Wendy Rachel Von Huben was 16 when she left Woodstock, Illinois, in February 1997 with her 19-year-old fiancé, Jesse Howell, to travel the rail lines through the Southeast. On March 23, 1997 Howell’s bludgeoned body was found beside the tracks at Belleview, Florida; money still in his pocket led investigators to rule out robbery as a motive. Von Huben disappeared after that discovery and extensive searches, flyers, and surveillance leads failed to find her for three years.

In early 2000 Ángel Maturino Reséndiz, the man known as the Railroad Killer, confessed that on March 23, 1997 he killed Howell with a rail-car air-brake coupling and, about eight hours later, raped, strangled, and suffocated Von Huben, then buried her in a shallow grave near Oxford, Florida. On July 15, 2000 he led deputies to skeletal remains wrapped in a blanket and a camouflage jacket roughly 15 miles south of the Belleview scene; family jewelry and DNA testing confirmed the victim as Von Huben. Reséndiz cooperated with authorities and was granted immunity from prosecution in these killings; no other suspects were charged.

If anyone knew Wendy’s travel plans, the people she met on the rail lines, or saw her in the Southeast in March 1997, please share information.