Archive for the 'police' Tag
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 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 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 »
November 5th, 2008, 4:27 pm by Nick R. Martin
 Late this afternoon, a witness placed Dale Hausner at the scene of another attack with which he has been charged. Marianne Thone said Hausner and a dark-haired man approached her the night of May 30, 2006 just outside the scene of where her brother, James Hodge, was randomly shot in the back.
Hausner told the woman that he and his friend were out looking for a runaway cat when they saw her brother get shot, Thone testified. The two men told her they helped take care of her brother until emergency crews arrived. In reality, prosecutors allege, the two men were the shooters and got involved after the shooting as a ruse. The dark-haired man, the authorities believe, was Samuel Dieteman, Hausner’s confessed co-conspirator (pictured).
Thone’s brother, a schizophrenic Vietnam veteran who was off his medication at the time, survived the attack.
Posted in: Dale Hausner • Prosecution • Samuel Dieteman • attorneys • Dale Hausner • phoenix • police • prosecutors • Samuel Dieteman • Serial Shooter | Post a Comment »
November 5th, 2008, 3:49 pm by Nick R. Martin
  Timothy Davenport said the only attacker he could identify from the night of his stabbing had a mustache and red hair. And the defense team has a problem with that. Dale Hausner, the man sitting in court today accused of the crime, is clean shaven and sporting arguably dirty blond hair. The jurors might have to squint hard to picture Hausner with either of the other characteristics.
It’s not so hard to imagine it, though, if you see the photos from the time of Hausner’s arrest. Take a look at his booking photo to the far right. It’s strikingly different than the image of Hausner in court last month. The booking photo distorts Hausner’s skin tone and hair color a little bit, but it shows him with a mustache and beard. Other photos from the time of his arrest show that Hausner’s hair was lighter and reddish in August 2006 when police arrested him and his confessed co-conspirator Samuel Dieteman.
Still, Hausner’s defense team attacked these differences this afternoon, quizzing Davenport about his attackers and how he identified Hausner as one of them. Davenport said he was able to see Hausner’s face for 6 seconds the night he was stabbed. He said Hausner pulled up in front of him one night while he was walking in a parking lot and asked if he was OK. That’s when “a dark figure,” who authorities have said was Jeff Hausner, Dale’s brother, came up behind Davenport and stabbed him multiple times.
Davenport admitted, however, that it was dark that night and he didn’t get a very good look at either man. “That night, the only light was coming from the streetlights themselves,” he testified. Hausner’s attorneys seized on this, trying to show that his identification of Hausner may not be reliable.
Posted in: Dale Hausner • Defense • Dale Hausner • jeff hausner • phoenix • police • Serial Shooter • Witness | Post a Comment »
November 5th, 2008, 2:32 pm by Nick R. Martin
A stabbing victim has identified Serial Shooter suspect Dale Hausner as one of two men who attacked him in a West Valley parking lot in 2006. Timothy Davenport, 36, testified this afternoon that Hausner helped distract him while another man came from behind and stabbed him repeatedly.
 Davenport still has scars on his face, side and back because of the May 17, 2006 attack. “He was the one that distracted me while the other guy stabbed me,” Davenport said in court this afternoon, identified Hausner “100 percent” as the driver.
Hausner is a Mesa man on trial in Maricopa County Superior Court on suspicion of eight murders and a number of assaults, including the stabbing. Authorities believe Hausner carried out the stabbing with his brother, Jeff Hausner (pictured at right), who has also been charged in the crime but is being tried separately.
The attack was not originally thought to be part of the Hausner case, but it came to police attention after his suspected co-conspirator, Samuel Dieteman, confessed to his role in the crimes.
Top photo from Tribune file. Dale Hausner answers media questions during a press conference in August 2006 at the 4th Avenue Jail in downtown Phoenix.
