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Archive for the 'gilbert' Tag

Monday wrap: Officers recall tailing Serial Shooter suspects

December 9th, 2008, 10:53 am by Nick R. Martin

A team of undercover police officers faced a daunting task in August 2006 when they were assigned to spy on two Mesa men who had become the prime suspects in the Serial Shooters killing spree.

The team of at least five detectives was told to secretly follow and track suspects Dale Hausner and Samuel Dieteman without attracting attention to themselves.

Above all, they needed to make sure the suspects didn’t strike again.

But that mission became almost immediately dire and impossible on the first night, as the pair cruised the East Valley - presumably looking for a new target - with the undercover officers nearly powerless to intervene, according to several detectives who testified Monday in the ongoing eight-count murder trial against Dale Hausner.

In the depths of night, the team, riding in multiple unmarked cars and taking turns trailing the men, watched as Hausner and Dieteman slowed numerous times as they approached people walking alone on Mesa, Chandler and Gilbert streets.

Sometimes the Toyota Camry, driven by Hausner, would make U-turns and come back up on the pedestrians, the detectives testified.

Phoenix police Detective Bryan Benson watched the car slow at least three times as it approached lone walkers or bicyclists in the pre-dawn hours of Aug. 2.

“We were just sick,” Benson testified in Maricopa County Superior Court.

Read full story…

Reporter’s note: I was without an Internet connection in the courtroom yesterday, but this story encompasses the important events of yesterday. It also appeared in this morning’s print editions of the Tribune.

Posted in: Dale Hausner • Prosecution • Samuel Dieteman • • • • • | Post a Comment »

A death from two angles: the Robin Blasnek murder

December 1st, 2008, 3:07 pm by Nick R. Martin

This morning, two men testified about the death of Robin Blasnek, the young woman who is believed to be the final killing of the Serial Shooters. The 22-year-old was killed by a shotgun blast as she was walking by herself down a darkened Mesa street on July 30, 2006. Both men had striking and heart-wrenching stories about her dying moments. One man knew her. The other didn’t. One man learned from a TV news reporter about Blasnek’s death. The other held her as she bled to death. Here are their stories:

–

Rudy Reyes expected his friend, Robin, to arrive any minute. It was late at night, and she had called him saying she had just been arguing with her boyfriend and needed someone to talk to. Though it was dark, the young Mesa woman chose to walk the short distance from her house to the house near Gilbert Road and Grandview Street where Reyes was living with his parents.

The two chatted on their cell phones as she walked, but when she was getting close, Reyes said, they decided to hang up during the last stretch. “She was just like, ‘I’m right down the street,’” Reyes said. “She said she was going to call me when she was at the door.”

In the minutes that followed, Reyes heard a loud bang down the street, somewhere in the direction of Gilbert Road, just east of his home. He didn’t know what to think of the sound and sort of shrugged it off, he said. “It just flew right past me.”

Within moments, Robin’s name and number showed up on his caller ID, and he thought she was probably at his front door. He answered the phone, but no one was on the other end. “Then it just hung up,” Reyes said on the witness stand.

Robin never arrived. Eventually, Reyes went to bed and fell asleep, not knowing what happened to his friend. The next morning, a reporter from KNXV-TV (Channel 15) called his house and broke the news to him. Robin was dead.

–

When Charles Chase heard the bang, he went outside to investigate. He remembers thinking it was either a car backfiring or a gunshot. Either way, he wanted to find out what was happening just north of his house, which sat at the corner of Gilbert and Grandview in Mesa.

“When I stepped outside of the door and looked in that direction, i noticed a girl kneeling on the corner of the street,” Chase testified. “I went over to see what was going on.”

“I was shot,” the young woman told him, crouching on the sidewalk.

She began to fall to the ground, so Chase reached his arm around to steady her and hold her up. “When I pulled my hand away, it was covered in blood,” Chase said on the witness stand. The young woman did not appear to be in pain. She was not crying, but she was not saying much, either. He looked down and saw she was wearing slippers and pajamas. Her cell phone was lying on the ground.

