‘I held my face together after serial killer stabbed and raped me’ | World | News
She went through a horrific ordeal but came out on the other side (Image: CHANNEL 5)
The lone survivor of a serial killer has bravely opened up about her harrowing experience to the world.
Holly Dunn endured a horrific ordeal and survived to share her account, and whilst the physical wounds from the chilling assault may have mended, the psychological scars persist.
Holly was just 21 when she confronted the most frightening moment of her life – one that claimed her boyfriend’s life and nearly ended hers too.
On August 29, 1997, Holly encountered one of America’s most hunted criminals, serial killer Angel Maturino Resendiz. It was also the day she was sexually assaulted and abandoned for dead beside the lifeless body of her boyfriend, Chris Maier.
Holly and Chris were both studying at the University of Kentucky and had recently left a gathering in Lexington, close to their university campus.
The couple headed towards the railway lines, with Holly recounting on CBS’s 48 Hours programme: “It [the party] was a little bit boring, so we packed up Chris’s backpack with some beers, and we were gonna head down to the tracks. We sat there and talked for a while.”
Holly Dunn is the sole survivor of the terrifying serial killer (Image: CBS)
As the pair rose to return to the party, they were confronted by a man near the electrical box beside the railway tracks, who demanded money from them. They explained to the stranger that they had no cash as they were broke students; nevertheless, Resendiz forced Chris to his knees and appeared to be searching through his rucksack, or so Holly believed. In truth, he was binding Chris’s hands behind his back using his rucksack.
In Channel 5’s documentary The Railroad Killer: I Escaped a Murderer, Holly revealed: “He took my belt off, pulled my hands behind my back, and tied them with my own belt. I thought, ‘This man is going to hurt us.’
“In my head, I was panicking. And I was like saying my last prayer. And thinking, ‘I’m going to die.'”.
Resendiz then momentarily retreated towards the railway line, and during this brief window, Holly succeeded in loosening her restraints and freeing her hands, though she couldn’t untie her legs or free Chris. Shortly after, Resendiz came back clutching something weighty. “It looked like a rock, something so big he struggled to carry it. He just came over and dropped it on Chris’s head,” Holly remembered.
She gazed in terror as her boyfriend’s lifeless form remained still on the grass next to her. “I think, at that point, I went into survival mode. I realised, at that point, that he was going to rape me. I fought him. I tried to hit him. I tried to kick him. I tried to scream.
Chris Maier (pictured) was murdered by Angel Maturino Resendiz (Image: CBS)
“That’s when he took that weapon that he had, and he held it to my neck and he said, ‘Look how easily I could kill you’. That’s when he stabbed me in my neck. And so, I just stopped. I was like, ‘Okay, well, you know, what’s gonna happen is gonna happen’.”
Whilst enduring the sexual assault and pleading for her life, Holly memorised every detail of her assailant: “I knew every scar, every tattoo. And I told myself, ‘If I make it through this, I will get you’.” She even clawed her fingernails into the earth, hoping to leave traces of her DNA behind.
Following the rape, Holly recalls Resendiz striking her with a piece of plywood at least five to six times across her face, before turning her over and battering the back of her skull five to six times more. “I’m positive that he probably knocked me unconscious. And … my breathing was shallow enough that he thought he had killed me.”
It was then that Resendiz fled the crime scene, presumably believing he had murdered Holly as well. Some time later, between 1 – 2 am, the courageous woman came round and somehow found the strength to stumble into a neighbouring property.
Serial killer Angel Maturino Resendiz (Image: CBS)
Holly’s wounds were so severe that she had lost four pints of blood and remained hospitalised for five days. Her jaw was fractured and had to be wired shut, her face was covered in lacerations, and her eye socket was shattered. Holly revealed in the documentary: “I didn’t get to go to Chris’s funeral because I was still in the hospital. I definitely had survivor’s guilt because Chris didn’t make it.”
Despite police having her DNA evidence from the assault, the absence of a national DNA database at that time caused the investigation to stagnate. It wasn’t until December 1998, when Dr Claudia Benton, a prominent physician, was brutally murdered in Houston, Texas, that officers finally got their breakthrough, reports the Mirror.
DNA collected from Dr Benton’s crime scene successfully connected the killing to Resendiz, providing authorities with their key suspect. A nationwide search for Resendiz was initiated, with the fugitive featuring on the popular US television programme ‘America’s Most Wanted’.
Resendiz was executed by lethal injection in 2006 (Image: AP)
Ultimately, Resendiz surrendered to American authorities in July 1999. Holly played a crucial role in his trial, providing testimony against him in court. She revealed: “I felt like I was speaking for myself, for Chris, and for all the other victims. There were nine at that time, but we later found out there were many more.”
Recounting her courtroom encounter with her assailant, she remembered: “I looked over at him, and he had no emotion on his face. I started breaking out in a cold sweat and nearly fainted, but I knew I had to do this, not just for me but for all the families who had lost someone to this man.”
Angel Maturino Resendiz was ultimately convicted of capital murder in 2000 and sentenced to death. He met his end via lethal injection in June 2006. In the lead-up to his execution, he admitted to authorities that he had committed several other murders, raising his confirmed victim count to at least 15 across six states.
