Prosecutor Vince Imbordino (far right) questions Serial Shooter suspect Dale Hausner (left) during the ongoing 87-count criminal trial in Maricopa County Superior Court. Photo by Julio Jimenez
The trial against Serial Shooter suspect Dale Hausner began nearly half a year ago in a downtown Phoenix courtroom with hundreds of people being screened for jury duty. Come next week, just 12 from that original pool will have the chance to decide whether authorities got the right man for the 87 crimes that took place over a 14-month period, a spree that left eight people dead and some 17 others wounded.
Closing arguments are scheduled to begin — and end — this week following five months of testimony in the murder trial. The prosecution dominated most of that time, with a parade of victims, witnesses, investigators and Hausner’s supposed accomplice, Samuel Dieteman, testifying about the crime spree.
When opening arguments took place in early October, Maricopa County prosecutor warned jurors that they were in for a “long, bloody, painful road” in the months to come. He was right. At times during the past six months, jurors heard testimony from numerous victims who told stories of near-death nighttime encounters in 2005 and 2006, times when they lay bleeding in the streets, waiting for help. They heard from Dieteman, who confessed to killing two people and wounding more, in the summer of 2006. He said he did so from the passenger seat of a silver four-door Toyota with Hausner at the wheel, steering the whole operation.
“This is not a (television) crime show,” Imbordino said back in October. “People were actually killed. It wasn’t fake. The bullets were real. The blood was real. The gunshots are real. The fear was real. The pain was real.
“But I know that you’re up for it.”
At the time, 20 jurors were listening to the initial arguments and testimony. That included eight alternates, in case some of the jurors just couldn’t hang on throughout the lengthy ordeal. Indeed, some outsiders even thought eight extra jurors might not be enough given the predicted six to nine months the trial would last. Remarkably, all 20 are still seated on the jury today. Though just 12 will be selected to judge the case.
Prosecutors Vince Imbordino and Laura Reckart, along with Phoenix police detectives Clark Schwartzkopf and Clifton Jewell, have laid out a strong case to convict Hausner. Beyond Dieteman’s testimony, they presented hours of secretly recorded conversations of the two men talking about the shootings. They also have .22 caliber shell casings that were found in Hausner’s car and match a number of the crimes from 2005. Additionally, they have mounds of circumstantial evidence to show that Hausner had the opportunity to carry out the killings.
Early in the trial, Hausner’s legal team, Ken Everett and Timothy Agan, promised a lengthy and strong defense for their client. But when it came down to it, they presented just two weeks of testimony on Hausner’s behalf — most of which was dominated by Hausner himself, who took the stand for five days, proclaiming his innocence.
In the end, Hausner’s strategy was basically to ask the jury to believe him that he did not commit the crimes. He could not provide solid alibis for the times of the shootings, nor did he provide evidence that pointed at anyone else as the shooter (though he implied that Dieteman acted by himself in the crimes.)
Beginning on Tuesday, both sides will try to summarize what jurors heard over the past five months. One side will say it’s enough to find Hausner guilty of all 87 crimes. The other side will say it exonerates their client and that not enough evidence was presented to deem Hausner guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
The jury will get its chance to decide after that. When the verdict will come down is anybody’s guess.
Stay tuned: Journalist Nick Martin will be in the courtroom all this week, blogging about the trial live from the courtroom as he has done since opening arguments began. Join Heat City for live updates as the guilt phase of the trial winds down.