withdrawn, satisfies one of the main conditions of the tender offer.

The tender offer remains subject to the approval of Stagecoach's shareholders, expiration of the Hart-Scott-Rodino waiting period and tender of at least a majority of Coach's common stock, as well as the other conditions described in the Offer to Purchase relating to the tender offer.

As previously disclosed in filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Stagecoach has scheduled an extraordinary general meeting of its shareholders on July 19, 1999 to approve the acquisition of Coach, and has entered into definitive financing agreements regarding the financing for the acquisition.

The tender offer and withdrawal rights will expire at 10:00 a.m., New York City time, on Monday, July 26, 1999, unless the tender offer is extended in the manner described in the Offer to Purchase dated June 18, 1999.

CANADA: New lifesaver program blitz aims for safer summer

MONTREAL -- Direction 2006 and Operation Lifesaver, a remarkable voluntary program devoted to saving lives along Canada's railways, has launched a new public information and education blitz aimed at keeping people safe from highway-railway crossing collisions and trespassing incidents this summer.

The program is built around a series of public service announcements, which dramatize the potential hazards of driving on road/rail crossings and trespassing on railway property. The 30-second television announcements in English and French were released today to television stations across Canada.

A series of radio public service announcements were delivered last week by satellite to approximately 500 radio stations in Canada. Their safety messages are delivered by police officers, locomotive engineers and others who have been directly affected by the needless deaths and injuries along Canada's railways.

"Summer is a time of special danger, with so many vacationers' vehicles on the road and the children out of school,'' says Operation Lifesaver's national director, Ben Levesque. "This means more cars and trucks crossing tracks, and more children who may be tempted to play on railway property.''

The special TV and radio campaign is being backed up by public education efforts such as the recent West Island Safety Blitz at suburban rail commuter stations in the Montreal area. At this event, elected officials joined with volunteers from public safety agencies and railways to draw the attention of commuters to the rules of safe conduct in and around railway tracks.

Operation Lifesaver officials are concerned with the stubbornly high number of fatal and serious injury accidents resulting from trespassing on railway property, which includes taking shortcuts over the tracks. Fifty-seven persons were killed in trespassing accidents in Canada in 1998, compared with 68 in 1997. Serious injuries from this cause were 16 in 1998 and 29 the year before. Tragically, a high proportion of the victims were children playing in railway yards and on tracks.

Forty-two men, women and children were killed, and another 42 were seriously injured, in road-rail crossing collisions in 1998. According to Ben Levesque, virtually all of these deaths and injuries were avoidable by the exercise of due caution at crossings and on railway property. In 1997, there were 30 killed and 61 seriously injured at crossings.

Co-sponsored by the Railway Association of Canada and Transport Canada, Operation Lifesaver concentrates on public awareness to bring the accident rate down. The program has been instrumental in reducing crossing collisions by 60 per cent since 1981.

OL works closely with provincial safety councils, police forces, railway unions, and public interest organizations to bring its safety message to the public. A nationwide corps of volunteers -- many of them railway workers and police officers who have witnessed the carnage on the rails first-hand -- conducts workshops in schools, among service clubs and other public interest groups.

Police forces have been lending Operation Lifesaver their active support through special programs, which involve officers riding trains and monitoring level crossings. The number of charges and warnings for crossing and trespassing violations has lately risen dramatically.

The police have also been active on the education front. They carried the safety message to more than 1.4 million Canadians last year through visits to schools, service groups and mall displays. More than 500 municipal, provincial and federal police officers have been trained and supplied with information kits for public distribution.

Transport Canada's Grade Crossing Improvement Program contributes an average of $7.5 million a year to improve highway-railway-crossing safety across Canada. Improvements range from installation of flashing lights and gates to the addition of new operating circuits or timing devices at crossings.

Despite the success of its information and enforcement programs, "Operation Lifesaver isn't resting on its laurels," according to Levesque. The railway industry and Transport Canada recently launched a concerted campaign among government, industry, police and public safety bodies called Direction 2006 with the objective of reducing the number of such rail-related accidents by 50 per cent over the next seven years.

For further information: Ben Levesque, Operation Lifesaver, (514) 879-8558; Roger Cameron, The Railway Association of Canada, (514) 879-5846