Heat City

Samuel Dieteman

Live from the courtroom: Almost immediately after the arrests of Dale Hausner and Samuel Dieteman in 2006, court documents revealed the pair had allegedly used the term “recreational violence” to describe their crime spree.

Today on the witness stand in Hausner’s eight-count murder trial, Dieteman described more about the violence that encompassed the phrase. More than anything, he said, the violence was simple vandalism.

“Anywhere and everywhere we parked,” he testified, “the people next to us, on either side of us, got their tires punctured.”

The men kept tools in their car, he said, for breaking out car windows or sticking holes in a tire — a meat tenderizer, a knife, an icepick, a spring-loaded center punch. Nearly anything did the trick.

Samuel Dieteman

Live from the courtroom: Serial Shooter suspect Dale Hausner was present for the stabbing of another man, a crime he was never charged with, according to the man who says he helped Hausner commit murders and other violent crimes.

Samuel Dieteman, 33, took the witness stand this morning for the second time this year in Hausner’s eight-count murder trial in downtown Phoenix. Earlier this year he testified that the two of them cruised the Valley on numerous occasions in the summer of 2006, gunning people down from Hausner’s car. He also testified that the two of them were present when Hausner’s brother, Jeff, stabbed a man in May of that year. Dale Hausner was charged with attempted murder and assault for his suspected role in the stabbing.

Today, Dieteman testified that Dale Hausner was present for an entirely separate stabbing of another man in west Phoenix nearly a month earlier. That stabbing, too, was carried out by the brother, Jeff Hausner, who has already been convicted and is serving a prison term for the attack.

Marianne Lescher

Live from the courtroom: One of Serial Shooter suspect Dale Hausner’s former lovers, a school principal, took the stand this afternoon and denied she could vouch for his whereabouts on the nights of the shootings.

Marianne Lescher, an elementary school principal in the Kyrene School District, dated Hausner for several months in 2005, and maintained a friendship with him into the summer of 2006. On the witness stand today, she contradicted every one of Hausner’s claims that he was spending the night at her Gilbert house when the shootings were taking place.

“I am absolutely positive,” said Lescher, testifying that Hausner left her home hours before the first murder took place in the Serial Shooter case on May 17, 2005.

On the witness stand last week, Hausner said there was no way he could have committed a number of the 2005 shootings in Phoenix because he was spending the night with Lescher in Gilbert on those occasions. He even had a code penciled into his day planner to mark the nights he slept with her: SNAML, which he said stood for “spent night at Marianne Lescher’s.”

Karen Ledford, the ex-wife of Serial Shooter suspect Dale Hausner, took the stand to talk about acts of violence during their stormy relationship. Pool photo

Live from the courtroom: Karen Ledford, the ex-wife of Serial Shooter suspect Dale Hausner, got a chance this morning to tell her story to the jury in the suspect’s ongoing eight-count murder trial. The testimony, in which she talked about violent acts during their relationship, was largely the same as what she told the judge on the witness stand yesterday.

Ledford talked of a time when Hausner chased her in his car, then ripped her clothes off in the middle of a city street. She told about another time when he took her out in the desert, pointed a long gun at her and asked “where I want it.”

Dale Hausner

Live from the courtroom: Serial Shooter suspect Dale Hausner has chosen to stay away from his eight-count murder trial today and tomorrow, avoiding having to sit through personal and potentially damaging testimony about himself.

The decision came a day after Hausner walked out of the courtroom during testimony by his ex-wife, which included allegations of violence during their stormy 8-year marriage. The ex, Karen Ledford, also testified that Hausner told her he was attracted to men, as well as women, a revelation that clearly upset the 36-year-old serial killer suspect.

Ledford will take the stand again today. Hausner’s former roommate and alleged accomplice, Samuel Dieteman, is expected to take the stand again tomorrow.

Dale Hausner

Live from the courtroom (Updated, 5:51 p.m.): The ex-wife of Serial Shooter suspect Dale Hausner gave bombshell testimony this afternoon about times when the defendant screamed at her, ripped her clothes off in the middle of a city street, and nearly killed her in the desert.

It was a picture of violence that she said took place long before Hausner was accused of murdering eight people and wounding some 17 others in a 14-month shooting spree in 2005 and 2006 the Phoenix area.

“He’s manipulative and he’s cunning,” said Karen Ledford, whose last name was Hausner when the couple were married in the 1990s and early 2000s. “He’s a chameleon and he will show you whatever you want to see. He’s a good actor. He’s probably the most dangerous person I could ever think to be as good of a liar as he is.”

Ledford took the stand for the prosecution in an attempt to rebut the good-guy image Hausner portrayed during his own six days of testimony. However, she did so with the jury out of the room.

Dale Hausner

Live from the courtroom: Before the defense rested its case this afternoon, jurors got a chance to ask defendant Dale Hausner a number of questions at the end of his testimony. It had the potential to be a window into the minds of the jury with a verdict potentially just weeks away. But Judge Roland Steinle cut the questions short, telling jurors many of them had already been answered.

“You may or may not be disappointed in my decision in this matter,” Steinle said. He asked the jury not to read anything into the decision.

In Maricopa County, jurors can ask a witness questions by writing them on a sheet of paper and handing them to the judge. The judge and attorneys then weed through the questions and the judge does the asking.

Steinle said the jury handed him 49 sheets of questions — considerably more than for any other witness during the trial. They wanted to know whether Hausner was taking any medication during his testimony, about Hausner and Samuel Dieteman’s relationship, and more info about Hausner’s guns.

Hausner testifies last week in his own defense. Photo by Julio Jimenez

Live from the courtroom: Serial Shooter suspect Dale Hausner’s defense has rested its case, marking another significant milestone in the long trial.