- 10/09/2024
People who came face to face with notorious murderers yet escaped with their lives.
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00:00He takes my belt off and ties up my hands behind my back.
00:08Tortured.
00:09He was beating me with this iron pipe.
00:12Every single time I screamed, he hit me harder.
00:15Moments from being butchered alive.
00:18He puts the gun in my mouth and I imagine the back of my head coming off.
00:23Meet the people who came face to face with monsters.
00:29Not only did he kill them, but he'd have sex with the corpses.
00:34He then cut them up into pieces, sometimes physically stripping the skin from their bodies.
00:39They lived.
00:41I just got hysterical strength.
00:43To tell the tale.
00:44I can't believe how I survived.
00:48This time, we meet the woman whose evening turned into a living nightmare.
00:55He stabbed me in my neck and he said, look how easily I could kill you.
00:59Left for dead at the hands of one of the state's most notorious serial killers.
01:05He was in fact one of America's most wanted men.
01:10Nobody was off limits.
01:12Nobody was safe from this monster.
01:13Yet she survived.
01:16I remember thinking I need to say my last prayer.
01:21And the woman who crossed paths with Britain's most notorious killer couple.
01:26They introduced themselves as Fred and Rose West.
01:29And somehow escaped with her life.
01:33She became aware that the whole head had been covered in brown sticky tape.
01:37She couldn't see.
01:38She couldn't make any sound.
01:46November 1997, Lexington, Kentucky.
01:51Twenty-year-old Holly Dunn is two years into a college degree.
01:55When I went to the University of Kentucky, I felt at home immediately when I went there.
02:01I met people I liked.
02:04I loved where I was staying.
02:06I loved driving around.
02:07I loved everything I was seeing.
02:10She had a new boyfriend, 21-year-old fellow student, Chris Mayer.
02:16Chris was just the most friendly, charming person you could meet.
02:25And we knew that there was something that like drew us together.
02:31The couple were inseparable.
02:34Then one August night, they went to a party.
02:37We arrive at the party and it's a loud party with a bunch of people that I didn't know.
02:46And so it wasn't super fun for me.
02:49I was not having the most fun.
02:52I didn't feel uncomfortable at the party.
02:53I just knew that I really wanted to talk to Chris and it wasn't the right environment
02:58for that to happen.
02:59But I think he noticed that I was really wanting some alone time with him.
03:03And so he knew that I needed to maybe get out of that environment.
03:09Chris suggested a walk.
03:12Chris puts a couple of beers in his backpack and we leave the party and we walk about two
03:18blocks, I would say, to where there are railroad tracks.
03:23You know, Holly was happy that night.
03:26She was with somebody that she'd fallen in love with.
03:29They were laughing.
03:30They were joking.
03:32The railroad was only about two blocks from the party, so it was a very residential area.
03:37I mean, there were houses all around.
03:40It was a dark night, but I never felt like I was in danger.
03:48I felt completely safe.
03:51The couple opened some drinks and enjoyed each other's company.
03:56We cracked open a beer.
03:58We sat there beside the tracks and just talked.
04:02I really was excited to get him alone.
04:05The best part of our relationship was that we could converse about practically anything
04:12and felt comfortable doing it.
04:16I think it was somewhere around midnight that we decided to get up to go back to the party.
04:22Chris and I had talked for, I think, about 30 minutes or so, and we decided that it was
04:27time for us to go back to the party and probably just go home.
04:31When we got up, we started walking.
04:42Someone comes out from behind the electrical box, and they just said, do you have any money?
04:54He had an accent that made me think that he was from Mexico or of a Spanish-speaking
05:01country, that he had some sort of accent that reminded me of that.
05:07It didn't feel like it was anything dangerous.
05:13I'm trying to figure out exactly what does this guy want, because if he needs something,
05:19I'm going to give it to him so he can leave us alone and we can get him what he wants.
05:27Initially, he approached Chris.
05:31Chris got down on his knees, and it looked like he was going through Chris's backpack.
05:37In fact, the man was restraining Chris.
05:40And once he'd done that, he turned his attention to Holly.
05:46That's when I saw the weapon, which was some sort of ice pick or sharp object.
05:52I didn't see it until he came over to me, like, because I was standing next to Chris.
05:57And he then comes over to me.
06:02He takes my belt off, pulls my hands behind my back, and ties up my hands behind my back
06:09with my belt.
06:12And that's kind of what changed my mindset of, this isn't what I'm thinking it is.
