Heat City

Dale Hausner

Live from the courtroom: At least yesterday he was answering questions.

Serial Shooter suspect Dale Hausner has proved as stubborn today as he was defiant yesterday, answering many of prosecutor Vince Imbordino’s questions with answers such as “I don’t know” or “I can’t remember” rather than the elaborate stories he told previously.

Here’s a sampling of his answers today:

• “I’m not a professional map reader, sir. I apologize.”
• ” I have a pretty good memory, but I can’t remember everything.”
• “Again, I’m trying my best here.”
• “I did not search him for his cell phone, sir. I have no knowledge of what Mr. Dieteman does.”
• “I don’t recall, sir.”
• “I can only speculate. It’s been three years.”

This is a far cry from his testimony earlier in the week, when Hausner had an answer for every question and accusation against him. In fact, at the time, it appeared that Hausner either had a nearly perfect memory or else was incredibly well-prepared for his testimony. His explanations were lengthy and detaild. “I still to this day have nothing to hide,” he told the jury on Monday.

Serial Shooter suspect Dale Hausner on Wednesday defends himself against charges that he murdered eight people and wounded at least 17 others. Photo by Julio Jimenez

A defiant Dale Hausner spent yesterday locked in a heated battle with prosecutors over truth, lies and sexuality as he defended himself against 87 criminal charges that include, assault, arson and eight counts of murder. It was the first time prosecutors had a chance to question the Serial Shooter suspect about the crimes, which Hausner continued to deny having any role in.

Hausner was obviously upset by a number of the earliest questions asked by Maricopa County prosecutor Vince Imbordino, and he sometimes tried to wrestle control of day away from his inquisitor. At one point early on, Hausner told Imbordino he didn’t like the way he was being quizzed, that some of the prosecutor’s lines sounded more like statements than questions. “Well, it’s my cross examination,” Imbordino shot back.

Live from the courtroom: An old white-haired man in the spectator’s gallery just shouted out the word “liar” during a break in Serial Shooter suspect Dale Hausner’s testimony this afternoon. The jury was still in the room, though they were on their way out.

“Sorry,” the man said when a deputy began to walk toward him. “I was talking to my bag.” He lifted up a small backpack he had with him.

Judge Roland Steinle ordered deputies to remove the man from the building and ban him from stepping foot in the courtroom again. “Sorry,” the man said again while exiting the room.

Charles Starkweather

Live from the courtroom: On the stand this afternoon, Dale Hausner revealed his fascination with a serial killer named Charles Starkweather. The killer was believed to have killed 11 people on a road trip with his girlfriend in 1958. Hausner said part of his interest in Starkweather was because the two of them were from the same state.

“I believe he is credited with the first American serial killer,” Hausner said. “And I thought that was weird because I’m from Nebraska.”

Starkweather was found guilty of the murders in 1958 and later put to death in an electric chair.

“You wouldn’t know by looking at him on a given day that he was a psychopath,” Hausner testified. “I found that very interesting.”

Dale Hausner

Live from the courtroom: This afternoon on the witness stand, Serial Shooter suspect Dale Hausner admitted to lying to a journalist in a 2006 interview about a bizarre note police found in his apartment. The note read: “He who asks about the $5 bill is a homicidal maniac, arsonist, thief, destroyer of property, drug using god among mortals.”

In September 2006, about a month after his arrest, Hausner told journalist Katie McDevitt of the East Valley Tribune newspaper in a phone interview from the jail that he was shocked and had never heard of the note before. Then, earlier this week, Hausner testified that he, in fact, had penned the note. I pointed out the contradiction at the time here on HEAT CITY.

Just minutes ago, Maricopa County prosecutor Vince Imbordino quizzed Hausner about this glaring inconsistency. “I absolutely lied to a reporter, sir,” Hausner said. “Yes I did.”

The reason? Hausner said he wanted to be portrayed better in the media, so that’s why he lied.

Live from the courtroom: The prosecution’s questioning of Dale Hausner has started off with a bang, as deputy county attorney Vince Imbordino accused the Serial Shooter suspect of having a love interest in his alleged accomplice, Samuel Dieteman.

