January 23, 2024 • 60 mins
This is the story of Holly Dunn, the only known survivor of the brutal, bloody crimes of the so-called “railroad killer.” But Holly’s story is also about what she did when she survived: how she found strength, power, and how she showed up for the showdown.
The Greatest True Crime Stories is a production of Diversion Audio.
• Follow Diversion Audio on Instagram
• Explore more: diversionaudio.com
This series is hosted by Mary Kay McBrayer. Check out more of her work at www.marykaymcbrayer.com.
This episode was written by Nora Batelle
Editorial Direction by Nora Batelle
Developed by Scott Waxman, Emma DeMuth and Jacob Bronstein
Produced directed and Edited by Mark Francis
Theme Music by Tyler Cash
Executive Produced by Scott Waxman, Mark Francis, and Jacob Bronstein
Special Thanks to:
Holly Dunn, Sole Survivor
http://www.clarkprosecutor.org/html/death/US/resendiz1028.htm
https://www.rainn.org/articles/rape-kit
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
Diversion audio.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
A note this episode contains mature content and descriptions of
violence that may be disturbing for some listeners. Please take
care and listening. Holly Dunn had been asking for a
mirror for days, and no one would give her one.
(00:37):
The last time she'd looked at herself, she was home
at the Kappa Sorority house, brushing her long blonde hair
and putting in her little silver hoops that felt like
a lifetime ago. She needed to see her face. Sister
(01:00):
Heather finally caved. She gave Holly a tiny, compact mirror,
the kind meant for applying blush or powder, the kind
that only lets you see one part of your face
at a time. Holly stared into the little piece of glass.
(01:22):
There was a girl looking back at her, but all
she could think was, how is that my face? Her
skin was bruised and scratched, etched with lines of dried blood.
Everything looked misshapen and strange, especially around the left eye socket,
(01:47):
which was so swollen she couldn't open her eye. It
wasn't her face, except it was. Someone had done this
to her, attacked her, violated her, He tried to kill her,
(02:09):
but Holly was still alive, and she wasn't going to
let him win. Welcome to the greatest true crime stories
(02:34):
ever told. I'm Mary Kay McBrayer. I'm a writer of
true crime. I'm constantly reading about crime, but I'm not
necessarily interested in the parts of the stories that make headlines.
Those tend to be bloody, dramatic moments. I'm more interested
in the people behind these moments and what we can
(02:54):
learn about society by looking at their experiences. That's what
I explore here. Every week. I dig into crimes where
a woman is not just a victim. She might be
the detective, the lawyer, the witness, the coroner, the criminal, or,
(03:15):
in the case of Holly, done a combination of those roles.
As you probably already know, women can do anything. Today's
episode we're calling I Survived a Serial Killer. It's about
a woman named Holly Dunn, who is the only known
(03:36):
survivor of the brutal, bloody crimes of the so called
Railroad Killer. You'll get to hear my conversation with Holly
herself at the end of this episode, but Holly's story
is also about what she did when she survived, how
she found strength, power, and how she showed up for
(03:59):
the showdown. Part of my college orientation was on how
(04:35):
to avoid predators. I'm not even joking. Upperclassmen put on
a skit of how to make sure no one slips
roofies in your solo cup, how to know if someone
was actually using a condom, what to do if you
wake up somewhere you've never seen before, where the emergency
outposts were on campus just in case. I remember thinking
(04:58):
at the time, Yes, this is good advice. I'm so
glad they told me, or I'd never have known any
of this. And then a few hours after the meeting,
I remember asking myself, why is it my job to
avoid horrible people? How is that fair? The answer is
it's not fair. The answer is sometimes you can't avoid predators,
(05:20):
and frankly, no one should have to, but we do
have to. Holly Dunn was from an affluent Indiana family,
(06:02):
but she wasn't from the kind of blue blooded privilege
that was dissociated from reality. The Duns had faced more
than their fair share of tragedy. Two of Holly's half siblings,
children from her father's first marriage, died young, one from
childhood pneumonia, the other Holly's adored big brother, Michael, died
(06:25):
in a car crash at age twenty three, but the
Duns were resilient. They leaned on one another and on
their church for support. Holly and her sister Heather were
extremely close. It was bittersweet for Holly to pack up
for college at the University of Kentucky in the autumn
of nineteen ninety five, but she knew she wouldn't be
(06:48):
gone for long. After her studies, she planned to come
right back into the fold and join her father's hotel business.
As it turned out, Holly loved college. She loved her
Kappa Kappa Gamma sisters, and as an outgoing, fun loving kid,
she appreciated the social intensity of the college experience. The
(07:11):
summer after her junior year, she decided to stay in
Lexington and take a couple of extra courses. I don't
know about y'all, but when I took summer courses, well,
they were the best. Typically, you had one class for
three hours, five days a week for a month, and
the rest of your time was just yours. During that
(07:33):
summer chill time is when Holly met a tall, sweet
kid named Christopher Meyer. It was a hot summer night
she was at a neighborhood bar with her girlfriend, celebrating
her friend's twenty first birthday and wearing silvernl polish. Years later,
she'd remember the line Christopher used when he walked up
(07:54):
to her. She recorded it in her memoir Sole Survivor
out his own sandaled foot and said, I have on
Silvertonel polish too. He was the kind of hippie dude
who did things like that, wear an ale polish, a
hemp necklace, the works, and Holly dug it. They spent
(08:15):
the whole night talking. She invited him and his friends
to the birthday party her girlfriends were throwing the next night,
and he showed up. Remember that feeling when you're young
and you have a crush and the crush likes you back.
You feel like you're the first people in the world
to ever have so much in common and everything they
(08:37):
say is interesting. That's how it was for Holly and Chris.
His family was Catholic like hers, He was in Greek
life just like her fi cap of Psi. They both
had beloved older sisters, but there was that sense of
newness too. That's such a special part of a crush.
(09:01):
Chris introduced Holly to his hippie leaning interest like sketching, camping,
and jam bands, and that was all new to Holly.
He even liked to walk around barefoot. She was completely
charmed when he gave her a glittery purple daisy ring.
It was a perfect summer and then it was ending
(09:22):
time for real school time for senior year. Holly was excited.
Classes started Wednesday, August twenty seventh, nineteen ninety seven. On Thursday,
August twenty eighth, she had a date with Chris to
attend an off campus five SI party. She felt happy
(09:44):
anticipation as she put on her favorite new brown corduroy
pants in her room at the sorority house, slipped into
her favorite Birkenstock clogs, and adjusted that silly daisy ring
on her hand. It stood out among her usual silver
a pair of little hoop earrings with a finishing touch.
(10:07):
Chris pulled up in his issue as a trooper Hello
nineteen ninety seven, popped out of the top of the
car with a microphone and shouted for all the sorority
sisters to hear. Holly done, come out, It's time to go.
Holly laughed out loud, feeling special. This boy was pronouncing
for all the world, literally on a loud speaker, that
(10:30):
he wanted her with him, that he liked her just
as much as she liked him. She ran downstairs, and
then the night began. The party was a little bit boring.
There was a keg and plenty of people, but the
energy was low. I'm guessing everyone was wasted and full
(10:51):
on too much beer. After a couple hours, Holly, Chris,
and two of Chris's buddies left. They headed down the
street suburban corps to the nearby train tracks. They had
a few beers with them. They were talking, joking around,
but all Holly and Chris really wanted to do was
talk to each other. Chris's buddies felt it after a
(11:13):
while they they'd better leave the couple alone. To their
lovey devy whispers. They were off to find some more beer.
Chris and Holly stayed, settling in for another of their
endless chats atop a grassy mound next to the tracks.
It was dark and quiet. Trains didn't seem to be
(11:33):
passing tonight, but they barely noticed where they were they
were so wrapped up in each other. Chris talked about music,
about his recent trip out to Maine for a big
Fish concert. Typical college student rhapsodies, but Holly never forgot
this conversation. Holly felt present with Chris, right there, right
(11:56):
where they were. But eventually they came out of the trance,
glancing around and remembering that it was late. It was
really dark now, the kind that's all inky shadows. They
should head back. They walked down the train tracks, hand
(12:21):
in hand, arms swinging back towards suburban court, back towards
the party, their friends and Chris's carr but they didn't
get far. A man stepped out of the bushes in
(12:41):
front of them, inches in front of them. Even that
close in the dark, it was hard to see his
features clearly, but Hollywood never forget anything about this night.
She could see he was sure much shorter than six
(13:02):
foot five Chris, and probably a couple inches shorter than Holly,
who was five foot eight. He had a medium, wiry build,
tan skin, wavy dark hair, dark square framed glasses. She
and Chris stepped back in surprise, and he asked them
(13:24):
where their friends went. Immediately, Holly felt nervous. If this
guy knew they'd been with friends, he'd been watching them
for a long time. He muttered, give me your money.
(13:45):
Chris stepped in front of her, saying calmly that they
didn't have any. Holly cracked a nervous joke about being
broke college kids, but the man barely seemed to hear them.
He just told them to get on their knees. Before
(14:17):
I jump back into what happened that night at the
railroad tracks, I'm gonna pause for a minute and give
you the chance to skip ahead if you need to
to be frank. This next part is the part the
content warning warns you about, but it is important, so
walk through it with me if you can. Back to
(14:42):
the railroad tracks on August twenty eighth, nineteen ninety seven,
just blocks from the Phi Kapa PSI party, the stranger
in front of Holly and Chris ordered them to their knees.