06:19I thought, this person is on something, because he seems so sporadic and edgy and just not
06:26like a normal person.
06:29This person is going to hurt us.
06:33Holly's instincts were right.
06:35The man blocking their way was a wanted serial killer.
06:41Angel Matarino-Racindes became known as the Railroad Killer.
06:47He was a loner.
06:49He was a drifter.
06:52And as his crimes grew, they would never know where he would appear next, apart from the
06:57fact it was always near the rail track.
07:01He didn't really have a particular type.
07:04He targeted both men and women.
07:07Nobody was off limits.
07:08Nobody was safe from this monster.
07:10But there was a darker, deeper side to him, a bloodlust, an enjoyment of killing, a love
07:18of power, and of sex, and of making his victims terrified.
07:29It's almost as if Racindes enjoyed experimenting with the way that he killed people.
07:36Racindes was experienced in using weapons, and his previous objects had ranged from a
07:40pickaxe to a .38 caliber gun, a shotgun, a tire rim, and even an iron.
07:47Basically, he was utilizing anything in his reach.
07:53That August night in 1997, Racindes had found his next targets.
08:01The attacker actually took Chris by his shirt and pulled him into the grass and the weeds
08:09kind of beside the track.
08:11I remember thinking, like, I want to get away.
08:16That seems like the only time when I could have run away or done something differently.
08:21But at that point, for me, I'm thinking, we got to get Chris safe.
08:30So I walk down to where Chris is, and he then forces me to get down and to lay on my
08:40stomach on the ground.
08:42And you know, he was doing all this with that weapon that he had.
08:46So he's basically saying, I'm going to hurt you if you don't do what I'm telling you to do.
08:53Racindes tied the couple's legs and gagged them.
08:58Racindes takes the time and the physical effort to tie up Chris and Holly.
09:05So it feels like, to me, that he's not fully decided what he wants to do with them yet
09:09or if he's going to kill them, exactly how to kill them.
09:12He's taking his time, and he's got his victims literally physically captive.
09:18But having tied them up, he walked away and left them alone.
09:25I had been working to get my hands untied the moment that he tied them.
09:28And so I got them untied pretty soon after he laid us down on our stomachs.
09:36I could not get Chris's hands untied.
09:38I tried at least five or six times to get his hands untied.
09:42I couldn't figure out the straps.
09:45I could not get my legs untied.
09:47I couldn't get Chris's legs untied.
09:50I had this, what I call like a running squirrel in my chest, like a feeling of anxiousness
09:56and panic.
09:59I didn't want to be caught trying to help Chris or trying to get away because he'd get
10:05angry and maybe he'd hurt me.
10:07So I would just try to lay down and make it look like I was still tied up when he would
10:12come back.
10:14I really felt like we're going to get away.
10:17I thought that I was doing all the right things, but it's like I just never had enough
10:21time to do them all.
10:27Chris had this peaceful calmness that I didn't know where it was coming from.
10:34Chris was just like, it's okay, everything's okay.
10:38I think Holly reacted how most people would react in that situation.
10:43Some people know this as fight or flight.
10:46She's trying to escape the situation as best she can, but there's also a third less spoken
10:51about option, which is freeze.
10:53So this is a primal instinct to hope that your predator doesn't actually spot you.
10:59Chris helped me to feel like a little more calm and a little less panicky.
11:05But then, out of nowhere, Resindez returned.
11:11I just remember our attacker carrying something that looked like he couldn't carry it.
11:18It looked like something so heavy, it was a struggle for him to even carry it.
11:24A rock or something, I mean, I remember him just coming over to us with it and just dropping
11:38it on Chris's head.
11:42Coming up, Holly's ordeal is far from over.
11:47He stabbed me in my neck and he said, look how easily I could kill you.
11:52And in Gloucester, a young woman finds herself in the clutches of Britain's most notorious
11:58serial killers.
12:00Frighteningly, Fred and Rose said to Caroline, we're going to bury you under the paving stone
12:08of Gloucester.
12:19August 1997, Lexington, Kentucky.
12:2520-year-old student Holly Dunn watched in horror a serial killer, Angel Maturino Resindez,
12:33dropped a rock on her boyfriend's head.
12:37Our attacker didn't say anything.
12:39I don't think he said a word.
12:42I just thought, like, what just happened?
12:47What do I, what do I do?
12:50This was careful, deliberate destruction.