Hausner spent part of his past two days of testimony saying Dieteman was bisexual and speaking about it with disgust. Imbordino is obviously trying to get Hausner riled up on the stand. “Actually, it’s not Sam Dieteman that’s bisexual, it’s you, isn’t it?” Imbordino said.

“No, that’s not true,” Hausner said, adding later: “I like women, and I like a lot of them, sir.”

Serial Shooter suspect Dale Hausner, shown during better times in this undated photograph. Submitted.

Dale Hausner, suspect in eight murders and numerous other shootings, turns 36 today. Born Feb. 4, 1973 in Omaha, Neb., Hausner will spend his birthday in a rather unusual place: in a downtown Phoenix courtroom, facing an onslaught of questions by prosecutors and defending himself against charges of murder, attempted murder, assault, arson and cruelty to animals.

Prosecutors get their first ever chance today to question the suspected serial killer. Police interrogated him in the hours after his arrest, and he denied any involvement in what had become known as the Serial Shooter killing spree. However, Maricopa County prosecutors have never had a crack at him. Yesterday, prosecutors could be seen taking furious notes as Hausner went through his second day of denials and alibis on the witness stand. Lead prosecutor Vince Imbordino will work to poke holes in Hausner’s elaborate story once the trial picks up again today at 1 p.m. — a later start to the day than ususual, not because it’s Hausner’s birthday, but because one of the jurors had a scheduling conflict.

Live from the courtroom: Throughout his testimony in the past two days, Serial Shooter suspect Dale Hausner has relied on a series of day planners to corroborate his testimony. The day planners, three of them representing the years 2005 and 2006, are filled with detailed, handwritten notes about appointments Hausner says he kept during those years. Many of the notes are simply initials. For example, the initials SNAML, according to Hausner, stand for “spent night at Marianne Lescher’s.”

The notebooks, according to Hausner, help him prove in many occasions that he was nowhere near the scenes of the crimes he’s accused in. On May 17, 2005, the night the first Serial Shooter victim was shot to death in east Phoenix, Hausner’s planner reads “SNAML.” It’s the same with May 24, 2005, the night the second victim was killed in north-central Phoenix. In other words, Hausner’s own record keeping shows he was spending the night at his girlfriend’s house, several miles east in Gilbert while the first two murders were taking place.

The notebooks themselves, however, are a bit of a mystery. Police never found any such planners when searching Hausner’s Mesa apartment after his arrest in August 2006, and neither Hausner nor his attorney, Ken Everett, have explained to the jury where the notebooks came from.

Dale Hausner

Live from the courtroom: On the evening July 19, 2005, Dale Hausner had his heart broken by one of his girlfriends, he testified this morning. “The question was: Will you marry me?” Hausner said on the witness stand. That was the night he proposed to Marianne Lescher, a woman he had been dating for months by that point. She told him no. Hausner testified that he rushed back to a jewelery shop to return her ring the next day.

Hours after he returned the ring, authorities say he drove to to a neighborhood in west Phoenix and shot two animals, which were being kept just miles away from each other.

Some five months later, Hausner was marking the eve of the anniversary of the death of his two sons, who were killed in a car crash in 1994 in Texas. The date was Nov. 11, 2005, and Hausner said he went to his children’s cemetery in north Phoenix to lay carnations on their headstone.

That night, according to authorities, Hausner took a wild trip through Phoenix, killing a homeless man named Nathaniel Schoffner and shooting two dogs. It was one of the bloodiest nights of the Serial Shooter killing spree.

Live from the courtroom: Serial Shooter suspect Dale Hausner said he purchased his .22 caliber rifle three days after the murder of Tony Mendez, adding to his defense that he is not a serial killer.

Authorities believe the Mendez murder is the first crime in the killing spree, taking place on May 17, 2005. Mendez was found dead, tangled up in his bicycle on the side of the road in east Phoenix. Emergency crews originally thought he had been run over by a car until they found a small-caliber bullet hole in his upper body.

This morning on the witness stand, Hausner said he didn’t even own the kind of gun that could have made that bullet hole until May 20, 2005, three days after the murder took place.