These pay phones, at a gas station at the corner of Mesa Drive and McKellips Road in Mesa, fit the description of the one Samuel Dieteman said he used to try to turn himself in. Photo by Nick R. Martin
Confessed killer Samuel Dieteman called it “one of my few clear-headed nights.” On the witness stand last week, he said he walked to a pay phone in central Mesa one night in mid-July 2006 and called Silent Witness, the anonymous crime tip line, essentially to turn himself in.
“I wanted out,” Dieteman testified last week in the eight-count murder trial of his former roommate, Dale Hausner, the Mesa man accused of being the leader of the Serial Shooter killing spree. “I told the guy I knew who was responsible for the shootings.”
Dieteman expected to be able to talk with the main detective in the case, he said, and to end the madness that night. Instead, according to Dieteman, the call taker responded: “Yeah, you and a million other people, buddy.”
Dieteman says he told Silent Witness what type of shotguns guns were used in the spree, which by that time, to his knowledge, had left at least one person dead and numerous others wounded. (Authorities later said at least seven people had been killed by the “Serial Shooter” by that time.) But the man answering the phones at Silent Witness only took down his cell phone number and soon ended the call. “The guy was pretty rude,” Dieteman said.
The 33-year-old’s account of things brought up in court the stark possibility that the killing spree could have been stopped some two weeks before police finally arrested Dieteman and Hausner on Aug. 3, 2006. If Dieteman’s story is true, it means authorities may have been able to prevent the shootings of Raul Garcia, who survived a July 22 attack, and Robin Blasnek, who was killed on July 30.
‘We took them all seriously’
Samuel Dieteman
Investigators in the Serial Shooter case have tried to verify Dieteman’s story since he first told them about the event early last year. But so far, according to various testimonies, they haven’t been able to.
Every call that came into the Silent Witness tip line that summer was supposed to have been logged and assigned a specific ID number. But none of the logged calls apparently match Dieteman’s description. Beyond that, investigators have also tried to look at records from the pay phone Dieteman said he used to see if someone called Silent Witness during that time. But for whatever reason, those records don’t show such a call.
“I’d like to know how I found the only pay phone on Planet Earth that does not keep records,” Dieteman said last week when being questioned by Hausner’s defense attorney, Ken Everett, about the phone call.
Phoenix police Sgt. Paul Penzone, the man in charge of the Silent Witness program, said he was banned by the program’s policies from talking about specifics of Dieteman’s alleged phone call. Those policies, he said, dictate he cannot confirm details of any call to the tip line under any circumstance. However, Penzone agreed to talk generically about Dieteman’s claims and the flood of calls that came into the tip line that summer.
“In humans speaking with humans, there’s always the possibility of errors, of people making mistakes,” Penzone said. Still, when it came to tips about the Serial Shooter, he said, “we took them all seriously.”
Crush of phone calls
Dale Hausner
The summer of 2006 was about as busy a season for Valley law enforcement as any in history. Authorities believed two sets of serial killers, the Baseline Killer and the Serial Shooter, were roaming the Valley and committing their crimes at random. Some investigators and psychologists even toyed with the theory that the two serial killers were competing in some kind of sick contest of body counts.
this time, the Silent Witness program was used as a clearinghouse of sorts for many of the tips in both cases. The public was asked to call in with any information that might be helpful to the investigations. The result was a crush of phone calls. Some were helpful. Others were just downright wierd.
Last month, Clark Schwartzkopf, the lead detective in the Serial Shooter investigation, testified that the huge number of calls led to mix ups in both cases. “I had one person call and say they thought it was the Zodiac Killer, the infamous Bay Area serial killer,” Schwartzkopf testified. “I had psychics. I had people with crystal balls. I had all kinds of people calling in to tell me who they thought it was.” In one two-day period, he testified, some 2,000 people called in.
Penzone said Silent Witness had to bring in significantly more call takers than usual that summer. On a normal day, he said, four to five detectives man the phone. But during that summer, there were as many as 15 detectives answering calls and taking down information. During that time, he said, the average number of calls per month skyrocketed from about 1,000 to more than 10 times that.
“It was like a tidal wave,” Penzone said.
Digging into the story
There’s a lot that Dieteman doesn’t remember about his supposed call to Silent Witness. For one, the date is a little fuzzy. That may be because, as he has admitted on the witness stand, he was using large amounts of alcohol and methamphetamine before his arrest. “I can’t explain a lot of things I did during that period of time,” he said.
Last week, Hausner’s jurors got a chance to ask Dieteman about the mysterious call. “Why didn’t you call Silent Witness again?” one juror asked.
“I don’t know why I didn’t call them before or again after that,” Dieteman replied. “It was one of my few clear headed nights. The defendant (Hausner) was asleep for the night and I went out for a walk and decided, I want to end this crap.
“It just never came up after that,” he said.
Penzone declined to say explicitly whether he thought Dieteman was telling the truth about trying to turn himself in. “In the credibility question, I will give more to my staff and the Phoenix Police Department than I would the comments of Mr. Dieteman,” Penzone said.
As to whether the detective who answered the phone may have brushed Dieteman’s tip aside, Penzone said: “I find it hard to believe.”
What could have been prevented?
If Dieteman’s story is true, it would mean that authorities missed a key opportunity to prevent at least two shootings, both of which took place later that month in Mesa.
The first was the shooting of Raul Garcia on July 22, 2006. Garcia was hit by a shotgun blast while riding his bicycle near Stapley Drive and Brown Road. He survived the shooting, but ended up with some 50 shotgun pellets lodged in his body.
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The second was the killing of Robin Blasnek on July 30, 2006. Blasnek was walking to a friend’s house late at night when she was shot just north of Brown along Gilbert Road. Her death was the final crime linked to the Serial Shooter case.
In the end, however, it was a tip to Silent Witness that led to Dieteman and Hausner’s arrests in Mesa, just a few days after Blasnek’s death. Dieteman had told a friend named Ron Horton about the shootings, and Horton had placed at least two vague phone calls to the tip line that July, telling the police that they should be looking for a man named Sam. After Blasnek was killed, however, Horton had had enough. He called Silent Witness with everything he knew. His information eventually led police to the two suspects.
Investigators apparently are still trying to determine whether Dieteman’s testimony is true, with the distinct knowledge that it doesn’t change the case after the fact. Penzone left open the possibility that a mistake may have been made. “We’re not perfect,” he said. “But we’re darn good.”
Hausner has pleaded not guilty to 87 crimes, and continues to insist he had nothing to do with the killing spree. Dieteman pleaded guilty to two murders and agreed to testify against Hausner as part of a plea agreement. Both men continue to face the death penalty.