They stood frozen. Then he was yanking Chris down by
the arm. Chris was larger, He could have fought back,
(15:07):
but he was a gentle kid. He wasn't going to
escalate the situation. You were never supposed to escalate a mugging.
That was how it got dangerous. Chris knelt on the
rocky tracks, letting the man pull off his backpack. Holly
did what he did, kneeling beside him. But that's when
(15:32):
Holly noticed something something in this stranger's hand. It was sharp,
maybe an ice pick or a screwdriver. Chris and Holly
both seemed to realize the intensity of the situation at
the same time. They started talking fast. They told the
(15:53):
man to take their ATM cards, credit cards, Chris's car keys,
whatever he wanted, but once again he didn't really seem
to be listening. Instead, without taking anything out of the backpack,
he walked behind Chris. He tied the straps around Chris's arms,
(16:15):
minding them in a web of nylon. Then he walked
towards Holly. He reached toward her waist. Chris started pleading
with him, begging him not to hurt her. The man
snarled back, commanding him to shut up and stop looking
at him. Then he grabbed Holly's belt, unbuckled it, pulled
(16:41):
it out of her belt loops, and used it to
tie up her arms. Holly and Chris kept talking, kept pleading,
but by now they knew this was not a mugging.
The man dragged Chris across rocks and glass into the
ditch beside the tracks. Holly scrambled after them on her knees.
(17:07):
She didn't want to be dragged. Next, he told them
he had a gun and his friend was nearby. He left. Briefly,
they heard the sound of ripping cloth. Holly was trying
to get the leather binding off her arms. She whispered
with Chris. Then the man was back, tying their legs
(17:28):
with new bindings, gagging them. Holly stuck out her tongue
as he did so, so it would be loose enough
to fall off. It did. After that, she finally got
her arms out of the belt. She kept them behind
her back so he wouldn't see. The man left again
(17:52):
and again he seemed jittery pacing. He only walked away
for a few moments at a time, but Holly used
the moments he turned his back, she moved closer to Chris.
She pulled off his gag. She tried to untie his
arms from their effective bindings. He urged her to run.
(18:15):
She said she wouldn't and put her arms behind her
back again. As the man turned towards them once more,
he didn't seem to notice them getting closer, or Holly's
loose arms every time he approached them, he just talked.
He demanded that they stop looking at him, kept saying
(18:37):
he had a gun, repeated that his friend was waiting nearby,
and then paced. He couldn't keep still, like he was
trying to decide what was next. Chris begged him not
to hurt Holly told him do whatever you want to me,
but please just let her go. Holly thought to herself,
(19:01):
I'm gonna remember your face, your scars, your tattoos, and
I'm not going to forget because if I live through this,
I will get you. The man walked away. Chris said
to Holly, stay calm, everything is going to be okay.
She'd think about those words many many times, because when
(19:25):
the man came back next, he moved more slowly. He
was carrying something large and heavy, clearly struggling under the weight.
He held it over Chris, who was lying face down
in the underbrush, and then he dropped it. The sound
(19:48):
it made it seemed to never stop in Holly's mind.
The man dropped that massive object again and again and again.
Later she learned he actually only dropped it once. That
was all it took. The repetition was in her own
(20:08):
mind repeating that horrible sound. Chris was gone. Holly started
to pray like she might die. Instead of killing her,
the man grabbed her and untied her legs, not seeming
to care that her arms were already untied. He had
(20:30):
the weapons, after all, that sharp pick, and as far
as Holly knew, a gun, he had the power. He
raped her. She tried to dissociate. Still, she dug her
hands into the dirt, ripping off her fingernails. She would
leave as much DNA as she could for the police.
(20:51):
She knew even then that whatever happened to her, he
couldn't get away with it. For now. That meant doing
what she could to make him see her as human,
so that maybe he'd let her live. Marvel with me
for a second at Holly's presence of mind. Amazing really.
(21:17):
She told him her name was Megan. She asked his name.
He said James Whitford, Whitby something like that. She said,
please don't kill me. He said he wouldn't. When he finished,
she asked if he would please pull up her pants.
He did. Maybe he was telling the truth, Maybe he
(21:52):
wouldn't kill her. She told him she'd never breathe a
word of this to anyone if you let her go.
He reached down to tug at her earring. It wouldn't
come out. She told him how to undo the latch.
He took a ring from her hand too, not the
(22:12):
daisy ring that she'd realize later was gone forever, somewhere
in the rocks and dirt of those train tracks. Then
he covered her and Chris with leaves and twigs, and
then she couldn't remember anything else. Holly had no idea
(22:33):
how long had passed. When she regained consciousness, she was
covered in blood. Everything felt like it was coming apart.
She would eventually learn she had a broken eye socket
and a crackjaw and skull. Her body was black and blue.
He thought he'd killed her somehow. She stumbled down the
(22:58):
tracks toward a house, knocked on the door. The college
kid inside laid her on his couch, called an ambulance.
Thought she wouldn't make it, tried to keep her awake
until the paramedics arrived so she might survive. She kept repeating,
my friend is out there. If she was alive, maybe
(23:21):
Chris was alive too. At the hospital, a nurse asked
her if she wanted to take emergency contraception, Yes she did.
They did the rape kit, which is a term you
hear a lot but maybe can't visualize exactly what it means.
(23:42):
It's a medical exam, but it's focused on collecting DNA
that might identify a sexual attacker. So it involves swabs
of the mouth, vagina, under the fingernails, anywhere there might
be DNA evidence. It also involves collecting guards that might
have that kind of evidence too, like underwear, and sometimes
(24:05):
the medical professionals take photos to document injuries. It'll look
a little different depending on what the assault looked like,
but it's never fun. Holly knew she needed to get
through it because this man's DNA was all over her,
and a rape kit would be the first step in
(24:28):
identifying him and bringing him to justice. She was still
thinking about that promise she'd made to herself out on
the tracks. He wouldn't get away with this. As the
hospital staff wrapped up the exam, they assured Holly they'd
(24:48):
gotten what they needed. They also told her that she
had no fatal injuries. There was a lot of blood
and a lot of pain. The man had beaten her
unconscious after he raped her, and her body showed the marks,
but she would live again. The presence of mind she had.
(25:10):
I mean, I follow true crime, and I know some
of the things you're supposed to do, But knowing you
should do it and actually doing it in the moment
are two different things, and she did both. A quick
reminder that I get the chance to talk to Holly
at the end of this episode, so stay tuned for that.
(25:31):
But first, back to nineteen ninety seven. The months of
physical recovery were obviously extremely difficult. There were so many
physical marks of what had happened. Holly's mouth was wired
shut for weeks while her jaw healed. Thank God, she
had incredible support from her family. Her sister and parents
(25:55):
flew out to Lexington the second they got the news.
Her sororities were at the hospital every day too. At
one point, sixteen of them packed into the little space,
crowded around the bed and told Holly the kind of light,
fun stories of college life that made her feel like
her old self for a little while at least. And
(26:18):
the detective on the case, Detective Craig Currel, was as
gentle as he could be when it came to taking
her statement. He told her they could stop at any
time that he could walk down the hall, come back later,
give her whatever space she needed. But Holly wanted to
(26:41):
answer Crell's questions. She wanted to give him every detail
she possibly could, even if that meant reliving that unfathomably
horrible night. More than anything, she wanted justice. Thing is,
(27:01):
as the weeks dragged into months, despite the dedication of
the Lexington Police Department, in especially Detective Surrell, there was
no progress on finding the attacker, not before he killed again.
(27:33):
It was May of nineteen ninety nine, close to two
years after the attack on Holly done. Holly had started
the long, hard process of rebuilding her life after unimaginable trauma.
She left school and then come back. She joined a
(27:53):
support group for rape survivors and spent time exploring and
deepening her faith. But she still slept with the biggest
kitchen knife under her pillow because he was still out there.
That's when Detective Craig Serel knocked on Holly's Lexington apartment door.
(28:15):
They'd built up a close relationship by now. He'd take
her out for lunch and a chat and keep her
apprised of the work he was doing on the case.
But still the unannounced visit was a surprise, especially considering
there hadn't been much by way of updates on the
case for a long time, and especially considering the unusual
(28:37):
look on his normally kind, serious face. Today he looked excited,
and then he told her they finally had a suspect.
Sorel got the call on May twenty seventh. It was
from an FBI agent down in Houston who'd been combing
(28:59):
through a national database on violent criminals, one in which
Currel had logged the details of Holly and Chris's case.
This agent explained that he wasn't sure if this meant anything,
but he was investigating three murders in Texas and they
all happened right near the railroad tracks. Now, railroad tracks
(29:20):
are a pretty unusual way to connect cases. Normally, investigators
will link cases based on a similar victim profile, a
similar weapon, or that kind of thing. But in this
Texas case, investigators were coming up dry on those counts.
These murders involved different weapons, and they involved apparently random targets,
(29:47):
but the cases shared something, a certain vicious brutality and
a location near train tracks, which had police suspecting that
they were connected. It had them suspecting they had a
serial killer on their hands. December sixteenth, nineteen ninety eight,
(30:17):
doctor Claudia Benton, a pediatric neurological researcher, was beaten to death,
stabbed with a kitchen knife, and sexually assaulted in her
home in a small affluent suburb in Houston. Her husband
and twin daughters were out of town at the time.
