Heat City

Before sending the jury off today, Judge Roland Steinle broke down the staggering numbers that have gone into the Dale Hausner trial: 150 witnesses, 1,150 pieces of evidence and nearly 70 days of testimony over the course of five months.

Attorneys began selecting jurors nearly six months ago, and today, those who made the cut finally got the chance to consider Hausner’s fate. At a few minutes after noon, the 20-person jury was sliced into two parts: 12 who would decide the verdict, and eight who would be back ups, just in case. The second string was chosen at random, with their assigned numbers picked from a bowl.

Steinle told the jury he was amazed the original pool of 20 people was still in tact at the end of the trial. “I would really really like to have all 20 of your deliberate,” Steinle told them. “It’s not possible in the criminal case.”

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.”

Dale Hausner

Live from the courtroom: The lead defense attorney in the trial of Dale Hausner said today that prosecutors had three “main gaps” in their case against the serial killer suspect. Considering that, he said, the case against his client had not been proved beyond reasonable doubt.

The theory has turned out the be the central theme in attorney Ken Everett’s final plea to the jury to find his client innocent of all 87 crimes with which he has been charged. The jury is hearing closing arguments this week after hearing five months of testimony in a downtown Phoenix courtroom.

The first supposed gap, according to Everett, was the “time gap.” The crimes in the Serial Shooter case took place at apparently random intervals. For example, the first two murders, according to authorities, took place just seven days apart. But the third murder took place more than a month later. In another instance, more than five months of peace took place between crimes that authorities connected to the case.

Everett used the randomness to question whether each of the crimes should have even been connected to the Serial Shooter case in the first place. “The evidence shows that several of the crimes they’re trying to add to this series and add to this group of shootings because they think it fits,” Everett said. He told jurors some of the case may have presented police an opportunity to simply take a crime “off their desk.” During the trial, he presented no evidence for the suggestion.

Live from the courtroom: May 17, 2005 was nearly four years ago. It was a Tuesday. Do you remember what you were doing that night?

Serial Shooter suspect Dale Hausner has testified he was spending the night with his girlfriend at the time. The girlfriend testified otherwise. Authorities say it was the night Hausner chalked up his first murder, shooting a man named Tony Mendez with a .22 caliber rifle.

As part of his closing argument today in the ongoing eight-count murder trial, Hausner’s attorney, Ken Everett, challenged the jury to think back to that date. “Ladies and gentlemen,” Everett said, “I submit to you: Where were you on May 17, 2005?” Hausner relied on bank and employment records, as well as a day planner he supposedly kept during that time.

Ken Everett

Live from the courtroom: Serial Shooter suspect Dale Hausner’s attorney evoked Arthur Miller’s The Crucible to begin his closing argument this morning, saying his client is no serial killer but merely the victim of a witch hunt by authorities.

Being branded a “suspected serial killer,” attorney Ken Everett said, is “not unlike being called a witch, or back in the ’50s being called a communist.”

Everett called on the jury to heavily scrutinize what he called “shaky evidence,” particularly the testimony of the state’s star witness Samuel Dieteman, who told the jury earlier this year that he accompanied Hausner on a string of assaults and killings in the summer of 2006.

Hausner is on trial in Maricopa County Superior Court, accused of eight murders and 79 other crimes. The trial, taking place in a downtown Phoenix courtroom, is coming to a close this week at the end of its sixth-straight month. Hausner has insisted he had no part in the crimes, which later became known as the Serial Shooter killing spree.

Dale Hausner

Live from the courtroom: Prosecutor Laura Reckart spent much of the afternoon turning up the heat on Dale Hausner, attacking his claims that he had alibis on the nights of the shootings by repeatedly calling them “ali-lies” in a sharp turn of phrase.

The attack by Reckart built on the earlier part of her closing in which she laid out many of the straight-forward facts of the case. Often, this afternoon, she went after Hausner’s credibility, pointing out his inconsistencies and admitted lies. She told the jury that Hausner has woven such a complicated web he is no longer able to keep his stories straight. “He can’t keep his web untangled,” Reckart said.

The closing argument lasted almost all day, clocking in at about 4 1/2 hours. It was the first of two chances Maricopa County prosecutors have to sum up their case for the jury. Prosecutor Vince Imbordino is expected to lay the final blocks on Thursday morning, just before the jury is asked to decide Hausner’s guilt or innocence.

During the presentation, Reckart made a habit of turning toward Hausner at pointed moments to focus the jury’s already rapt attention toward him. The serial killer suspect often had his head turned away from the action, refusing to meet the prosecutor’s gaze.

Dale Hausner is shown shaking hands with boxer Mike Tyson in this undated photograph. Submitted

Live from the courtroom: What was Dale Hausner’s alleged motive for the Serial Shooter killing spree? “Celebrity,” said prosecutor Laura Reckart in her closing argument for Hausner’s eight-count murder trial.

Hausner had spent years trying to become a known personality in the local boxing scene. He had his own cable access television show about boxing. He photographed matches throughout the southwest. He even appeared on a TV commercial for the local law firm Phillips & Associates, which represented him in a lawsuit.

Live from the courtroom: During the start of closing arguments this morning, prosecutor Laura Reckart has used the phrase “kill, maim, destroy and terrify” time and again. The phrase has been repeated at least 20 times in the first hour. It’s a repetition that reflects the destruction carried out, according to authorities, by Serial Shooter suspect Dale Hausner for more than 14 months across the Valley.

“For 1 1/2 years, the defendant’s plan worked,” Reckart said. “The modus operandi of Dale Hausner was successful.”