12:55He was forcing Holly to watch.
13:00What she does know is that she is next.
13:05That's when I thought, OK, I'm going to die.
13:12Holly's boyfriend, Chris, had become Resindez's seventh victim.
13:17But Holly had no idea if he was dead or still clinging on to life.
13:24A petrified Holly has no way of knowing if her boyfriend, Chris, will survive.
13:30And now she's the sole focus of this maniacal Mexican.
13:36Chris didn't make any sort of movements or response of any kind.
13:42Our attacker came straight over to me and climbed on top of me.
13:48And so I go into complete fight mode.
13:55I start punching and biting and screaming and trying to hurt him, trying to kick him.
14:04And that's when he stabbed me in my neck with that weapon that he had.
14:10And he said, look how easily I could kill you.
14:14And so I just stopped.
14:16Resindez fits into a power, control, thrill type of serial killer,
14:20who literally does it because they get an enjoyment in intimidating and watching their victims suffer.
14:33In 1994, Britain was rocked by the crimes of a married couple who reveled in power and control.
14:42Rose West, along with her husband, Fred, tortured and murdered at least 12 young women in Gloucestershire between 1973 and 1987.
14:55But in 1972, 17-year-old Caroline Roberts escaped them.
15:05Having spent the evening with her boyfriend, Caroline decided to make her way home.
15:09Caroline was walking down the side of the road on her way home, waiting for a car to come up behind her so she could stick her thumb out and get a lift home.
15:16And she saw in the distance a grey car and it pulled up.
15:20It was a man and a woman and they seemed on the face of it very friendly.
15:24She felt comfortable enough to get inside the car.
15:27And they introduced themselves as Fred and Rose West.
15:36Fred and Rose are asking her about where she's from, her background, etc.
15:41And they explain that they have three children.
15:44In actual fact, they're looking for a nanny and start to make inquiries as to whether it might be something that Caroline's interested in.
15:51That she would come and live with them.
15:53They would pay her a weekly wage and she would help look after the three children.
15:57She must have felt that this was just an amazing piece of good luck.
16:02She needed a job, they had one.
16:04They seemed to all get on and be quite friendly.
16:07This was all a very good move so far.
16:11The next day, Caroline moved into the West's home, 25 Cromwell Street in Gloucester.
16:20She was made to feel really welcome, particularly by Rose herself.
16:24As time passed though, there did start to be some behaviours that she saw in Fred and Rose that did raise some red flags.
16:31Rose would have very explosive, angry rages at their children.
16:40She would hit them too.
16:42But Caroline had other concerns.
16:47Throughout her stay at Cromwell Street, Caroline had noticed repeated mail callers coming into the house and going into the bedroom with Rose.
16:56But perhaps being 17 and quite naive, she just hadn't really computed what was going on there.
17:03One morning, apparently out of nowhere, Fred and Rose asked Caroline if she would like to join their sex circle.
17:12Caroline wanted no part of this sex ring.
17:15But Fred and Rose kept pushing her, kept trying to persuade her.
17:19Fred and Rose persistently said to her, you know, go on Caroline, give it a try.
17:24Fred said to her, you, me, Rose, a few men friends of ours.
17:28It must have been at this point that things just started to click into place.
17:31The touching, the innuendos, the male friends that kept coming around.
17:36And the awkwardness she might have felt once or twice must have just started to coalesce into a real sense of unease.
17:46Unsettled, Caroline returned home to her mum.
17:50But that wasn't the last she was to see of the Wests.
17:54About a month after leaving 25 Cromwell Street, Caroline was making her usual trip to see her boyfriend.
18:01And she was getting back in her usual way, which was hitchhiking.
18:05When a familiar car pulled up alongside her and it was Rose and Fred.
18:10Caroline might not have been too thrilled to see Fred's Ford Popular turn up, but it was a freezing cold night.
18:18She had 25 miles to get home and Fred and Rose were there apologising and setting her mind at ease.
18:26And because of this, she agreed that she would get in the car.
18:30They drive off, but very quickly the atmosphere changes.
18:36Suddenly out of nowhere, Fred turns around, he leans over and punches Caroline repeatedly in the head.
18:45Punching her and punching her until she blacks out.
18:50Kentucky, 1997.
18:54Holly Dunn's ordeal at the hands of serial killer Angel Maturino-Racindes was just beginning.
19:02He stabbed me in my neck with that weapon that he had and he said, look how easily I could kill you.