(30:38):
They came home to find her face down on the floor,
head in a plastic bag and her upper body covered
in blankets. Evidence showed that after doctor Benton's murder and rape,
her killer went into the kitchen and made himself a snack,
(31:00):
and then he drove away in her jeep. May second,
nineteen ninety nine, a pastor named Norman skip Cernic and
his wife Karen were found dead in their home in Wimer,
a rural community halfway between Houston and San Antonio. They
(31:22):
were both in bed, their heads bashed in with a
sledgehammer taken from their tool shed. Karen had been raped again.
Their attacker drove away in their car. There were fingerprints
and DNA evidence at both scenes. The evidence matched. Both
(31:48):
scenes were also close to railroad tracks. Now the FBI
wanted to see if there might be other victims linked
by those same railroad tracks, that same brutality. They wanted
to check the DNA from Holly's rape kit. Sirell had
said yes, that process was in motion. They were waiting
(32:12):
for results, but for now, Cerel had something for Holly
to look at. Photos. There were photos of the man
who the police suspected committed the murders down in Texas
based on the fingerprints at the Texas crime scenes. He
was a longtime criminal with decades of mugshots. He'd been
(32:35):
in and out of prison for crimes including destroying private property,
grand theft, auto burglary, and aggravated assault. One of his
convicted crimes was beating an eighty year old man nearly
to death during a robbery down in Florida. The elderly
(32:56):
man died a few months later, but investigators couldn't definitively
tie his death to the assault, so they couldn't go
after the perpetrator for murder. Sorel pulled out the pictures
for Holly. Immediately, she knew it was him. She'd never
(33:16):
let herself forget that face, the man who killed Chris,
the man who left her for dead. They knew who
he was. Finally, now they just had to catch him.
(33:37):
That was easier said than done, despite the photos, despite
the fingerprints and the DNA evidence, which ended up definitively
tying Holly's case to the ones down in Texas, by
the way, despite the fact that investigators were starting to
connect more and more cases to this man. He went
(33:58):
by the alias Raphi Resindez Ramirez, and he'd been in
and out of the US since the nineteen seventies, but
his citizenship was Mexican. He'd been deported at least four times,
and he hopped freight trains to get around the country,
which explained the railroad connection between cases. That also meant
(34:24):
he was moving constantly without a license plate or even
a bus ticket purchase to identify him. He was a
hard man to pin down. He could be anywhere in
two countries, anywhere the trains went. Investigators went to the
(34:48):
news to try to get his face out there. He
was featured on the TV program America's Most Wanted. Holly
did an interview for the show, reliving her experience at
the railroad. Once again, she might not be an investigator herself,
but she was part of this fight to find him.
(35:10):
She needed to be. The tips came in, the public
was enraged someone breaking into people's homes, attacking people so
brutally and seemingly randomly. It was both terrifying and heartbreaking.
(35:31):
Holly's personal story helped put a face to all those
victims pain, since none of the rest were around to
speak for themselves, no one else had survived, and then
there were more of them, more victims. June fourth, nineteen
(35:55):
ninety nine, Noemi Dominguez, six year old Houston elementary school teacher,
was sexually assaulted and bludgeoned to death in her apartment.
Her attacker stole her car and drove it about ninety
miles to Schulenberg, a small town not far from Weimar,
(36:18):
where the pastor and his wife were murdered. In Schulenberg,
seventy three year old widow and grandmother of six, Josephine Convica,
was murdered with the same pickaxe used to kill Noemi Dominguez.
The axe was found lodged in Josephine's forehead. Both Noemi
(36:44):
and Josephine lived right near railroad tracks. The DNA from
both their murder scenes matched the DNA from the other attacks,
including Holly's. It seemed that as the nationwide search for
(37:06):
Raphael Rassindez Ramirez accelerated, so did his murder spray. On
June twelfth, investigators got another tip, but this one was
in a suspected sighting. It was a call from someone
(37:27):
who claimed to be the cousin of the killer. He
gave them the address of the killer's sister, Manuela Mattorino Kharkowitz.
Investigators spoke with her on June fourteenth. She said she
would help them find her brother. Now, I'm not sure
(37:51):
what these relatives said to the police on the phone,
but I know that later Racindez Ramirez's relatives would say
they couldn't believe that a member of their family would
perpetuate these crimes when they first saw his name on
the news. Maybe at this point they thought that with
(38:11):
his face all over TV, his best bet for clearing
his name would be to turn himself in. Or maybe
some of them had seen something in him, something they
maybe couldn't have named, but made them suspect maybe he
had committed these crimes, and maybe they were afraid he'd
(38:35):
commit more of them. On June fifteenth, he killed two
more people, this time in Illinois, George Morber, an eighty
year old retired prison guard, and Carolyn Frederick, his adult daughter.
Once again, the killer made himself a snack in his
(38:57):
victim's kitchen, then he drove away in their car. On
June twenty first, the FBI added Raphael Risindez Ramirez to
the ten most Wanted Fugitives list. They posted a one
hundred and twenty five thousand dollars reward for information leading
(39:19):
to his arrest and conviction. Holly prayed that he didn't
come looking for her, his one living victim. Then on
July eleventh, investigators got a call from Manuela, the railroad
killer's sister. She said she'd communicated with her brother through
(39:44):
another relative. He was in Mexico, and he admitted to
it to the whole family, the newspapers, the TV specials.
It was all true. He'd committed these crimes. But Manuela
(40:06):
had more for the police. Her brother was ready to
turn himself in. I'm not sure where that decision came from.
Maybe it was the pressure of the aggressive manhunt and
constant news coverage. Maybe he thought it was inevitable he'd
get caught and he was ready to get it over with.
(40:27):
Or maybe his family convinced him that he had to stop.
Maybe they convinced him to turn himself in. Either way,
it happened on Tuesday, July thirteenth, nineteen ninety nine. It
was morning around nine am. A Texas ranger, a US Marshall,
(40:51):
and an FBI agent stood on the isleta Zaragoza International
Bridge in El Paso, Texas. With them were my Willa
Matarino Kharkowitz and her pastor. Walking towards them from the
other side of the border was a petite man in glasses.
(41:12):
His real name was Anhel Maturino Lucindy's. The Texas ranger,
Drew Carter later told the reporters he stuck out his
hand and I stuck out my hand and we shook hands,
and then I handcuffed him and he was in custody.
(41:35):
Holly watched this unfold on TV, along with the rest
of America and much of the world. This was an
international story. By now. There was relief, there was joy,
but for Holly there was also that pending question of justice.
(41:58):
I want to take a moment in reat rate the
mission of our show again. We want to tell the
greatest true crime stories of all time, and it's important
to us that women not be depicted as only victims,
not because they're not victims, but because they're never just victims.
(42:18):
Holly was a victim here, but she was about to
become a key witness as well, and it wasn't long
before she was on the ground in person, helping the
case once again in Houston, Texas. At the trial, a
(42:45):
reporter asked the prosecutor on Recindis's case to describe Recindi's
Devin Anderson replied this way. I don't understand what makes
somebody do that to people, and I don't really care.
If he's guilty, then I'm going to do everything I
can to prosecute him to the fullest extent that the
(43:05):
law will allow me. The case was a strong one,
particularly considering the large amount of fingerprints and DNA evidence
found in all the crime scenes that DNA concretely connected
Rascindi's to all the murders and Holly's rape. Devin didn't
(43:30):
really need Holly's eyewitness account to bring her man to justice,
but she asked her to come testify anyway. Like any
good prosecutor, Devin knew that part of her job was
to weave the facts of the case into the story
of the case, and Holly Dunn, as the only surviving
(43:54):
victim of Reracindis's crimes, could help tell that story. Could
give the story a face and a heart. Just like
she had on national television helping find the killer, now
she would help bring him to justice. The trial started
(44:25):
in early May two thousand, the same time Holly was
walking across the stage in Lexington to receive her diploma
from the University of Kentucky. She wasn't called to testify
until the twenty second near the end of the trial.
She'd chosen her outfit carefully, a black skirt and suit jacket.
(44:49):
Her family was there with her. Devin Anderson asked her
if she was okay, if she was ready. She could
see the terror in Holly's eyes as holl nodded silently.
Years later, Holly would explain her fear in an interview
with the CBS news show Forty eight Hours.
Speaker 1 (45:12):
I talk about the trial as the hardest day of
my life. What I was most worried about, I think
when I testified, was seeing him again.
Speaker 2 (45:21):
Devin looked at Holly intently that morning, and she understood.
She told Holly to stay calm, and then she told
her not to look at Rscindy's in the courtroom, not
until she told her to once again. Holly nodded. She'd
promised herself lying in the dirt, that he will not
(45:42):
get away with this, and she stood by that promise.
She would not let him get away with this. Devin
was gentle with Holly on the witness stand. Holly remembers
her first question clearly in that same interview with CBS News.
Speaker 1 (46:03):
The first question was what'd you do last weekend? And
so I was, like, I graduated from college. It felt
good for me to be able to say, you know,
I graduated from college in front of the guy who
basically could have ruined my life and destroyed it, and
not that he cared, because I don't think he did.
For me to be able to say, you didn't destroy me.
Speaker 3 (46:24):
I'm still here, I'm still strong, I'm still the.
Speaker 1 (46:27):
Same person I was, it felt good. It felt, you know,
like I finally had my chance.
Speaker 2 (46:34):
From there, answering the questions got harder. Devin asked Holly
about the night at the railroad track. As Holly went
through harrowing detail after detail, she began to cry. The
jurors cried. Even Devon's eyes were listening. Holly kept going,
(46:58):
and then the moment Devon had warned her about. Devon
asked Holly if the man who attacked her was in
the courtroom. She asked Holly to say, for the record
what he was wearing today. Holly finally turned her head.
