Archive for the 'Dale Hausner' Tag
December 3rd, 2008, 2:17 pm by Nick R. Martin
  Did Dale Hausner and Sam Dieteman know authorities were closing in on them? According to Phoenix police detective Clark Schwartzkopf, the pair made at least two unusual moves in the weeks before their arrests.
First, they moved their attacks eastward from eastern-central Phoenix into the Scottsdale and Mesa areas. This came after a July 12, 2006 town hall meeting in which police gave detailed information about the attacks to the public in order to keep Valley residents safe. At the meeting, police talked about the pattern of the attacks, and that information was widely broadcast through the local and national media. Afterward, Schwartzkopf said, “The shooters went east to the city of Mesa with the shootings of Raul Lopez-Garcia and Robin Blasnek.”
The next unusual thing took place Aug. 2, 2006, just days before the men were arrested at their Mesa apartment. While the men were being watched by undercover police officers, Dieteman was seen throwing away a bag of trash. That bag, seized by police, was filled with evidence that has become key in the trial today. Inside it, Schwartzkopf said, was a map with dots all over it. Many of the dots coincided with shooting sites. “Some of them were close to shootings. Some of them were specifically on top of shootings. And some of them I couldn’t correlate to anything,” Schwartzkopf said.
Another item was a Cherry Vanilla Dr. Pepper can with a used shotgun casing stuffed inside it. The third item was a piece of paper that read “Robin Blasne 7-70-06 11:20p,” which perhaps was a reference to the shooting of Robing Blasnek, a Mesa woman who was killed at about 11:20 p.m. on July 30, 2006.
Posted in: Dale Hausner • Prosecution • Samuel Dieteman • Clark Schwartzkopf • Dale Hausner • Dr. Pepper • Mesa • police • Sam Dieteman • Serial Shooter | Post a Comment »
December 3rd, 2008, 11:19 am by Nick R. Martin
A woman named Debbie Dryer testified briefly this morning about her relationship with Sam Dieteman, the confessed co-conspirator in the Serial Shooter killings. She met Dieteman in a west Phoenix bar called Pollock Joe’s where she often went with her lover, Ron Horton, who later became one of the key witnesses in the investigation. Her relationship with Dieteman was as an acquaintance. She and Horton would give him rides home from the bar sometimes, but they never quite knew exactly where he lived, only a general area where they would drop him off.
 Dryer’s testimony was brief, but it wasn’t supposed to be that way. Before she took the stand, Dale Hausner’s defense attorney, Ken Everett, got most of her testimony suppressed. Prosecutors were trying to have her testify about a conversation that she had with Dieteman (pictured) one night at the bar.
Prosecutor Vince Imbordino put it this way: “When she’s closing up a bar, Mr. Dieteman said, ‘There’s been a lot of shootings going on around here. A lot of them have not been on the news yet.’ Then he told her, ‘Keep watching the news.’”
However, the defense objected to this type of testimony, saying it was heresay. Judge Roland Steinle agreed. Dryer’s testimony could have been key to the case, yet it’s very likely the jury will never hear it.
Posted in: Dale Hausner • Defense • Judge Steinle • Prosecution • Samuel Dieteman • Dale Hausner • phoenix • pollock joe's • ron horton • Samuel Dieteman • Serial Shooter | Post a Comment »
December 2nd, 2008, 3:13 pm by Nick R. Martin
A woman named Joetta Gonzales, known to her friends as “Jody,” was the first person to come forward to tell investigators she thought she recognized one of the suspects in the June 2006 Wal-Mart arsons, which have since been tied to the Serial Shooters.
Glendale Fire Department investigators had distributed photos of their then-unnamed suspects to local media and asked for the public’s help to figure out who they were. The two had been spotted on surveillance cameras in both of the burned Wal-Marts, but local and federal investigators had no clue about who they were.
Gonzales apparently saw the photographs in a newspaper and recognized one of the men. It was Sam Dieteman, said special agent Kevin Schuster of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
Dieteman has since pleaded guilty to two of the murders attributed to the Serial Shooters and agreed to testify against his old friend, Dale Hausner, who is on trial, charged with eight murders.
Update (3:47 p.m.): In fact, according to Schuster, Gonzales agreed to try to help authorities find Dieteman and bring him in for questioning. She called him with a tape recorder running on June 21 of that year, but couldn’t reach him. Then she called him again the next day, and though she reached Dieteman that day, he denied taking part in the arsons, Schuster said. Unfortunately, however, the tape recording of that conversation were flawed and didn’t pick up Dieteman’s side of the conversation.