19:07This was a man who was determined to be powerful and to be a hero.
19:14This was a man who was determined to be powerful and all-consuming and all-controlling.
19:24Holly was fighting back.
19:27From Racindes' perspective, he wants a victim that's compliant, but Holly's not doing that.
19:32She's not playing ball.
19:34It feels like Racindes thinks that the situation is slipping out of his fingers and he needs to find a way to regain control.
19:42He has stabbed me, but I didn't feel it. I didn't feel any pain. I wasn't feeling anything.
19:47And then I remember him taking my pants off and my underwear off.
19:51And it wasn't until this moment that I think, oh my God, this guy's going to rape me.
19:56I was thinking I was going to die.
19:59I remember like thinking I need to say my last prayer.
20:05And then our attacker rapes me.
20:12And I'm like thinking I have to try to leave my DNA.
20:17So I'm like digging my hands into the ground and trying to pull off my fingernails so I can leave some fingernails at the scene.
20:28A lot of people in Holly's situation would just simply panic or resign themselves to their fates.
20:32But it takes a lot of dignity and emotional intelligence to have the presence of mind in that moment to try and do whatever you can to help the situation.
20:45During this entire sexual assault, I am looking at his face and I'm going, OK, I know every detail about your face.
20:52I know every tattoo you have on your body.
20:55I know every scar you have on your body.
20:57And I will get you if I make it through this someday.
21:00Someday I will get you.
21:08Resendez wants no witnesses.
21:11He's about to try and kill her.
21:15He takes a piece of plywood and attempts to beat her to death.
21:22I don't remember anything about being hit.
21:26But I know from my injuries that he hit me five or six times in my face.
21:31And he didn't hit me with the rock that he hit Chris with.
21:33He hit me with some kind of board.
21:38She suffers a fractured eye socket, a fractured jaw.
21:42She is covered from head to foot in blood.
21:47And he thinks he's done enough.
21:50Believing he had just killed his eighth victim, Resendez left Holly for dead.
21:56Next to Chris's body.
22:03Still to come, Holly's attacker strikes again.
22:07Police launch a U.S.-wide search.
22:10This man is now featured on America's Most Wanted.
22:14I can tell you 100% from that voice that I heard in that video that it was him.
22:21And in Britain, a young woman is abducted, tortured and threatened with an agonizing death.
22:27They beat her and sexually abused her and it lasted the whole night.
22:45After serial killer Angel Maturino-Resendez had crushed her boyfriend's head with a rock,
22:5220-year-old student Holly Dunn had been left to die following a brutal sexual and physical assault.
23:00By this time, Resendez confronted Holly and Chris in the summer of 1997.
23:05In fact, he'd already committed six murders.
23:10This was just another two unfortunate people who came into his sight.
23:17I think 100% he thought he had killed me.
23:20I don't think he at all thought that I was still alive.
23:25I remember being semi-conscious when he left and thinking like,
23:32thank you for leaving me here. I'm still alive and I'm going to live through this.
23:38I was covered in blood. I knew I was hurt, but I didn't know what had been done to me.
23:44I knew that my mouth wasn't shutting properly, like I couldn't shut my mouth correctly.
23:50But that's really all I knew because I wasn't really feeling pain.
24:01Drifting in and out of consciousness, Holly managed to stumble to a nearby house.
24:09I remember waking up, but then I don't remember walking to the house to get help.
24:19I remember being on the porch and the screen door was closed, but the front door was open.
24:26And there was a TV on in the house and I just walked into the door.
24:31I didn't knock. I didn't ring a doorbell. I just walked into this person's house.
24:39There was a person sitting at his desk studying and I just remember him being very nice
24:45and wanting to help me from the moment I walked in.
24:51I just remember sinking into the couch. I felt safe for the first moment that night.
24:59The man called 911. In less than three hours, Holly's life had been changed forever.
25:10Most serial killers are driven by an inner desire that they have to satisfy.
25:16Be it power, control, sexual gratification or sometimes just sheer enjoyment.
25:23Gloucestershire, 1972. 17-year-old Caroline Roberts had been beaten unconscious
25:30and abducted by her former employers, Fred and Rosemary West.
25:35As Caroline regained consciousness, she became aware that she was going to die.
25:40She was going to die.
25:42She was going to die.
25:44She was going to die.
25:47As Caroline regained consciousness, she became aware that Fred had tied her hands together.
