Phoenix Police Arrest Shooting Suspects
Friday, August 4, 2006 2:39 PM EDT
The Associated Press
By CHRIS KAHN
PHOENIX (AP) — Police arrested two men and said Friday they were "confident these are the individuals involved" in one of the two strings of serial killings that have terrorized area residents.
Authorities would not say what evidence they have against Dale Hausner and Samuel Dieteman, who were arrested late Thursday at a gated apartment complex in the suburb of Mesa.
But authorities expressed total confidence that the pair were responsible for 15 months of deadly attacks in the "Serial Shooter" case.
"These are the two monsters we've been hunting," Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon said at a news conference.
Police Chief Jack Harris said the men will face numerous counts of murder and aggravated assault, though authorities didn't have specifics on how many. A police spokesman said the men were being questioned but had not been booked as of late Friday morning.
Assistant Police Chief Kevin Robinson said Hausner, 33, and Dieteman, 31, are friends who lived in Mesa. Investigators found no obvious connections between the two men and the victims, Robinson said.
"The best we could tell, they were just random victims. These individuals just picked victims out and that was it," Robinson said.
Six people were killed and 17 wounded in attacks attributed to the Serial Shooter, mostly in the western and eastern edges of Phoenix's sprawling suburbs. Police said the crimes appear unrelated to the eight slayings and 11 rapes in the still-unsolved "Baseline Killer" cases.
The two cases doubled the fear and paranoia gripping Phoenix neighborhoods in recent months, and led law enforcement agencies to devote more than 200 investigators to track down the killers. Authorities said they will move investigators from the Serial Shooter to the Baseline Killer case.
"I hope they got him," said Caroll Roberts, whose 19-year-old son was shot in the torso last month and survived after four hours of surgery. "I want to shoot him in the stomach to see how he'd like it, like he did my son."
Robinson said investigators identified them as suspects Monday evening, but added that they had some information about them before that.
"It wasn't just one source," Robinson said. "We were able to get on these individuals from a lot of different sources."
Since May 2005, police say, the Serial Shooter was responsible for three dozen shootings; victims included pedestrians, bicyclists, dogs and horses. They generally occurred at night, with no witnesses. The most recent was Sunday in Mesa when a 22-year-old woman was fatally shot as she was walking from her parents' home to her boyfriend's house, authorities said.
Once police thought they had the shooters, Robinson said they spent the next four days gathering evidence, interviewing witnesses and watching the suspects so they had enough information to confidently arrest and hold them.
"We are confident these are the individuals involved," Robinson said.
Officials from several police agencies searched the apartment complex Friday morning as part of the investigation. Some used flashlights to peer through the windows of a car, which was later hauled away by a tow truck.
Television footage showed police officers carrying what appeared to be several rifles or shotguns away from the apartment.
Complex resident Loraine Salyers said she lives near where police came in Friday.
"I came out and there were like a hundred cops," Salyers said. "I was so scared. My heart's pounding."
Investigators found no connections between the suspects and the Baseline Killer, who is believed responsible for killing seven women and one man since last September.
Robin Blasnek, 22, was gunned down at about 11:15 p.m. Sunday. Neighbors heard a shot and ran to help the young woman, but she soon lost consciousness and died at a hospital.
The shooting was linked to earlier Serial Shooter cases because of similarities and forensic evidence, authorities said.
Blasnek's father told the East Valley Tribune that his daughter grew up as a special needs child, and lived part time with her parents in Mesa and at a group home in Tempe.
"She was just a great kid. Very, very naive, and pure as far as not understanding the dangers of the world," Steve Blasnek said. "I guess my only regret is that I didn't give her a big hug."
———
Reply With Quote