(47:21):
She pointed at him. By now she was sobbing, but
she gasped out her answer. The white shirt. That was it.
The defense tried to plead not guilty by reason of insanity.
The jurors didn't buy it, an hell. Maturino Rescindi's was guilty,
(47:45):
they said, and he deserved the death penalty. Rescindi's actually
welcomed that punishment over life in prison, and although his
lawyers still fought it with appeals, in the end, on
(48:06):
June twenty seventh, two thousand and six, he was killed
by lethal injection. Holly was invited to be there. She
chose not to attend. She was happy with the punishment,
happy to know that she'd never have to fear Recindis again.
(48:28):
But it was time to put anger, to put violent
death in her past. She had a life to focus on.
Holly married. She has two children now, and even though
justice has been served, Holly done didn't stop at just witnessing.
(48:50):
She turned her trauma into something that would help others.
She speaks about her experience to groups around the country,
sharing information about safety, healing, dealing with trauma, and her
own journey. Devin Anderson, the prosecutor in the Rascindi's case,
said the following to CBS News about Holly's work.
Speaker 4 (49:13):
Holly is a hero because she did not let what
happened to her destroy her. She decided to make it
her reason to live, for her reason to help people.
Speaker 2 (49:26):
Beautifully stated, and I can't wait to share my conversation
with Holly with you right after the break. Holly, thank
(49:57):
you so much for coming to talk to us. It
is so nice to meet you. I'm really excited that
I get to take your ryan a little bit about
all the things you've been doing.
Speaker 3 (50:07):
Thank you. Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 2 (50:10):
Absolutely so, I wanted to start by how did you
go from you know, recovering and then now you are
the advocate? What was that journey like?
Speaker 1 (50:21):
So?
Speaker 3 (50:21):
I was speaking to everybody I could right because I
realized how much talking was part of my healing. So
I mean, I was doing it to anybody that would listen.
I was like, I what groups let me? Who wants
to hear me? You know, like, because I knew I
got power from it. It was like my you know,
I felt healed by doing it. So I was doing
(50:41):
it very often and speaking to anybody that would listen.
And then I had people start say to me, how
can we help you? And I was like, I don't know,
what do you mean?
Speaker 1 (50:51):
You know?
Speaker 3 (50:51):
Like, and then I'm like, in my mind, I'm thinking,
do I need to start a foundation? Should I help
a community organization that already exists? I'm thinking about this right,
It's in my head. And then I get a phone call.
I'm at work one day and I get a phone
call and a guy says, hey, we want to open
an advocacy center and we want to name it after you.
What do you think about that? And of course I'm like,
(51:14):
what's an advocacy center? I had to google it because
I didn't know what it was. And then I was like,
oh my gosh, Like yes, I was like, I'm gonna
have to be more involved if it has my name
on it. But I mean, yes, I'm game and let's
get this going in our city. So we partnered together
to create Holly's House. And I mean it couldn't have
(51:34):
become at a better time because I was seeking out
something to be a part of.
Speaker 2 (51:39):
That's perfect. I love to hear when things actually come
together and you know, people with similar visions and motivations
and goals can can make it work. I love that.
Will you tell our listeners what Holly's House actually is
and does? Sure?
Speaker 3 (51:56):
So, Holly's House is an adult child Advocacy center Evansville, Indiana.
So that's my hometown. And it is a location where
victims of intimate crimes can come to be interviewed. So
they can be interviewed through a multidisciplinary approach where the
victim feels supported and they can tell the story of
(52:16):
the worst thing that ever happened to them and tell
it one time and it's not so traumatizing on them.
But then we also help people get mental health services.
We don't provide those, but we help them get to
the mental health services or support groups or you know,
an advocate, whatever they might need. We can become that
(52:37):
location that we help them find those those healing processes
possibly and then we also do prevention education, so we
teach in the local schools prevention education and we've taught
to over ninety thousand kids. I mean, it is about
prevention as well as helping the victim.
Speaker 2 (52:55):
That's beautiful and I love that you said, like, even
though it doesn't necessarily provide resources, you know how to
get to them, which from what I have heard secondhand
and even like firsthand, right like the it's hard to
find what you need, especially if you don't know what
you need, so it's really that's super helpful.
Speaker 3 (53:15):
Really become overwhelming. I mean, it can be overwhelming to
try to find that for yourself.
Speaker 2 (53:21):
Totally like and immediately too, because you're not just seeking
it like in a totally level state of mind either,
you know, So any small setback is like well done trying,
you know.
Speaker 3 (53:33):
So I always tell the loved ones of people and
anybody that's gone through an experience like I did, or
through sexual assault that kind of thing. I always tell
people that the one thing they can do, because you
have no control over their healing, but the one thing
that a loved one can do is inform yourself about
the resources that are in your community. So know about
(53:54):
the resources that might be available to that loved one
in the community, and then when they do come to
you and say I really need help, You're like, I
know where to call.
Speaker 2 (54:02):
That's actually like part of the next thing I wanted
to ask you about, was.
Speaker 3 (54:07):
It?
Speaker 2 (54:07):
You know, I was really struck by how central family
and your personal support system were to you on your journey,
and so for people struggling through tough experiences on their own,
like what's a good place to start?
Speaker 3 (54:20):
Right? So the truly like that support system that you need,
because you do need someone in your corner, you have
to think sometimes outside the box on who that can be.
So it doesn't have to and it only has to
be one person. It does not have to be a
large support system. If you have one person that believes you,
(54:40):
that listens to you, that lets you talk, and that's
your support system. So it could be you know, a teacher,
a family member, a friend, a pastor, a therapist, it
could be so many different people. That is that person
for you?
Speaker 2 (54:54):
And has there been any surprise person where you're like,
I didn't think that the person who was going to
come through for me.
Speaker 3 (55:02):
It's amazing the people that I've kept in touch with.
I mean, I've kept in touch with the EMT that
rode in the ambulance with me. I've kept in touch
with nurses that took care of me in the hospital.
I've kept in touch with the guy who called nine
one one for me. I mean, those people are all
part of my you know, experience, my attack that happened.
They're all like the aftermath of it, and they were
(55:24):
like my first support system, you know. They were like
the person that called what nine one one for me
was like the first person that did something for me
after this happened. So I mean, those are all still
people that I keep in touch with that those are
all people that I would have never known had this
not happened. And I'm really thankful that they helped me
when I needed it.
Speaker 2 (55:45):
That's awesome. I never I mean I didn't think of
it like that. But so the part too of that
question was let's say, you know, I know someone who
has gone through some kind of trauma and I want
to be helpful, but I don't really know where to start.
Speaker 3 (56:01):
Sometimes not doing anything and like staying away because that's
what we do because we're afraid we're going to say
something wrong. Is the wrong thing to do, right, I
mean the one like I mean, I've had I've gone
through other hard times in my life. And I even
had a friend come to me one time when I
went through something hard and she said, you know, I
have no idea what to say to you, but just
(56:21):
know I'm going to sit here and you can do
whatever you need to do. You can cry, you can laugh.
I'm non judgmental sitting here for you, right, So just
show up a lot of times, that's all you have
to do. Probably the best thing you can do, because
the person probably is going to tell you how you
can help them, or if not at all, you're just
that person that could be their support system that's sitting
(56:42):
there supporting them.
Speaker 2 (56:44):
Is there anything that you want to talk about or
that you want to make sure that people know about.
Speaker 3 (56:48):
I mean, we covered a lot, you know, I work
so much now with victims and with survivors that you know,
I feel like my message is kind of morphed into
just that you can get through anything. I mean that
life is hard, and I mean we all have hard
times in our lives and people come to me all
the time and say, what happened to me isn't like
(57:08):
what happened to you, and I'm like, but it happened
to you and to you this is a big deal,
right and so, I mean we all have stories, we
all have bad things that happen, but we find strength
in each other. We find strength in ourselves when we
think that we have no strength. And I think people
can get through anything. We're resilient. Good things are going
(57:32):
to come. I mean, it always has. That's what's amazing
is that you know, from this horrible day has come
all this good And like, my whole life's mission is
because of this horrible day that happened. But you can't
focus on the bad. You focus on the good and
it I mean, it's just amazing. Once that mindset changes
(57:53):
of you can that you can actually see the good,
it can change your life.
Speaker 2 (57:59):
Wise words from Holly Done, I'm afraid I have a
less inspiring, more terrifying woman coming up for you on
our next episode. Join me next week on the Greatest
true crime Stories Ever told for a story set in
the early days of American crime, when the system for
(58:19):
bringing murderers to justice was in its infancy, but when
your crimes were as flagrant as Amy Archer Gilligan's someone
was bound to catch on eventually. I'd also like to
shout out the source which made it possible to tell
this story, Holly Dunn's memoir Sole Survivor. I highly recommend
(58:42):
you check it out, as there are so many parts
of Holly's incredible story that I just didn't have time
to get into. I'd also like to shout out the
CBS News forty eight Hours episode on Holly's story, on
which Holly and others involved in the case given credible
interviews as well. For more information about this case and
(59:04):
other cases we cover on the show, visit Diversion Audio
dot com. Sign up for Diversion's newsletter and be among
the first to hear about our special behind the scenes
features with the hosts and actors from Diversion's podcasts, more
shows you'll love from Diversion and our partners, and other
exclusive tidbits you can't get anywhere else. That's Diversionaudio dot
(59:27):
Com to sign up for the newsletter. The Greatest True
Crime Stories Ever Told is a production of Diversion Audio.