25:53There had been cotton wool balls shoved in her mouth as a makeshift gag
25:57and her whole head had been covered with brown sticky tape so she couldn't see,
26:01she couldn't breathe very easily, she couldn't make any sound.
26:09They beat her and sexually abused her.
26:13They beat her and sexually abused her.
26:15They called her names and it lasted the whole night.
26:21Frighteningly, Fred and Rose said to Caroline,
26:26we're going to keep you in our cellar, we're going to let our friends use you
26:30and when they're finished with you, we're going to bury you under the paving stones of Gloucester.
26:36And then they went on to say that there are hundreds of girls there
26:40and the police haven't found them and they're not going to find you.
26:46It wasn't an empty threat.
26:4922 years later, the remains of nine young women were discovered at 25 Cromwell Street.
26:56After this horrendous night of abuse, the next morning,
27:00After this horrendous night of abuse, the next morning,
27:03Caroline regained consciousness and realised that Rose was up,
27:07she was getting the children ready for school like absolutely nothing had happened.
27:13She'd just been through the worst experience of her life
27:17and then the door opens again.
27:22In comes Fred and he continues that abuse.
27:26This is becoming far too much for Caroline now and she breaks down in tears.
27:32But bizarrely, so does Fred.
27:38Her survival instincts would have been seeing this as a chance she may need to get out of this situation.
27:45With Fred in this emotional state, can I play on that, can I persuade him to let me go?
27:51They were comfortable enough that we've exerted enough power and control
27:55and she's not going to go and speak to anybody.
27:58After suffering unspeakable abuse at the hands of the West,
28:02Caroline was let go and immediately returned home.
28:06Despite going to the police, she felt unable to tell them the full story.
28:12In the 1970s, it was a matter of shame and disgrace
28:17to be a victim of sexual assault.
28:20As a result of all this, Caroline couldn't really bring herself to tell the police
28:24that she had been raped by both Fred and Rose,
28:27nor did she want to reveal that she'd been held hostage or beaten and bruised by them.
28:33Scared of what people would think, Caroline held back details of the attack
28:38and did not accuse them of rape.
28:40Police only charged Fred and Rose West with actual bodily harm and indecent assault
28:46and they escaped with fines totalling just £100.
28:51So over the next couple of decades, Caroline really struggled with what happened to her.
28:56She had depression, she turned to alcohol and drugs to help cope with the pain of all this.
29:01PTSD as a condition just did not exist in the 1970s.
29:05There would have been no recognition of it, no treatment for it.
29:09But eventually, justice would be served.
29:171997, Lexington, Kentucky.
29:2120-year-old Holly Dunn had survived her own brush with evil.
29:27Holly Dunn was lucky to survive this attack.
29:29How she did, we will never know.
29:31She lost four pints of blood.
29:34She was covered in blood from head to toe.
29:39The surgeons fought to keep her alive.
29:42She had a broken eye socket.
29:45She had a fractured jaw.
29:47She was left with scars and flashes on her face that required stitching.
29:55I was in the hospital for five days.
29:58I needed to have my mouth wired shut.
30:01That's how they fixed my broken jaw.
30:04I had to wait for, like, swelling to go down to be able for them to do that surgery.
30:09Holly is not only horrifically, physically damaged, but she's emotionally traumatized.
30:16She was in love with Chris.
30:18They were happy.
30:20And this had all been taken away from her.
30:24I didn't get to go to Chris's funeral because I was still in the hospital.
30:27And I definitely had survivor's guilt because Chris didn't make it.
30:34Although Holly's physical injuries slowly healed,
30:37her psychological trauma took far longer.
30:42I had triggers that I had to work through.
30:45I had, you know, the sound of a train or railroad tracks were a huge trigger for me.
30:55I can remember soon after the attack, like, driving over railroad tracks and I would break into a panic attack.
31:03I would have to pull over and, like, stop because I couldn't even drive.
31:07And so those panic attacks around trains and railroad tracks were really hard.
31:13When somebody goes through a horrific event or trauma like Holly does,
31:17it's not uncommon for them to develop PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder.
31:22They tend to be hypervigilant, which means that they're always on edge and easily startled.
31:27These experiences, the panic attacks, the flashbacks,
31:31can be extremely psychologically damaging for the individual
31:35because it feels to them like they're reliving the trauma right back to the beginning.
31:45As Holly slowly recovered, her one hope was that police would catch Resendez.
31:52But the investigation quickly stalled.
