Dale Hausner
Live from the courtroom: In the months before his arrest on suspicion of being the Serial Shooter, Dale Hausner became increasingly erratic and unreliable, his former lover testified this afternoon.
Linda Tarrence said the Mesa man, once devoted and attentive to their very young daughter, began to miss appointments and would often forget to pick the girl up from daycare during the summer of 2006. During that same period, Hausner missed numerous days of work, using the excuse that he had to take care of his ill daughter. Tarrence said many of those excuses were untrue; Hausner was not with the girl on those days.
Tarrence said she and Hausner lived together between December 2003 and December 2004, but they were separated some six months before the time authorities allege Hausner began the killings. However, the pair had a child together and so they kept in touch.
On several occasions, Hausner was supposed to pick their daughter up from daycare in the afternoon and care for her, but he would either miss the pickup without notice or else call Tarrence with excuses about why he could not make it. “One time he had to go to Vegas,” Tarrence testified. “Another time it was bar tending, just his usual bar tending or boxing photography.” Hausner also began to miss payments to the Mesa daycare center, she said.
At one point that summer, the young girl told her mother that Hausner had another man, Samuel Dieteman, living with him. Since this was news to Tarrence, she confronted Hausner about the situation. He blew up at her, she testified. “He got angry and started swearing and cursing and saying, ‘No, nobody was living with him. He was living by himself.'”
Tarrence also testified that she has been trying to get Hausner to give up his parental rights of their daughter ever since his arrest. So far, she said, Hausner has not agreed to it.