Your host is me Mary Kay mcbraer. This episode was
written by our editorial director, Nora Battel. Our show is
produced and directed by Mark Francis. Our development team is
(59:49):
Emma Dmouth and Jacob Bronstein. Theme music by Tyler Cash.
Executive producers Jacob Bronstein, Mark Francis and Scott Waxman.
Speaker 1 (01:00:09):
Diversion Audio
Speaker 2 (01:00:14):
M HM
Diversion audio.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
A note this episode contains mature content and descriptions of
violence that may be disturbing for some listeners. Please take
care and listening. Holly Dunn had been asking for a
mirror for days, and no one would give her one.
(00:37):
The last time she'd looked at herself, she was home
at the Kappa Sorority house, brushing her long blonde hair
and putting in her little silver hoops that felt like
a lifetime ago. She needed to see her face. Sister
(01:00):
Heather finally caved. She gave Holly a tiny, compact mirror,
the kind meant for applying blush or powder, the kind
that only lets you see one part of your face
at a time. Holly stared into the little piece of glass.
(01:22):
There was a girl looking back at her, but all
she could think was, how is that my face? Her
skin was bruised and scratched, etched with lines of dried blood.
Everything looked misshapen and strange, especially around the left eye socket,
(01:47):
which was so swollen she couldn't open her eye. It
wasn't her face, except it was. Someone had done this
to her, attacked her, violated her, He tried to kill her,
(02:09):
but Holly was still alive, and she wasn't going to
let him win. Welcome to the greatest true crime stories
(02:34):
ever told. I'm Mary Kay McBrayer. I'm a writer of
true crime. I'm constantly reading about crime, but I'm not
necessarily interested in the parts of the stories that make headlines.
Those tend to be bloody, dramatic moments. I'm more interested
in the people behind these moments and what we can
(02:54):
learn about society by looking at their experiences. That's what
I explore here. Every week. I dig into crimes where
a woman is not just a victim. She might be
the detective, the lawyer, the witness, the coroner, the criminal, or,
(03:15):
in the case of Holly, done a combination of those roles.
As you probably already know, women can do anything. Today's
episode we're calling I Survived a Serial Killer. It's about
a woman named Holly Dunn, who is the only known
(03:36):
survivor of the brutal, bloody crimes of the so called
Railroad Killer. You'll get to hear my conversation with Holly
herself at the end of this episode, but Holly's story
is also about what she did when she survived, how
she found strength, power, and how she showed up for
(03:59):
the showdown. Part of my college orientation was on how
(04:35):
to avoid predators. I'm not even joking. Upperclassmen put on
a skit of how to make sure no one slips
roofies in your solo cup, how to know if someone
was actually using a condom, what to do if you
wake up somewhere you've never seen before, where the emergency
outposts were on campus just in case. I remember thinking
(04:58):
at the time, Yes, this is good advice. I'm so
glad they told me, or I'd never have known any
of this. And then a few hours after the meeting,
I remember asking myself, why is it my job to
avoid horrible people? How is that fair? The answer is
it's not fair. The answer is sometimes you can't avoid predators,
(05:20):
and frankly, no one should have to, but we do
have to. Holly Dunn was from an affluent Indiana family,
(06:02):
but she wasn't from the kind of blue blooded privilege
that was dissociated from reality. The Duns had faced more
than their fair share of tragedy. Two of Holly's half siblings,
children from her father's first marriage, died young, one from
childhood pneumonia, the other Holly's adored big brother, Michael, died
(06:25):
in a car crash at age twenty three, but the
Duns were resilient. They leaned on one another and on
their church for support. Holly and her sister Heather were
extremely close. It was bittersweet for Holly to pack up
for college at the University of Kentucky in the autumn
of nineteen ninety five, but she knew she wouldn't be
(06:48):
gone for long. After her studies, she planned to come
right back into the fold and join her father's hotel business.
As it turned out, Holly loved college. She loved her
Kappa Kappa Gamma sisters, and as an outgoing, fun loving kid,
she appreciated the social intensity of the college experience. The
(07:11):
summer after her junior year, she decided to stay in
Lexington and take a couple of extra courses. I don't
know about y'all, but when I took summer courses, well,
they were the best. Typically, you had one class for
three hours, five days a week for a month, and
the rest of your time was just yours. During that
(07:33):
summer chill time is when Holly met a tall, sweet
kid named Christopher Meyer. It was a hot summer night
she was at a neighborhood bar with her girlfriend, celebrating
her friend's twenty first birthday and wearing silvernl polish. Years later,
she'd remember the line Christopher used when he walked up
(07:54):
to her. She recorded it in her memoir Sole Survivor
out his own sandaled foot and said, I have on
Silvertonel polish too. He was the kind of hippie dude
who did things like that, wear an ale polish, a
hemp necklace, the works, and Holly dug it. They spent
(08:15):
the whole night talking. She invited him and his friends
to the birthday party her girlfriends were throwing the next night,
and he showed up. Remember that feeling when you're young
and you have a crush and the crush likes you back.
You feel like you're the first people in the world
to ever have so much in common and everything they
(08:37):
say is interesting. That's how it was for Holly and Chris.
His family was Catholic like hers, He was in Greek
life just like her fi cap of Psi. They both
had beloved older sisters, but there was that sense of
newness too. That's such a special part of a crush.
(09:01):
Chris introduced Holly to his hippie leaning interest like sketching, camping,
and jam bands, and that was all new to Holly.
He even liked to walk around barefoot. She was completely
charmed when he gave her a glittery purple daisy ring.
It was a perfect summer and then it was ending
(09:22):
time for real school time for senior year. Holly was excited.
Classes started Wednesday, August twenty seventh, nineteen ninety seven. On Thursday,
August twenty eighth, she had a date with Chris to
attend an off campus five SI party. She felt happy
(09:44):
anticipation as she put on her favorite new brown corduroy
pants in her room at the sorority house, slipped into
her favorite Birkenstock clogs, and adjusted that silly daisy ring
on her hand. It stood out among her usual silver
a pair of little hoop earrings with a finishing touch.
(10:07):
Chris pulled up in his issue as a trooper Hello
nineteen ninety seven, popped out of the top of the
car with a microphone and shouted for all the sorority
sisters to hear. Holly done, come out, It's time to go.
Holly laughed out loud, feeling special. This boy was pronouncing
for all the world, literally on a loud speaker, that
(10:30):
he wanted her with him, that he liked her just
as much as she liked him. She ran downstairs, and
then the night began. The party was a little bit boring.
There was a keg and plenty of people, but the
energy was low. I'm guessing everyone was wasted and full
(10:51):
on too much beer. After a couple hours, Holly, Chris,
and two of Chris's buddies left. They headed down the
street suburban corps to the nearby train tracks. They had
a few beers with them. They were talking, joking around,
but all Holly and Chris really wanted to do was
talk to each other. Chris's buddies felt it after a
(11:13):
while they they'd better leave the couple alone. To their
lovey devy whispers. They were off to find some more beer.
Chris and Holly stayed, settling in for another of their
endless chats atop a grassy mound next to the tracks.
It was dark and quiet. Trains didn't seem to be
(11:33):
passing tonight, but they barely noticed where they were they
were so wrapped up in each other. Chris talked about music,
about his recent trip out to Maine for a big
Fish concert. Typical college student rhapsodies, but Holly never forgot
this conversation. Holly felt present with Chris, right there, right
(11:56):
where they were. But eventually they came out of the trance,
glancing around and remembering that it was late. It was
really dark now, the kind that's all inky shadows. They
should head back. They walked down the train tracks, hand
(12:21):
in hand, arms swinging back towards suburban court, back towards
the party, their friends and Chris's carr but they didn't
get far. A man stepped out of the bushes in
(12:41):
front of them, inches in front of them. Even that
close in the dark, it was hard to see his
features clearly, but Hollywood never forget anything about this night.
She could see he was sure much shorter than six
(13:02):
foot five Chris, and probably a couple inches shorter than Holly,
who was five foot eight. He had a medium, wiry build,
tan skin, wavy dark hair, dark square framed glasses. She
and Chris stepped back in surprise, and he asked them
(13:24):
where their friends went. Immediately, Holly felt nervous. If this
guy knew they'd been with friends, he'd been watching them
for a long time. He muttered, give me your money.
(13:45):
Chris stepped in front of her, saying calmly that they
didn't have any. Holly cracked a nervous joke about being
broke college kids, but the man barely seemed to hear them.
He just told them to get on their knees. Before
(14:17):
I jump back into what happened that night at the
railroad tracks, I'm gonna pause for a minute and give
you the chance to skip ahead if you need to
to be frank. This next part is the part the
content warning warns you about, but it is important, so
walk through it with me if you can. Back to
(14:42):
the railroad tracks on August twenty eighth, nineteen ninety seven,
just blocks from the Phi Kapa PSI party, the stranger
in front of Holly and Chris ordered them to their knees.
They stood frozen. Then he was yanking Chris down by
the arm. Chris was larger, He could have fought back,
(15:07):
but he was a gentle kid. He wasn't going to
escalate the situation. You were never supposed to escalate a mugging.