Posted in: Dale Hausner • Prosecution • Dale Hausner • jeff hausner • phoenix • police • Samuel Dieteman • Serial Shooter • stabbing | 2 Comments »
October 29th, 2008, 11:23 am by Nick R. Martin
Judge Steinle warned the courtroom that the building may have to be evacuated this morning because of a fire drill. Apparently a rumor is circulating in the halls that an alarm will go off any minute now. If that’s the case, jurors will be the first to leave the courtroom, then Hausner will be escorted out a side door. Elevators are off limits and the court staff will have to figure out how to maintain order as the three high-rise buildings that make up the courthouse are emptied.
Meanwhile, Phoenix police detective Cliff Jewell continues his testimony about the Toyota Camry spotted near the scenes of three shootings the night of Dec. 29, 2005. The testimony is important because Hausner drove a car seemingly identical to the one captured on camera that night. This is at least the third day of testimony involving a surveillance camera and the car.
Photo from Google Street View. Maricopa County Superior Court’s Central Building.
Posted in: Dale Hausner • Judge Steinle • Jurors • Life in trial • Dale Hausner • detective • drill • evacuation • fire • high rise • judge • phoenix • police • Serial Shooter | Post a Comment »
October 28th, 2008, 3:29 pm by Nick R. Martin
The lead detective in the Serial Shooter case testified this afternoon that a car spotted by a surveillance camera near three of the shootings matches Hausner’s almost perfectly. Playing the video in the courtroom, Phoenix police detective Cliff Jewell pointed to an arm sticking out from the silver Toyota Camry in at least one of the four times the car was spotted in an eight minute time frame.
“There are several similarities” between the car caught on camera and the one seized from Hausner’s apartment the night of his arrest, Jewell says.
Posted in: Dale Hausner • Prosecution • car • Dale Hausner • phoenix • police • Serial Shooter • toyota | Post a Comment »
October 23rd, 2008, 3:54 pm by Nick R. Martin
 A surveillance camera caught sight of a silver Toyota Camry cruising the small pocket of central Phoenix where two men were killed another injured the night of Dec. 29, 2005. Phoenix police detective Cliff Jewell testified this afternoon that the camera spotted the same car four times within an eight minute period the night of the shootings, marking the first time the Serial Shooters may have been caught on camera.
The sightings took place within moments of the shooting deaths of Jose Ortiz and Marco Carillo, as well as the wounding of Timmy Tordai. The camera, Jewell said, was at 10th Ave and Adams in Phoenix, not far from the state Capitol. The three men were shot within blocks of the camera.
The shootings all took place at about 11:40 p.m., and the camera first spotted the car at 11:41 p.m., Jewell said. The car then passed through the intersection three more times, each time heading a different direction.
Jewell did not say what the significance of sightings was. However, when authorities arrested suspects Dale Hausner and Samuel Dieteman in August 2006, they also seized a silver Toyota Camry parked outside the men’s apartment. The description of both cars is identical.
Map by Gabriel Utasi, Tribune. File photo by Tim Hacker, Tribune. Investigators gather around a vehicle believed to be linked to the Serial Shooter case in August 2006 at the Windscape Apartments in Mesa.
Posted in: Dale Hausner • Prosecution • Samuel Dieteman • camera • car • Dale Hausner • police • Serial Shooter | Post a Comment »
October 23rd, 2008, 12:03 pm by Nick R. Martin
Prosecutors this morning have questioned a pair of Phoenix police officers about the particularly bloody string of shootings on the night of Dec. 29, 2005. The series of shootings left at least two men dead and another wounded in central Phoenix. The dead men, both believed to be homeless, were Marcos Carillo and Jose Ortis, and their bodies were found within blocks of each other.
None of the officers has connected Dale Hausner to any of the shootings, but all happen to fall within hours after Hausner is said to have shot up an empty car in Tempe.
More testimony is expected after the lunch break.
Posted in: Dale Hausner • Prosecution • Dale Hausner • phoenix • police • Serial Shooter • shooting • tempe | Post a Comment »
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