Posted in: Dale Hausner • Prosecution • Samuel Dieteman • ATF • Dale Hausner • Samuel Dieteman • Serial Shooter | Post a Comment »
November 21st, 2008, 8:00 am by Nick R. Martin
 Prosecutors are nearing the end of the first segment of their case against Dale Hausner, the Mesa man accused of killing eight people and wounding numerous others in 2005 and 2006 in the Serial Shooter case.
In the past month and a half, jurors in a downtown Phoenix courtroom have been faced with dozens of mostly hard-luck victims who authorities say were Hausner’s targets.
Maricopa County prosecutors call it the “scenes” segment of their case. It gave them the opportunity to lay out the facts of every shooting, stabbing and arson they’ve attributed to the 35-year-old defendant.
The testimony was often emotional for jurors to hear, but it seemed to rarely damage Hausner.
So far, more than 100 witnesses have testified in the trial, but just three have been able to link Hausner to any of the incidents.
Read full story…
Tribune file photo. Dale Hausner speaks at a news conference shortly after his arrest in August 2006. Programming note: The trial is off until Dec. 1.
Posted in: Dale Hausner • Prosecution • attorneys • Dale Hausner • Mesa • phoenix • Serial Shooter • witnesses | Post a Comment »
November 20th, 2008, 11:27 am by Nick R. Martin
For a month and a half, the testimony in the trial of Serial Shooter suspect Dale Hausner has been a litany of victims, family members and first responders — the police and paramedics called out to the incidents as they happened. Prosecutors call it the “scenes” segment of the trial. It was their chance to document every shooting, stabbing and arson they’ve linked to the Mesa man in the defendant’s chair.
That segment of the trial is expected to end today. Prosecutors are bringing out their final witnesses laying out the 87 crimes attributed to Hausner. More than 100 witnesses have taken the stand so far. Only three of them have linked Hausner to any of the crimes or crime scenes:
- John Kane, a Gilbert man, testified that Hausner confessed to shooting up an empty car outside of a Tempe bartending school on Dec. 29, 2005. That shooting is believed to have kicked off the bloodiest night of the killing spree.
- Timothy Davenport testified that Hausner distracted him on May 17, 2006 so that another man could stab him from behind. He identified Hausner “100 percent” as one of the men who participated in the nearly fatal attack.
- Marianne Thone said that Hausner and his suspected co-conspirator Samuel Dieteman appraoched her outside the scene of her brother’s shooting on May 30, 2006 and told her they were looking for a lost cat.
Some of the final testimony will be in the shooting death of Robin Blasnek, who was killed while walking alone in Mesa on July 30, 2006. Blasnek is believed to be the final victim of the Serial Shooter.
After the Thanksgiving break next week, prosecutors will return with riveting testimony about how investigators began to track a serial killer and eventually came upon Dieteman, who has already confessed to two murders, and Hausner as the suspects. The evidence will include hours of secret recordings that police obtained of the two men reportedly discussing the crimes. The jury may get to hear the recordings by the first week of December.
Photo by pool photographer. Prosecutor Laura Reckart questions a witness while defendant Dale Hausner looks on in the background.
Posted in: Dale Hausner • Prosecution • Samuel Dieteman • Dale Hausner • gilbert • Mesa • phoenix • police • Samuel Dieteman • Serial Shooter • shooting • tempe • victims • witnesses | Post a Comment »
November 19th, 2008, 1:34 pm by Nick R. Martin
It was a long, quiet hiss, followed by a boom. Prosecutors this morning played a home surveillance videotape that picked up a startling sound believed to be the shooting of Raul Garcia on July 22, 2006. It was recorded by a security camera set up on a Mesa man’s back porch early that morning.
Garcia survived the shotgun shooting but ended up with more than 50 pellets lodged in his body. According to authorities, he was riding his bicycle on Stapley Drive, just north of Brown Road when he was hit.
Posted in: Dale Hausner • Prosecution • Dale Hausner • Mesa • raul garcia • security • Serial Shooter • surveillance | Post a Comment »
November 18th, 2008, 3:31 pm by Nick R. Martin
 It has been almost a month since a young juror in the front row was caught napping and told to stay awake. He denied he was sleeping, but still promised to load himself up with “a couple Red Bulls” to remain alert during testimony. Well, according to defense attorney Ken Everett, it hasn’t been enough.
This afternoon, while the jury was out of the room on a short break, Everett complained to Judge Roland Steinle that the young man was again seen with his eyes closed and appeared to be snoozing during testimony. Steinle said he would keep an eye on it for the rest of the day. When the man came back into the room after the break, he was carrying a bottle of Mountain Dew.