That was how it got dangerous. Chris knelt on the
rocky tracks, letting the man pull off his backpack. Holly
did what he did, kneeling beside him. But that's when
(15:32):
Holly noticed something something in this stranger's hand. It was sharp,
maybe an ice pick or a screwdriver. Chris and Holly
both seemed to realize the intensity of the situation at
the same time. They started talking fast. They told the
(15:53):
man to take their ATM cards, credit cards, Chris's car keys,
whatever he wanted, but once again he didn't really seem
to be listening. Instead, without taking anything out of the backpack,
he walked behind Chris. He tied the straps around Chris's arms,
(16:15):
minding them in a web of nylon. Then he walked
towards Holly. He reached toward her waist. Chris started pleading
with him, begging him not to hurt her. The man
snarled back, commanding him to shut up and stop looking
at him. Then he grabbed Holly's belt, unbuckled it, pulled
(16:41):
it out of her belt loops, and used it to
tie up her arms. Holly and Chris kept talking, kept pleading,
but by now they knew this was not a mugging.
The man dragged Chris across rocks and glass into the
ditch beside the tracks. Holly scrambled after them on her knees.
(17:07):
She didn't want to be dragged. Next, he told them
he had a gun and his friend was nearby. He left. Briefly,
they heard the sound of ripping cloth. Holly was trying
to get the leather binding off her arms. She whispered
with Chris. Then the man was back, tying their legs
(17:28):
with new bindings, gagging them. Holly stuck out her tongue
as he did so, so it would be loose enough
to fall off. It did. After that, she finally got
her arms out of the belt. She kept them behind
her back so he wouldn't see. The man left again
(17:52):
and again he seemed jittery pacing. He only walked away
for a few moments at a time, but Holly used
the moments he turned his back, she moved closer to Chris.
She pulled off his gag. She tried to untie his
arms from their effective bindings. He urged her to run.
(18:15):
She said she wouldn't and put her arms behind her
back again. As the man turned towards them once more,
he didn't seem to notice them getting closer, or Holly's
loose arms every time he approached them, he just talked.
He demanded that they stop looking at him, kept saying
(18:37):
he had a gun, repeated that his friend was waiting nearby,
and then paced. He couldn't keep still, like he was
trying to decide what was next. Chris begged him not
to hurt Holly told him do whatever you want to me,
but please just let her go. Holly thought to herself,
(19:01):
I'm gonna remember your face, your scars, your tattoos, and
I'm not going to forget because if I live through this,
I will get you. The man walked away. Chris said
to Holly, stay calm, everything is going to be okay.
She'd think about those words many many times, because when
(19:25):
the man came back next, he moved more slowly. He
was carrying something large and heavy, clearly struggling under the weight.
He held it over Chris, who was lying face down
in the underbrush, and then he dropped it. The sound
(19:48):
it made it seemed to never stop in Holly's mind.
The man dropped that massive object again and again and again.
Later she learned he actually only dropped it once. That
was all it took. The repetition was in her own
(20:08):
mind repeating that horrible sound. Chris was gone. Holly started
to pray like she might die. Instead of killing her,
the man grabbed her and untied her legs, not seeming
to care that her arms were already untied. He had
(20:30):
the weapons, after all, that sharp pick, and as far
as Holly knew, a gun, he had the power. He
raped her. She tried to dissociate. Still, she dug her
hands into the dirt, ripping off her fingernails. She would
leave as much DNA as she could for the police.
(20:51):
She knew even then that whatever happened to her, he
couldn't get away with it. For now. That meant doing
what she could to make him see her as human,
so that maybe he'd let her live. Marvel with me
for a second at Holly's presence of mind. Amazing really.
(21:17):
She told him her name was Megan. She asked his name.
He said James Whitford, Whitby something like that. She said,
please don't kill me. He said he wouldn't. When he finished,
she asked if he would please pull up her pants.
He did. Maybe he was telling the truth, Maybe he
(21:52):
wouldn't kill her. She told him she'd never breathe a
word of this to anyone if you let her go.
He reached down to tug at her earring. It wouldn't
come out. She told him how to undo the latch.
He took a ring from her hand too, not the
(22:12):
daisy ring that she'd realize later was gone forever, somewhere
in the rocks and dirt of those train tracks. Then
he covered her and Chris with leaves and twigs, and
then she couldn't remember anything else. Holly had no idea
(22:33):
how long had passed. When she regained consciousness, she was
covered in blood. Everything felt like it was coming apart.
She would eventually learn she had a broken eye socket
and a crackjaw and skull. Her body was black and blue.
He thought he'd killed her somehow. She stumbled down the
(22:58):
tracks toward a house, knocked on the door. The college
kid inside laid her on his couch, called an ambulance.
Thought she wouldn't make it, tried to keep her awake
until the paramedics arrived so she might survive. She kept repeating,
my friend is out there. If she was alive, maybe
(23:21):
Chris was alive too. At the hospital, a nurse asked
her if she wanted to take emergency contraception, Yes she did.
They did the rape kit, which is a term you
hear a lot but maybe can't visualize exactly what it means.
(23:42):
It's a medical exam, but it's focused on collecting DNA
that might identify a sexual attacker. So it involves swabs
of the mouth, vagina, under the fingernails, anywhere there might
be DNA evidence. It also involves collecting guards that might
have that kind of evidence too, like underwear, and sometimes
(24:05):
the medical professionals take photos to document injuries. It'll look
a little different depending on what the assault looked like,
but it's never fun. Holly knew she needed to get
through it because this man's DNA was all over her,
and a rape kit would be the first step in
(24:28):
identifying him and bringing him to justice. She was still
thinking about that promise she'd made to herself out on
the tracks. He wouldn't get away with this. As the
hospital staff wrapped up the exam, they assured Holly they'd
(24:48):
gotten what they needed. They also told her that she
had no fatal injuries. There was a lot of blood
and a lot of pain. The man had beaten her
unconscious after he raped her, and her body showed the marks,
but she would live again. The presence of mind she had.
(25:10):
I mean, I follow true crime, and I know some
of the things you're supposed to do, But knowing you
should do it and actually doing it in the moment
are two different things, and she did both. A quick
reminder that I get the chance to talk to Holly
at the end of this episode, so stay tuned for that.
(25:31):
But first, back to nineteen ninety seven. The months of
physical recovery were obviously extremely difficult. There were so many
physical marks of what had happened. Holly's mouth was wired
shut for weeks while her jaw healed. Thank God, she
had incredible support from her family. Her sister and parents
(25:55):
flew out to Lexington the second they got the news.
Her sororities were at the hospital every day too. At
one point, sixteen of them packed into the little space,
crowded around the bed and told Holly the kind of light,
fun stories of college life that made her feel like
her old self for a little while at least. And
(26:18):
the detective on the case, Detective Craig Currel, was as
gentle as he could be when it came to taking
her statement. He told her they could stop at any
time that he could walk down the hall, come back later,
give her whatever space she needed. But Holly wanted to
(26:41):
answer Crell's questions. She wanted to give him every detail
she possibly could, even if that meant reliving that unfathomably
horrible night. More than anything, she wanted justice. Thing is,
(27:01):
as the weeks dragged into months, despite the dedication of
the Lexington Police Department, in especially Detective Surrell, there was
no progress on finding the attacker, not before he killed again.
(27:33):
It was May of nineteen ninety nine, close to two
years after the attack on Holly done. Holly had started
the long, hard process of rebuilding her life after unimaginable trauma.
She left school and then come back. She joined a
(27:53):
support group for rape survivors and spent time exploring and
deepening her faith. But she still slept with the biggest
kitchen knife under her pillow because he was still out there.
That's when Detective Craig Serel knocked on Holly's Lexington apartment door.
(28:15):
They'd built up a close relationship by now. He'd take
her out for lunch and a chat and keep her
apprised of the work he was doing on the case.
But still the unannounced visit was a surprise, especially considering
there hadn't been much by way of updates on the
case for a long time, and especially considering the unusual
(28:37):
look on his normally kind, serious face. Today he looked excited,
and then he told her they finally had a suspect.
Sorel got the call on May twenty seventh. It was
from an FBI agent down in Houston who'd been combing
(28:59):
through a national database on violent criminals, one in which
Currel had logged the details of Holly and Chris's case.
This agent explained that he wasn't sure if this meant anything,
but he was investigating three murders in Texas and they
all happened right near the railroad tracks. Now, railroad tracks
(29:20):
are a pretty unusual way to connect cases. Normally, investigators
will link cases based on a similar victim profile, a
similar weapon, or that kind of thing. But in this
Texas case, investigators were coming up dry on those counts.
These murders involved different weapons, and they involved apparently random targets,
(29:47):
but the cases shared something, a certain vicious brutality and
a location near train tracks, which had police suspecting that
they were connected. It had them suspecting they had a
serial killer on their hands. December sixteenth, nineteen ninety eight,
(30:17):
doctor Claudia Benton, a pediatric neurological researcher, was beaten to death,
stabbed with a kitchen knife, and sexually assaulted in her
home in a small affluent suburb in Houston. Her husband
and twin daughters were out of town at the time.
(30:38):
They came home to find her face down on the floor,
head in a plastic bag and her upper body covered
in blankets. Evidence showed that after doctor Benton's murder and rape,
her killer went into the kitchen and made himself a snack,
(31:00):
and then he drove away in her jeep. May second,
nineteen ninety nine, a pastor named Norman skip Cernic and
his wife Karen were found dead in their home in Wimer,
a rural community halfway between Houston and San Antonio. They
(31:22):
were both in bed, their heads bashed in with a
sledgehammer taken from their tool shed. Karen had been raped again.