31:56There was no name, no fingerprints, no match. We didn't know who had done it.
32:02We had DNA in my case, which at the time, the DNA database didn't really exist in the late 90s.
32:09It was just in its infancy. So there was no way to know who had done this.
32:14And the police had told me they think that we were going to catch the person
32:18by the fact that they would do it again and that's how they would catch him.
32:23Two slow, painful years go past and there's no DNA match.
32:28In December 1998, Holly's attacker is still at large.
32:32Until suddenly, police's worst fears were realised.
32:36It's exactly as they said to Holly.
32:39The only chance they would have of catching him was when he killed again.
32:45In December 1998, a well-known doctor, a paediatric neurologist,
32:51failed to turn up for work.
32:53When police arrived at her house, they had to break in
32:57and they found her dead and horrifically murdered.
33:01Dr Claudia Benton's house was by the railroad track.
33:05Police were to discover two things.
33:08Dr Benton had been killed by a statue right in front of her.
33:12Dr Benton had been killed by a statue from within the house.
33:16She'd been sexually assaulted and she'd been strangled.
33:20The police noted something about the viciousness,
33:23the brutality of this attack,
33:25and they even described it as overkill at the time.
33:29So to me, as a forensic psychiatrist,
33:31overkill is usually when a killer has either lost control
33:34and they've become completely frantic in the excitement of that moment,
33:38or it can mean that their victim represents somebody or something
33:42that they really hate and they want to destroy.
33:45I remember the police knocking on my door.
33:50I remember my detective coming to my house,
33:54which he had never done that before,
33:56and I'm just like, what is happening?
33:58And he's like, we have a suspect.
34:01I think I started to feel a lot of survivor's guilt at this point.
34:05I mean, I started to feel like so many people were dying at this person's hands.
34:12It was a hard time, but it also felt good
34:15because I knew I wanted my day in court.
34:17I knew that I wanted to have that day to be able to testify against him.
34:21This man is now on the FBI's most wanted list.
34:26The fact that he makes that list means that he is featured
34:30on a huge cross-nation television program called America's Most Wanted.
34:37The police are pinning the fact that somebody must watch this program
34:43who knows this killer.
34:46The police had told me, we have DNA evidence,
34:49so we don't need you to do a lineup.
34:51We just want you to watch America's Most Wanted to see if you think it's him.
34:56I watched this program, and our attacker changed his appearance all the time.
35:02He changed his appearance, he changed his name, he had many aliases.
35:06But they had footage of him defending himself in court at one time,
35:11and I heard his voice.
35:14And I can tell you 100% from that voice that I heard in that video that it was him.
35:22But Holly wasn't the only person who recognized Resendez.
35:26Watching America's Most Wanted that night was in fact the killer's sister.
35:33She contacts police and agrees to try and contact her brother
35:38and beg him to give himself up.
35:42And after years, after all the murders, after so many man hours,
35:49that's exactly what he decides to do.
35:53Until then, Resendez had been hiding out in his home country of Mexico,
35:59only crossing into the US to commit his horrific crimes.
36:05Resendez was in America as an illegal immigrant.
36:07He jumped between the two countries,
36:10often using the railroad to make his escape from one to the other.
36:14But Resendez's crossing in July 1999 was to be his last.
36:24Resendez walks over the bridge from the Mexican border and hands himself in.
36:36Coming up, Holly's testimony brings her attacker to justice.
36:42I know what the one thing that him not being in the world anymore did for me
36:46was that I know without a doubt that he's never going to hurt someone again.
36:51And another survivor helps put a serial killer behind bars.
36:56Caroline became the chief prosecution witness.
36:58That is why Rose West is locked up forever and is going to stay that way.
37:12July 1999. Serial killer Angel Maturino Resendez gave himself up to the US authorities.
37:23His surrender actually happened while I was in Lancaster, England.
37:27I had signed up for a summer class and everything went down while I was out of the country.
37:35But when I came back, it was just the media frenzy
37:40and all the excitement of him surrendering and then leading up to the trial.
37:46The sad facts of the story are that even when police knew his name,
37:51even when they knew the man that they were looking for,
37:55he had still managed to kill four more times.
37:59He had four more victims to add to his growing list.
38:06On May the 8th, 2000, Resendez went on trial.
38:11Although he was only being tried for one murder, that of Dr. Claudia Benton,
38:16the location of Houston, Texas was key.
38:20Because being found guilty there would mean paying the ultimate price.
