Laura Reckart
Live from the courtroom: Maricopa County prosecutor Laura Reckart began her closing presentation this morning with a stark quote by Serial Shooter suspect Dale Hausner: “I love shooting people in the back. It’s so much fun.”
The quote was picked up by microphones secretly planted in Hausner’s Mesa apartment hours before his arrest. Hausner has said it was just a sick joke. Authorities had another theory.
“With those words, this case turned from a whodunit to a he-did-it,” Reckart said this morning as she turned and pointed at Hausner.
Piece by piece, Reckart has been laying out all the evidence for the jury, connecting the dots between the DNA, the shell casings, the secret recordings and other bits of the case. “It is not happenstance nor is it coincidence,” Reckart has repeated numerous times.
“He was responsible for these killings, these maimings, the destruction and the terror,” Reckart said.
Dale Hausner
Throughout the morning, Hausner’s arrest photo has often been flashed on a big screen TV set near the jury box. It’s an image far different than the picture of Hausner the jury has seen throughout the trial. In the photograph, Hausner is grizzled and angry, with a scowl of his bearded face. In the courtroom, Hausner has been polite and clean-shaved, often trying to win over jurors and members of the media.
Reckart is using the image to show another side of Hausner, one she says is a serial killer. “Dale Hausner stalked his prey,” Reckart said. “And in one swift movement, killed or maimed his target.” She compared him at different times in the presentation to a cat or a shark — a predator out on the hunt.
More to come…