Their attacker drove away in their car. There were fingerprints
and DNA evidence at both scenes. The evidence matched. Both
(31:48):
scenes were also close to railroad tracks. Now the FBI
wanted to see if there might be other victims linked
by those same railroad tracks, that same brutality. They wanted
to check the DNA from Holly's rape kit. Sirell had
said yes, that process was in motion. They were waiting
(32:12):
for results, but for now, Cerel had something for Holly
to look at. Photos. There were photos of the man
who the police suspected committed the murders down in Texas
based on the fingerprints at the Texas crime scenes. He
was a longtime criminal with decades of mugshots. He'd been
(32:35):
in and out of prison for crimes including destroying private property,
grand theft, auto burglary, and aggravated assault. One of his
convicted crimes was beating an eighty year old man nearly
to death during a robbery down in Florida. The elderly
(32:56):
man died a few months later, but investigators couldn't definitively
tie his death to the assault, so they couldn't go
after the perpetrator for murder. Sorel pulled out the pictures
for Holly. Immediately, she knew it was him. She'd never
(33:16):
let herself forget that face, the man who killed Chris,
the man who left her for dead. They knew who
he was. Finally, now they just had to catch him.
(33:37):
That was easier said than done, despite the photos, despite
the fingerprints and the DNA evidence, which ended up definitively
tying Holly's case to the ones down in Texas, by
the way, despite the fact that investigators were starting to
connect more and more cases to this man. He went
(33:58):
by the alias Raphi Resindez Ramirez, and he'd been in
and out of the US since the nineteen seventies, but
his citizenship was Mexican. He'd been deported at least four times,
and he hopped freight trains to get around the country,
which explained the railroad connection between cases. That also meant
(34:24):
he was moving constantly without a license plate or even
a bus ticket purchase to identify him. He was a
hard man to pin down. He could be anywhere in
two countries, anywhere the trains went. Investigators went to the
(34:48):
news to try to get his face out there. He
was featured on the TV program America's Most Wanted. Holly
did an interview for the show, reliving her experience at
the railroad. Once again, she might not be an investigator herself,
but she was part of this fight to find him.
(35:10):
She needed to be. The tips came in, the public
was enraged someone breaking into people's homes, attacking people so
brutally and seemingly randomly. It was both terrifying and heartbreaking.
(35:31):
Holly's personal story helped put a face to all those
victims pain, since none of the rest were around to
speak for themselves, no one else had survived, and then
there were more of them, more victims. June fourth, nineteen
(35:55):
ninety nine, Noemi Dominguez, six year old Houston elementary school teacher,
was sexually assaulted and bludgeoned to death in her apartment.
Her attacker stole her car and drove it about ninety
miles to Schulenberg, a small town not far from Weimar,
(36:18):
where the pastor and his wife were murdered. In Schulenberg,
seventy three year old widow and grandmother of six, Josephine Convica,
was murdered with the same pickaxe used to kill Noemi Dominguez.
The axe was found lodged in Josephine's forehead. Both Noemi
(36:44):
and Josephine lived right near railroad tracks. The DNA from
both their murder scenes matched the DNA from the other attacks,
including Holly's. It seemed that as the nationwide search for
(37:06):
Raphael Rassindez Ramirez accelerated, so did his murder spray. On
June twelfth, investigators got another tip, but this one was
in a suspected sighting. It was a call from someone
(37:27):
who claimed to be the cousin of the killer. He
gave them the address of the killer's sister, Manuela Mattorino Kharkowitz.
Investigators spoke with her on June fourteenth. She said she
would help them find her brother. Now, I'm not sure
(37:51):
what these relatives said to the police on the phone,
but I know that later Racindez Ramirez's relatives would say
they couldn't believe that a member of their family would
perpetuate these crimes when they first saw his name on
the news. Maybe at this point they thought that with
(38:11):
his face all over TV, his best bet for clearing
his name would be to turn himself in. Or maybe
some of them had seen something in him, something they
maybe couldn't have named, but made them suspect maybe he
had committed these crimes, and maybe they were afraid he'd
(38:35):
commit more of them. On June fifteenth, he killed two
more people, this time in Illinois, George Morber, an eighty
year old retired prison guard, and Carolyn Frederick, his adult daughter.
Once again, the killer made himself a snack in his
(38:57):
victim's kitchen, then he drove away in their car. On
June twenty first, the FBI added Raphael Risindez Ramirez to
the ten most Wanted Fugitives list. They posted a one
hundred and twenty five thousand dollars reward for information leading
(39:19):
to his arrest and conviction. Holly prayed that he didn't
come looking for her, his one living victim. Then on
July eleventh, investigators got a call from Manuela, the railroad
killer's sister. She said she'd communicated with her brother through
(39:44):
another relative. He was in Mexico, and he admitted to
it to the whole family, the newspapers, the TV specials.
It was all true. He'd committed these crimes. But Manuela
(40:06):
had more for the police. Her brother was ready to
turn himself in. I'm not sure where that decision came from.
Maybe it was the pressure of the aggressive manhunt and
constant news coverage. Maybe he thought it was inevitable he'd
get caught and he was ready to get it over with.
(40:27):
Or maybe his family convinced him that he had to stop.
Maybe they convinced him to turn himself in. Either way,
it happened on Tuesday, July thirteenth, nineteen ninety nine. It
was morning around nine am. A Texas ranger, a US Marshall,
(40:51):
and an FBI agent stood on the isleta Zaragoza International
Bridge in El Paso, Texas. With them were my Willa
Matarino Kharkowitz and her pastor. Walking towards them from the
other side of the border was a petite man in glasses.
(41:12):
His real name was Anhel Maturino Lucindy's. The Texas ranger,
Drew Carter later told the reporters he stuck out his
hand and I stuck out my hand and we shook hands,
and then I handcuffed him and he was in custody.
(41:35):
Holly watched this unfold on TV, along with the rest
of America and much of the world. This was an
international story. By now. There was relief, there was joy,
but for Holly there was also that pending question of justice.
(41:58):
I want to take a moment in reat rate the
mission of our show again. We want to tell the
greatest true crime stories of all time, and it's important
to us that women not be depicted as only victims,
not because they're not victims, but because they're never just victims.
(42:18):
Holly was a victim here, but she was about to
become a key witness as well, and it wasn't long
before she was on the ground in person, helping the
case once again in Houston, Texas. At the trial, a
(42:45):
reporter asked the prosecutor on Recindis's case to describe Recindi's
Devin Anderson replied this way. I don't understand what makes
somebody do that to people, and I don't really care.
If he's guilty, then I'm going to do everything I
can to prosecute him to the fullest extent that the
(43:05):
law will allow me. The case was a strong one,
particularly considering the large amount of fingerprints and DNA evidence
found in all the crime scenes that DNA concretely connected
Rascindi's to all the murders and Holly's rape. Devin didn't
(43:30):
really need Holly's eyewitness account to bring her man to justice,
but she asked her to come testify anyway. Like any
good prosecutor, Devin knew that part of her job was
to weave the facts of the case into the story
of the case, and Holly Dunn, as the only surviving
(43:54):
victim of Reracindis's crimes, could help tell that story. Could
give the story a face and a heart. Just like
she had on national television helping find the killer, now
she would help bring him to justice. The trial started
(44:25):
in early May two thousand, the same time Holly was
walking across the stage in Lexington to receive her diploma
from the University of Kentucky. She wasn't called to testify
until the twenty second near the end of the trial.
She'd chosen her outfit carefully, a black skirt and suit jacket.
(44:49):
Her family was there with her. Devin Anderson asked her
if she was okay, if she was ready. She could
see the terror in Holly's eyes as holl nodded silently.
Years later, Holly would explain her fear in an interview
with the CBS news show Forty eight Hours.
Speaker 1 (45:12):
I talk about the trial as the hardest day of
my life. What I was most worried about, I think
when I testified, was seeing him again.
Speaker 2 (45:21):
Devin looked at Holly intently that morning, and she understood.
She told Holly to stay calm, and then she told
her not to look at Rscindy's in the courtroom, not
until she told her to once again. Holly nodded. She'd
promised herself lying in the dirt, that he will not
(45:42):
get away with this, and she stood by that promise.
She would not let him get away with this. Devin
was gentle with Holly on the witness stand. Holly remembers
her first question clearly in that same interview with CBS News.
Speaker 1 (46:03):
The first question was what'd you do last weekend? And
so I was, like, I graduated from college. It felt
good for me to be able to say, you know,
I graduated from college in front of the guy who
basically could have ruined my life and destroyed it, and
not that he cared, because I don't think he did.
For me to be able to say, you didn't destroy me.
Speaker 3 (46:24):
I'm still here, I'm still strong, I'm still the.
Speaker 1 (46:27):
Same person I was, it felt good. It felt, you know,
like I finally had my chance.
Speaker 2 (46:34):
From there, answering the questions got harder. Devin asked Holly
about the night at the railroad track. As Holly went
through harrowing detail after detail, she began to cry. The
jurors cried. Even Devon's eyes were listening. Holly kept going,
(46:58):
and then the moment Devon had warned her about. Devon
asked Holly if the man who attacked her was in
the courtroom. She asked Holly to say, for the record
what he was wearing today. Holly finally turned her head.
(47:21):
She pointed at him. By now she was sobbing, but
she gasped out her answer. The white shirt. That was it.
The defense tried to plead not guilty by reason of insanity.
The jurors didn't buy it, an hell. Maturino Rescindi's was guilty,
(47:45):
they said, and he deserved the death penalty. Rescindi's actually
welcomed that punishment over life in prison, and although his
lawyers still fought it with appeals, in the end, on
(48:06):
June twenty seventh, two thousand and six, he was killed
by lethal injection. Holly was invited to be there. She
chose not to attend. She was happy with the punishment,
happy to know that she'd never have to fear Recindis again.
