Angel Maturino Resendiz, nicknamed "The Railroad Killer," instilled panic and fear in railroad towns across the United States in the late 1990s. At the time of his arrest, Resendiz was suspected in nine slayings near railroad tracks in Texas, Kentucky and Illinois. He would confess to many more before his execution.

Video: "48 Hours" Live to Tell: The Railroad Killer

Christopher Maier, a fun-loving 21-year-old junior at the University of Kentucky was killed as he and his 20-year-old girlfriend, Holly Dunn, were walking back to a party late at night on Aug. 28, 1997. The students were walking along some railroad tracks when they were assaulted.

Holly Dunn, Chris Maier's girlfriend, somehow managed to survive after being raped, stabbed, beaten and left for dead by Resendiz. She spent five days in a hospital before returning home to Indiana to recover.

Holly Dunn's belt lies discarded along the railroad tracks in Lexington, Ky. Resendiz took Dunn's belt and used it to tie her hands behind her back. Dunn managed to free her hands at one point, but couldn't get her feet untied.

One of Holly Dunn's sandals lays in the ditch near the railroad tracks where Resendiz brutally attacked her and Chris Maier. After waking up after the attack, Dunn walked barefoot over rocks and broken glass on the tracks to get to a house seeking help.

A daytime photo of Holly Dunn and Chris Maier's crime scene. Resendiz had been crouching behind the electric box on the right before ambushing the young couple.

Dr. Claudia Benton, a 39-year-old Baylor College of Medicine physician, was found sexually assaulted, stabbed and beaten to death inside her Houston-area home located near railroad tracks on Dec. 17, 1998. Police found her Jeep Cherokee in San Antonio with Resendiz' fingerprints on the steering column.

Norman J. Sirnic, 46, and his wife Karen Sirnic, 47, of Weimar, Texas, were bludgeoned to death on May 2, 1999, by a sledgehammer in the parsonage of the United Church of Christ, where Norman Sirnic was a pastor. Worried church members found the couple when they failed to turn up for Sunday service. Their car was found in San Antonio and fingerprints linked their case with the Claudia Benton case.

Railroad tracks wind their way through Weimar, Texas, past the Weimar United Church of Christ. The Church's beloved pastor and his wife were murdered in their home behind the church by Resendiz. Texas authorities determined they had a serial killer on their hands.
Video: "48 Hours" Live to Tell: The Railroad Killer

Resendiz was implicated in the Oct. 2, 1998, murder of Leafie Mason, 87, bludgeoned with an antique iron at her home in Hughes Springs, Texas. Shortly after his arrest, a palm print left at the murder scene would be matched to Resendiz.

Just a month after the horrific murder of the Sirnics, Noemi Dominguez, a 26-year-old schoolteacher, was found bludgeoned to death with a pickax in her Houston apartment on June 4, 1999. A week later, her car was discovered abandoned on the International Bridge in Del Rio, Texas.

June, 4, 1999, would prove to be a deadly day. Ninety miles away in Fayette County, Texas, Josephine Konvicka, 73, was killed by a blow of the same pickax used to kill Noemi Dominguez. Her rural farmhouse was not far from Weimar, causing residents there to become terrified of the very thing that their town was built upon - the railroad.

Two weeks after the murders of the two women in Texas, Resendiz would move his killing grounds north. On June 15, 1999, George Morber Sr., 79, and his 51-year-old daughter, Carolyn Frederick, were killed in their Gorham, Ill., home located about 100 yards from a rail line. Morber was shot to death with a shotgun and Frederick bludgeoned with that weapon.

Resendiz -- at the time known to law enforcement by his alias, Rafael Resendez Ramirez -- becomes one of the Federal Bureau of Investigation's "Ten Most Wanted Fugitives." Resendiz is wanted in connection with a string of deaths in Texas, Kentucky and Illinois.

U.S. Customs agents prepare to open a train car north of Laredo, Texas, on June 28, 1999. The intense manhunt for the railroad killer had intensified train car searches.

Accused serial killer Angel Maturino Resendiz, led by Sgt. Drew Carter of the Texas Rangers, arrives at Hobby Airport in Houston on Tuesday, July 13, 1999, after turning himself in to Carter in El Paso.

Some family members of murder victim Josephine Konvicka, stand in prayer during a memorial service for victims of accused serial killer Angel Maturino Resendiz the day after his arrest. Three of Resendiz's victims, Norman and Karen Sirnic and Josephine Konvicka, were from the Weimar area.

A Harris County sheriff's deputy confers with accused serial killer Angel Maturino Resendiz at the start of his capital murder trial for the murder of Dr. Claudia Benton on May 8, 2000, in Houston. Jurors would eventually reject his plea of not guilty by reason and insanity and would convict him and sentence him to death.

Resendiz is escorted from the courtroom after receiving an execution date on Friday, Jan. 6, 2006, in Houston.

Today, Holly Dunn Pendleton, Angel Maturino Resendiz's sole survivor, lives her life as a survivor - not a victim - and dedicates herself to helping other victims of sexual violence. In 2006, she received the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Award for public service, one of the nation's highest honors for humanitarian work.

Learn more: Holly's House

To mark the 20-year anniversary of her survival, Holly Dunn has written a book due out in November 2017.

Read excerpts of her book," Sole Survivor"

Video: "48 Hours" Live to Tell: The Railroad Killer