Chase’s wife and children came out of the house to help. One of his sons called 911 as his wife fetched a blanket to pad the young woman against the concrete sidewalk. They laid her down on it while emergency crews were on their way. The woman began to breathe heavily. Then she began to fade.

“She kind of closed her eyes after that,” Chase said. “I don’t remember her opening her eyes again. And she didn’t say anything after that.”

Robin Blasnek appears in this undated photo submitted to the Tribune by one of her friends.

Posted in: Dale Hausner • Prosecution • • • • • | Post a Comment »

First segment of ‘Shooter’ trial winding down

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 • • • • • • • • • • • | Post a Comment »

Tearful tape hangs heavy on jurors

October 21st, 2008, 3:56 pm by Nick R. Martin

Prosecutors just played an emotional tape recording of a phone call John Kane made from jail to his wife late in 2006 while he was considering turning in Dale Hausner for one of the shootings. “I just want to get home, you know?” Kane could be heard saying on the tape. “That’s all I care about is getting home. That’s all I think about is coming home.”

“I’ll do whatever I have to,” he said on the tape.

The conversation was filled with tears and pleas from Kane to his wife, who was obviously upset that he had been arrested on drug and weapons charges in earlier that year after his long struggles with drug addiction. The recording appeared to hang heavy on many of the jurors, whose faces were long and stoic while the tape played for several minutes. It seemed most to affect two women in the jury who wiped their eyes as it played.

In the end, Kane’s apologies and tears to his wife didn’t do much to help their relationship. The two are now divorced.

Posted in: Dale Hausner • Jurors • Prosecution • • • • • | Post a Comment »

The attack continues, then the judge steps in

October 21st, 2008, 2:36 pm by Nick R. Martin

Ken Everett continued to roll his eyes, yell expressions like “gee, John” and spew expletives throughout the cross examination of the first witness to implicate his client in one of the shootings.

“You told Dale, ‘That’s the (expletive)’s vehicle right there,’ didn’t you?” Everett said, grilling John Kane, the Gilbert man who said Serial Shooter suspect Dale Hausner confessed to shooting up a vehicle on Dec. 29, 2005.

Normally, Everett is aggressive and speaks at volumes above and beyond those of anyone else in the courtroom. But today, he has even crossed beyond his usual level in trying to discredit Kane.

The exclamations and cursing only come when he is quoting somebody else, but Everett doesn’t hold anything back.

This morning, Judge Roland Steinle told him to keep his voice down, but Everett has struggled to do so. This afternoon, Steinle asked the jury to leave the room so he could reprimand Everett once again. “You used other expressions to show that you clearly don’t believe what is being said out there,” Steinle told him, calling many of his questions “nothing more than harassing.”

In fact, Steinle told Everett to wrap up his questions with Kane, saying many of them were “becoming repetitive.” And, Steinle added, “You will stop rolling your eyes and other facial gestures.”

Photo by pool photographer. Dale Hausner’s attorney Ken Everett listens to testimony last week in Maricopa County Superior Court.

Posted in: Dale Hausner • Defense • Judge Steinle • • • • • | Post a Comment »

Witness attacked in full volume

October 21st, 2008, 11:35 am by Nick R. Martin

John Kane, the Gilbert man who said Dale Hausner confessed a shooting to him, is facing a knock-down drag-out attack from the Hausner’s attorney this morning. Attorney Ken Everett has been pushing hard on Kane’s four prior felony convictions and the plea deal he made in exchange for testifying in the trial. The implication is that Kane’s testimony is not to be trusted.

As is Everett’s style, he’s loud and mad. And he’s pushing the envelope of what’s proper. In fact, Judge Roland Steinle just asked the jury to leave the room for a few moments so he could tell Everett to, well, chill out.

“Your questions are becoming argumentative and your tone is going way above,” Steinle said. He called some of Everett’s comments “totally inappropriate.”

“I’m asking you to lower your tone,” Steinle said.

Everett did not respond. But once the jury was brought back into the courtroom, he resumed his questioning at about half the volume.

Posted in: Dale Hausner • Defense • Judge Steinle • • • • • | Post a Comment »
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