(48:28):
But it was time to put anger, to put violent
death in her past. She had a life to focus on.
Holly married. She has two children now, and even though
justice has been served, Holly done didn't stop at just witnessing.
(48:50):
She turned her trauma into something that would help others.
She speaks about her experience to groups around the country,
sharing information about safety, healing, dealing with trauma, and her
own journey. Devin Anderson, the prosecutor in the Rascindi's case,
said the following to CBS News about Holly's work.
Speaker 4 (49:13):
Holly is a hero because she did not let what
happened to her destroy her. She decided to make it
her reason to live, for her reason to help people.
Speaker 2 (49:26):
Beautifully stated, and I can't wait to share my conversation
with Holly with you right after the break. Holly, thank
(49:57):
you so much for coming to talk to us. It
is so nice to meet you. I'm really excited that
I get to take your ryan a little bit about
all the things you've been doing.
Speaker 3 (50:07):
Thank you. Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 2 (50:10):
Absolutely so, I wanted to start by how did you
go from you know, recovering and then now you are
the advocate? What was that journey like?
Speaker 1 (50:21):
So?
Speaker 3 (50:21):
I was speaking to everybody I could right because I
realized how much talking was part of my healing. So
I mean, I was doing it to anybody that would listen.
I was like, I what groups let me? Who wants
to hear me? You know, like, because I knew I
got power from it. It was like my you know,
I felt healed by doing it. So I was doing
(50:41):
it very often and speaking to anybody that would listen.
And then I had people start say to me, how
can we help you? And I was like, I don't know,
what do you mean?
Speaker 1 (50:51):
You know?
Speaker 3 (50:51):
Like, and then I'm like, in my mind, I'm thinking,
do I need to start a foundation? Should I help
a community organization that already exists? I'm thinking about this right,
It's in my head. And then I get a phone call.
I'm at work one day and I get a phone
call and a guy says, hey, we want to open
an advocacy center and we want to name it after you.
What do you think about that? And of course I'm like,
(51:14):
what's an advocacy center? I had to google it because
I didn't know what it was. And then I was like,
oh my gosh, Like yes, I was like, I'm gonna
have to be more involved if it has my name
on it. But I mean, yes, I'm game and let's
get this going in our city. So we partnered together
to create Holly's House. And I mean it couldn't have
(51:34):
become at a better time because I was seeking out
something to be a part of.
Speaker 2 (51:39):
That's perfect. I love to hear when things actually come
together and you know, people with similar visions and motivations
and goals can can make it work. I love that.
Will you tell our listeners what Holly's House actually is
and does? Sure?
Speaker 3 (51:56):
So, Holly's House is an adult child Advocacy center Evansville, Indiana.
So that's my hometown. And it is a location where
victims of intimate crimes can come to be interviewed. So
they can be interviewed through a multidisciplinary approach where the
victim feels supported and they can tell the story of
(52:16):
the worst thing that ever happened to them and tell
it one time and it's not so traumatizing on them.
But then we also help people get mental health services.
We don't provide those, but we help them get to
the mental health services or support groups or you know,
an advocate, whatever they might need. We can become that
(52:37):
location that we help them find those those healing processes
possibly and then we also do prevention education, so we
teach in the local schools prevention education and we've taught
to over ninety thousand kids. I mean, it is about
prevention as well as helping the victim.
Speaker 2 (52:55):
That's beautiful and I love that you said, like, even
though it doesn't necessarily provide resources, you know how to
get to them, which from what I have heard secondhand
and even like firsthand, right like the it's hard to
find what you need, especially if you don't know what
you need, so it's really that's super helpful.
Speaker 3 (53:15):
Really become overwhelming. I mean, it can be overwhelming to
try to find that for yourself.
Speaker 2 (53:21):
Totally like and immediately too, because you're not just seeking
it like in a totally level state of mind either,
you know, So any small setback is like well done trying,
you know.
Speaker 3 (53:33):
So I always tell the loved ones of people and
anybody that's gone through an experience like I did, or
through sexual assault that kind of thing. I always tell
people that the one thing they can do, because you
have no control over their healing, but the one thing
that a loved one can do is inform yourself about
the resources that are in your community. So know about
(53:54):
the resources that might be available to that loved one
in the community, and then when they do come to
you and say I really need help, You're like, I
know where to call.
Speaker 2 (54:02):
That's actually like part of the next thing I wanted
to ask you about, was.
Speaker 3 (54:07):
It?
Speaker 2 (54:07):
You know, I was really struck by how central family
and your personal support system were to you on your journey,
and so for people struggling through tough experiences on their own,
like what's a good place to start?
Speaker 3 (54:20):
Right? So the truly like that support system that you need,
because you do need someone in your corner, you have
to think sometimes outside the box on who that can be.
So it doesn't have to and it only has to
be one person. It does not have to be a
large support system. If you have one person that believes you,
(54:40):
that listens to you, that lets you talk, and that's
your support system. So it could be you know, a teacher,
a family member, a friend, a pastor, a therapist, it
could be so many different people. That is that person
for you?
Speaker 2 (54:54):
And has there been any surprise person where you're like,
I didn't think that the person who was going to
come through for me.
Speaker 3 (55:02):
It's amazing the people that I've kept in touch with.
I mean, I've kept in touch with the EMT that
rode in the ambulance with me. I've kept in touch
with nurses that took care of me in the hospital.
I've kept in touch with the guy who called nine
one one for me. I mean, those people are all
part of my you know, experience, my attack that happened.
They're all like the aftermath of it, and they were
(55:24):
like my first support system, you know. They were like
the person that called what nine one one for me
was like the first person that did something for me
after this happened. So I mean, those are all still
people that I keep in touch with that those are
all people that I would have never known had this
not happened. And I'm really thankful that they helped me
when I needed it.
Speaker 2 (55:45):
That's awesome. I never I mean I didn't think of
it like that. But so the part too of that
question was let's say, you know, I know someone who
has gone through some kind of trauma and I want
to be helpful, but I don't really know where to start.
Speaker 3 (56:01):
Sometimes not doing anything and like staying away because that's
what we do because we're afraid we're going to say
something wrong. Is the wrong thing to do, right, I
mean the one like I mean, I've had I've gone
through other hard times in my life. And I even
had a friend come to me one time when I
went through something hard and she said, you know, I
have no idea what to say to you, but just
(56:21):
know I'm going to sit here and you can do
whatever you need to do. You can cry, you can laugh.
I'm non judgmental sitting here for you, right, So just
show up a lot of times, that's all you have
to do. Probably the best thing you can do, because
the person probably is going to tell you how you
can help them, or if not at all, you're just
that person that could be their support system that's sitting
(56:42):
there supporting them.
Speaker 2 (56:44):
Is there anything that you want to talk about or
that you want to make sure that people know about.
Speaker 3 (56:48):
I mean, we covered a lot, you know, I work
so much now with victims and with survivors that you know,
I feel like my message is kind of morphed into
just that you can get through anything. I mean that
life is hard, and I mean we all have hard
times in our lives and people come to me all
the time and say, what happened to me isn't like
(57:08):
what happened to you, and I'm like, but it happened
to you and to you this is a big deal,
right and so, I mean we all have stories, we
all have bad things that happen, but we find strength
in each other. We find strength in ourselves when we
think that we have no strength. And I think people
can get through anything. We're resilient. Good things are going
(57:32):
to come. I mean, it always has. That's what's amazing
is that you know, from this horrible day has come
all this good And like, my whole life's mission is
because of this horrible day that happened. But you can't
focus on the bad. You focus on the good and
it I mean, it's just amazing. Once that mindset changes
(57:53):
of you can that you can actually see the good,
it can change your life.
Speaker 2 (57:59):
Wise words from Holly Done, I'm afraid I have a
less inspiring, more terrifying woman coming up for you on
our next episode. Join me next week on the Greatest
true crime Stories Ever told for a story set in
the early days of American crime, when the system for
(58:19):
bringing murderers to justice was in its infancy, but when
your crimes were as flagrant as Amy Archer Gilligan's someone
was bound to catch on eventually. I'd also like to
shout out the source which made it possible to tell
this story, Holly Dunn's memoir Sole Survivor. I highly recommend
(58:42):
you check it out, as there are so many parts
of Holly's incredible story that I just didn't have time
to get into. I'd also like to shout out the
CBS News forty eight Hours episode on Holly's story, on
which Holly and others involved in the case given credible
interviews as well. For more information about this case and
(59:04):
other cases we cover on the show, visit Diversion Audio
dot com. Sign up for Diversion's newsletter and be among
the first to hear about our special behind the scenes
features with the hosts and actors from Diversion's podcasts, more
shows you'll love from Diversion and our partners, and other
exclusive tidbits you can't get anywhere else. That's Diversionaudio dot
(59:27):
Com to sign up for the newsletter. The Greatest True
Crime Stories Ever Told is a production of Diversion Audio.
Your host is me Mary Kay mcbraer. This episode was
written by our editorial director, Nora Battel. Our show is
produced and directed by Mark Francis. Our development team is
(59:49):
Emma Dmouth and Jacob Bronstein. Theme music by Tyler Cash.
Executive producers Jacob Bronstein, Mark Francis and Scott Waxman.
Speaker 1 (01:00:09):
Diversion Audio
Speaker 2 (01:00:14):
M HM
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.