38:26He's only charged with the Texas murder,
38:29and that is quite simply because Texas has the death penalty.
38:37During the case, evidence was put forth categorically linking Resendez to a number of murders,
38:43including the attack on Holly and Chris's cold-blooded killing.
38:48The trial would go on for ten days, and Holly would go on to become a key witness.
39:01So in February 1994, the police began investigating Heather West's disappearance,
39:06Fred and Rose's daughter.
39:08And this led them to digging up the basement of 25 Cromwell Street,
39:13where they found a body which wasn't Heather.
39:16The police kept digging, eventually finding Heather's remains under the patio.
39:23In total, 12 bodies, all of young women, were recovered,
39:28nine of them from the West's family home.
39:32Fred and Rose's face were suddenly plastered across every TV screen,
39:37every newspaper in the country, and Caroline must have been horrified
39:41to realize that these were the two people who'd assaulted her,
39:44and that they had done exactly what they had told her they did,
39:47and they had buried lots of girls under the paper stones of Gloucester.
39:52On January 1st, 1995, while awaiting trial, Fred West hanged himself in his prison cell.
40:01Ten months later, Rose West was sentenced to life in prison on ten counts of murder.
40:08Caroline became the chief prosecution witness in the state's case against Rose West,
40:12and it is down to her and her story that is why Rose West is locked up forever
40:18and is going to stay that way.
40:21Caroline Roberts passed away in August 2016, but she left behind a crucial legacy.
40:28In later years, Caroline made a point of never shying away from telling her story.
40:34She spoke openly about it and helped to change attitudes towards survivors
40:40and victims of sexual assault. Ultimately, what she experienced did benefit other people,
40:45and she used it to help others.
40:53May 2000, Houston, Texas.
40:57And another survivor, Holly Dunn, was ensuring justice was served
41:01in the trial of serial killer Angel Maturino Resendiz.
41:06I think I felt like I was speaking for myself, for Chris, and for all the other victims at that time.
41:13I think at that point, there was maybe nine.
41:16Holly's testimony was crucial, but it meant being in the same room as her attacker.
41:24I look over at him, and he had no, like, emotion on his face.
41:33It was a blank, emotionless face, and I start breaking out in a cold sweat,
41:39and I'm starting to get ready to faint on the stand just from looking at him.
41:45I know that other family members of all those people testified at the trial,
41:50and I hoped that I made them proud.
41:53I was doing that for everyone, and for all of their loved ones that had died, too.
41:57That's why I was there.
42:03Resendiz was found guilty of capital murder and sentenced to the death penalty.
42:13I think 100% it was a just sentence for him.
42:18Without Holly's testimony, he may not have been found guilty of first-degree murder.
42:25He may have been found guilty of being insane and therefore not responsible,
42:30and she would never have accepted that.
42:33She knew she had to be strong for justice.
42:39On the 27th of June 2006, Angel Maturino Resendiz was executed by lethal injection.
42:48I know what the one thing that him not being in the world anymore did for me
42:52was that I know without a doubt that he's never going to hurt someone again.
42:58Before he died, Resendiz confessed to a further seven murders,
43:03in addition to the nine the authorities already knew about.
43:07His final words were to ask for forgiveness.
43:10I have to believe that forgiveness is possible because I have to believe that it's possible for anybody
43:15that you can be forgiven.
43:17I had to forgive him, and I did that really for me, not for him.
43:22I didn't want to feel that anger, that revengefulness,
43:26all those bad feelings that he made me feel.
43:29I let them die with him. I let them go with him.
43:34Since becoming the sole survivor of the so-called railroad killer,
43:39Holly has become an advocate for the victims of sexual crimes.
43:43I love the people that I meet when I go out and speak.
43:46It is so powerful to be able to talk about it.
43:49That is so empowering and to feel like you're helping others is so amazing.
43:57I think I definitely live with this every day.
44:01I think that I know that this is part of my story,
44:04but I'm able to focus on the good that has come from this story.
44:09I'm so appreciative of this second chance at life,
44:12and I've got to live every day to its fullest.
44:15And she never forgets about the man who lost his life.
44:19I still keep a picture of Chris that I can see every day.
44:24He's a little reminder just to enjoy each day
44:28because truly he was just the most precious person to me.
44:35He was just the most precious person that you wanted to be like him.
44:41We all want to live our lives like he would have.
45:05We'll investigate child snatchers a day at the fair next.
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