Photo used under free distribution licensing from Wikimedia Commons.
Posted in: Defense • Judge Steinle • Jurors • Life in trial • Dale Hausner • Judge Steinle • Jurors • phoenix • red bull • Serial Shooter | Post a Comment »
November 18th, 2008, 2:23 pm by Nick R. Martin
  It took attorney Michael Cordrey of Glendale hours to contact police after somebody shot at him in the early morning of July 11, 2008. In fact, Cordrey (pictured) testified this afternoon, he didn’t even know for sure that somebody had shot at him until he went back to the scene in the daylight and saw a blast of pellets lining a brick wall near where he had been walking that morning.
“When my head cleared from the flash and the bang, that’s when fear crept in,” Cordrey said of the shooting. The attorney had been walking near his house in Glendale when he saw a car pull up slowly next to him with its lights off. When Cordrey first saw and heard the gunshot, he thought it was a firecracker of some sort. Still, he realized there was a distinct possibility that the mystery car would come back for him. “”I figured if they were going to turn around, I was going to start hopping fences,” he said.
Cordrey tried to go to a nearby police station a short time later, but when he got there, no officers were around. He went back home and slept, and only contacted police later in the day at the urging of a senior partner in his law firm. By that time, whoever shot at him was long gone.
Map shows the area where someone shot at Michael Cordrey on the morning of July 11, 2008. Click here for a larger map.
Posted in: Dale Hausner • Prosecution • attorney • Dale Hausner • glendale • michael cordrey • police • Serial Shooter | Post a Comment »
November 18th, 2008, 12:05 pm by Nick R. Martin
The car pulled up slowly, almost to a stop. Walking in the dark along Van Buren Street in Phoenix, Gary Begay turned to look at it. A moment later, he saw a flash of light from inside the car. It lit up the face of the driver. “I just saw somebody with dark hair and pale face, and that’s all I remember,” Begay testified this morning. He soon realized he had been hit by something. He reached to the left side of his chest and felt blood.
Begay was the fourth victim to testify in two days here at the trial of Serial Shooter suspect Dale Hausner, which is taking place in a downtown Phoenix courtroom. Begay said he didn’t get a good look at the driver beyond the short description, but he talked about being hit and trying to run for help. “I just lost it, I thought, did I get shot or what’s happening?” he said.
Begay was making the half-hour walk home on July 8, 2006 from his job at a 7-11 convenience store. It was a straight shot down Van Buren from his job to his apartment, but Begay said he was a little nervous walking alone sometime after 2 a.m. His sister-in-law had called him earlier to see if he needed a ride home that morning, but he turned it down. “I told her I’d be fine,” Begay said, “because I’d done it before and nothing happened.”
Posted in: Dale Hausner • Prosecution • Dale Hausner • gary begay • phoenix • Serial Shooter | Post a Comment »
November 17th, 2008, 2:58 pm by Nick R. Martin
On the witness stand this afternoon, the most consistent answer given by victim Joseph Roberts was “I don’t remember.” The young man was quiet, almost inaudible during much of his testimony, and he seemed reluctant to discuss his wounds and what he remembered.
A short time later, one of the main investigators in the case, Phoenix police detective Clark Schwartzkopf, told the judge that Roberts had originally told police far more than he let on today. “There were a number of things he didn’t remember this afternoon,” Schwartzkopf said with the jury out of the room. For one, Roberts described more about the shooting, including that he saw the silver car slow down and cut off its headlights as it approached him on July 3, 2006. He then saw the barrel of a gun leveled out the window.
“This witness claims he doesn’t recall,” said prosecutor Vince Imbordino. “I quite frankly don’t know whether he does or doesn’t.”
Prosecutors are trying to convince Judge Roland Steinle to let them use the young man’s previous description to police. After all, it’s far more compelling than the testimony he gave this afternoon. Steinle said he will decide tomorrow whether to let Schwartzkopf bring the description into the trial.
Update (11:32 a.m. Tuesday): Judge Steinle allowed Schwartzkopf to tell the rest of Roberts’ story this morning. It was based on a hospital interview that took place the same day as the shooting. “When the arm came out of the vehicle, he saw a white arm holding onto the gun itself,” the detective said. “He said that he thought the headlights on the vehicle were turned off right before the shooting took place.”
Posted in: Dale Hausner • Prosecution • Dale Hausner • joseph roberts • maricopa county • police • Serial Shooter | Post a Comment »
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