OCALA, Fla. (AP) — In a letter to a central Florida sheriff, convicted railroad killer Angel Maturino Resendiz admitted killing two teens in his district three years ago and gave details about the slayings that investigators said no one but the killer and investigators would know.

"We cannot say 100 percent he did it," Maj. Patti Lumpkin, supervisor of the Marion County Sheriff's major crimes unit, said in Friday's Ocala Star-Banner. "Until we have all the facts, interview Resendiz in person, we just cannot say right now. We do not want to pin a murder on him just because he has been convicted of another."

Maturino Resendiz wrote to the Marion County Sheriff's office that the killings occurred on the railroad tracks between Tampa and Baldwin, which is about 20 miles east of Jacksonville.

The tracks run through Belleview, where 19-year-old Jesse Howell was found slain on March 23, 1997. His 16-year-old traveling companion, Wendy VonHuben, was never found.

Investigators have never made public what type of weapon was used to fatally beat Howell, but Maturino Resendiz correctly identified the weapon in his letter, officials told the newspaper.

They said Maturino Resendiz provided two maps in his recently received letter that showed where he says he killed the man and buried the girl, but they said the maps were not specific enough.

Maturino Resendiz, 39, was sentenced to death in Texas last month for the 1998 rape and murder of a Houston-area doctor. His lawyers have conceded that he killed eight other people in Texas, Illinois and Kentucky. All were killed at or near railroad tracks.

Marion investigators have long considered Maturino Resendiz their leading suspect in Howell's death and VonHuben's disappearance. The day before Howell was killed, Maturino Resendiz was issued a trespass warning by railroad officials at a switching station 90 miles north of Belleview.

Marion detectives traveled to Texas in July to interview Maturino Resendiz, but his lawyers blocked their interview attempt. Investigators did not say when they will attempt to interview him again.

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