Prosecutor Vince Imbordino, shown here questioning a witness earlier in the trial, gave the state’s final pitch today to convict Serial Shooter suspect Dale Hausner of 87 crimes, including eight counts of murder. Photo by Julio Jimenez
Dale Hausner may have seemed like a fairly ordinary man before his arrest, prosecutor Vince Imbordino told the jury this morning. If you passed him at the airport, where he worked as a janitor, or on the street, you probably wouldn’t have noticed him.
But in the prosecution’s final pitch to the jury to convict Hausner on eight murder and 79 other criminal charges, Imbordino went on to say the Serial Shooter suspect was evil at his very core. Hausner, he said, even possesses “horns having grown inward.”
The final statements by Imbordino were more a benediction than a hard recitation of facts. He quoted Confucius and the English poet W.H. Auden. He peppered his speech with stories of trials past in which he won convictions against ordinary men who he said committed extraordinary crimes. By the end of it, one of the women on the jury could be seen wiping away tears.
“Evil doesn’t have a face,” Imbordino said, pointing to Hausner. “This man committed any number of evil acts against people and animals.”
“There’s evil around us and we don’t always see it,” he said later. “Dale Hausner’s an example of that.”
His 90-minute closing statement was the final thing the jury heard before they were asked to decide the suspect’s guilt or innocence. On Wednesday, Hausner’s attorney Ken Everett had his turn to make a final pitch for his client. A day prior to that, prosecutor Laura Reckart gave the state’s initial closing argument, reminding the jury of the evidence they have heard during the past five months of testimony.
More than his colleague did earlier in the week, Imbordino today reminded jurors of the animals killed or wounded by the Serial Shooter. With so many people attacked in the case, it was easy to overlook the horses and dogs targeted.
“If you’ve been around a horse, if you’ve had a horse nuzzle your ear, you couldn’t shoot it,” the veteran prosecutor said. “You ever had a puppy lick your face? You couldn’t kill one. There’s no explanation for what he did. There’s no reason for what he did.”
Imbordino left many of the details of the killing spree out of his closing, instead leading jurors down logical paths they could use to reach guilty verdicts for the 87 charges against Hausner. At one point, the attorney pulled out a length of rope and compared it to the case. Though some of the strands may be weaker and some stronger, the rope is strong as a whole, he said. He cautioned the jurors from getting tripped up on all the legal jargon and strategy throughout the case. “This isn’t rocket science,” Imbordino said.
The prosecutor attacked Hausner’s integrity, often calling him a liar and a coward. Hausner could be seen shaking his head in disagreement throughout the ordeal. “So when this trial is over, whatever the result, I hope people will remember him for what he is: a coward,” Imbordino said, adding later: “You may ask yourself, why should I believe anything he told me? I submit to you that you shouldn’t.”
At the end, Imbordino closed by again reminding jurors of the animals in the case, saying the horses and dogs would probably be lovingly affectionate, even to Hausner, if they were still alive.
“If Cherokee was here in this courtroom, he’d probably lick his face,” Imbordino said. “If Sara Moon was here, she would nuzzle his ear.”
The prosecutor then walked back to his table and sat down.