5 Phoenix serial killers and serial shooting investigations
Arizona has seen 5 recognized serial killer and shooting circumstances — together with the Baseline Killer, the Serial Shooters, and the Cooksey killings — that rocked native neighborhoods over the past couple of a long time.
The Baseline Killer
Michael Schennum/ASSOCIATED PRESS
It’s onerous to consider that it has been greater than 10 years since ‘Baseline Killer’ Mark Goudeau terrorized residents alongside the Baseline hall.
The metropolis carried out quite a few neighborhood conferences, plastered town with sketches of his description, provided $100,000 for data, and even had the ‘Guardian Angels’ patrolling the streets of Phoenix looking for him.
More than 70 prices had been filed towards Goudeau, together with 9 killings, 15 sexual assaults, and numerous different robberies and kidnappings that occurred between the autumn of 2005 and June 2006.
All however one of many victims had been ladies going about their regular business, ready for buses, washing their automobiles, or coming and going from work.
He often attacked his victims at night time sporting disguises, together with a wig of dreadlocks and a fisherman’s hat.
Most of the assaults occurred in Phoenix alongside Baseline Road. Goudeau lived about three miles from Baseline.
Although Goudeau and his household all the time maintained his innocence, prosecutors linked his DNA to a number of of the victims. Some of the victims’ property was additionally present in his residence.
In November 2011, he was sentenced to dying and is being held on dying row.
The Serial Shooters
AP
(RIGHT) Samuel Dieteman stands for his reserving mug shot, Friday, Aug. 4, 2006, on the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office’s Madison Street Jail in Phoenix in connection to the Phoenix serial killer case that has been pending since mid 2005. (AP Photo/Matt York, Pool)
From 2005 to 2006, the Valley was additionally plagued with one other spherical of random nighttime shootings and killings. Roommates Dale Hausner and Samuel Dieteman collectively dedicated 80 crimes, together with six counts of first-degree homicide, tried homicide, aggravated assault, and cruelty to animals.
In addition to killing six individuals, the pair additionally wounded 18 others, and shot a number of canine, and a horse. They additionally set hearth to a few Walmart shops, inflicting hundreds of thousands of {dollars} in harm. In all, the state filed 88 prices towards Hausner.
The shootings principally occurred in a single day, the victims had been pedestrians and bicyclists, and had been shot from Hausner’s automotive, often with a shotgun or a .22 caliber rifle.
It was an nameless name to Silent Witness from an individual saying they heard their pal Samuel Dieteman speaking in regards to the shootings and his involvement in them.
Police recognized Dieteman from surveillance video on the Walmart arsons. Police tracked the 2 and carried out wiretaps as they gathered proof towards them. When police searched their residence, they discovered weapons, information clippings, and movies of the shootings. Police later realized that Hausner and Dieterman additionally returned to the crime scenes as onlookers.
Dieteman turned on Hausner and testified towards him at trial in change for a life sentence.
Hausner dedicated suicide in jail on June 19, 2013, whereas he was sitting on dying row.
The Cooksey killings
MCSO
Cleophus Emmanuel Cooksey, 37, was arrested in December 2017 for killing 9 individuals in a three-week interval in late 2017.
Included within the killings had been his mom Rene Cooksey and step-father Edward Nunn, who had been discovered shot to dying in an residence close to 12th Street and Highland Avenue on December 17.
The different homicides spanned throughout the Valley for 3 weeks earlier than that incident.
Phoenix Police Chief Jeri Williams stated ballistic proof collected from every murder scene tied Cooksey to all homicides.
Court data present Cooksey had a earlier prison document for armed theft and manslaughter 16 years in the past. He was launched from jail in July 2017 and was in and out of jail after that.
As of August 2022, Cooksey awaits trial.
Phoenix Serial Street Shooter
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Full credit score: Maricopa County Arizona Sherriff’s Office
Aaron Saucedo was arrested in connection to a collection of lethal avenue shootings that occurred in Phoenix between August 2015 and August 2016.
Police initially linked seven deaths and 9 shooting incidents over a four-month interval to the Phoenix Serial Street Shooter. However, Phoenix Police Chief Jeri Williams stated police linked Saucedo to 2 further killings in the middle of their investigation.
ABC15 realized proof and investigation into the unrelated string of Phoenix freeway shootings helped lead police to make the arrest of Saucedo.
As of August 2022, Saucedo is awaiting trial.
Phoenix freeway shootings
Ross D. Franklin/AP
For a time period in 2015, these driving on Valley highways lived in worry as a shooter taking intention at commuters remained on the unfastened.
Nearly a dozen confirmed shooting incidents had been reported and quite a few different incidents had been reported, however not confirmed.
A younger lady was injured in one of many shootings.
Leslie Merritt Jr. was arrested and charged with the shootings. Within seven months of his arrest, Merritt was let out and the costs had been dropped.
Officials examined proof and cross-referenced these circumstances with these associated to the Phoenix Serial Street Shooter however the proof was “inconclusive.”
The freeway shootings circumstances stay unsolved.
