Clocking in at three months so far, the trial of Serial Shooter suspect Dale Hausner has already lasted far longer than the average capital case in the Valley. It’s been a grueling process, with prosecutors spending nearly two months questioning witness after witness about every shooting, stabbing and arson charged to Hausner.
In an April letter (PDF) to Judge Roland Steinle, the defendant himself acknowledged that the case against him is enormous. “The state has between 500 and 1,000 police officers working against me, not to mention the prosecutors, all their legal staffs, and now Sam Dieteman’s team as well, since he has turned states evidence against me,” Hausner wrote. He was asking the judge to assign another lawyer to help defend him, but according to court documents (PDF), Steinle denied it.
While more than 100 witnesses have testified so far, only three have been able to connect Hausner to any of the crime scenes. The evidence against Hausner during the trial so far has been slight, but that’s expected to change as prosecutors today move into the second phase of their case today. Prosecutors have spent the morning talking to the last witnesses in the “scenes” part of the case, which documented the scenes of every one of the 87 crimes charged to Hausner.
The next phase will be all about the hunt, so to speak. Detectives and investigators are expected to spend massive amounts of time testifying about how they came to suspect Hausner and Dieteman were the suspects in the 14-month string of serial killings and attacks. Among the evidence will be hours of secret audio recordings that detectives obtained of the two men reportedly talking about the crimes.
If all goes according to the prosecution’s plan, the complicated case will become a lot simpler after the next phase of the trial comes to a close.
Image above is excerpted from a June 2008 letter Hausner wrote to the judge.
