Sex Assault Suspect to Be Charged in Phoenix 'Baseline Killer' Deaths

PHOENIX – Police said Thursday they have evidence linking a sexual assault suspect with all nine killings attributed to the "Baseline Killer," a serial predator who terrorized the Phoenix area for months.

Phoenix Police Chief Jack Harris said investigators are recommending that Mark Goudeau be charged with 71 criminal counts, including murder.

Goudeau has been in custody since September, when he was arrested in connection with the 2005 sexual assaults of two sisters — one of whom was pregnant — in a south Phoenix park.

The assaults were among the crimes linked to the Baseline Killer case, one of two serial killer cases that had been unsolved in the Phoenix area. Two men were arrested in connection with the other group of shootings earlier this year.

The Baseline Killer case originally included 23 shootings, rapes and robberies that left eight people dead between August 2005 and June. The dead, seven of them women, ranged in ages from 19 to 39. They were killed going about their daily activities: leaving work, washing a car or waiting at a bus stop.

A ninth killing was newly added to the case and was first revealed publicly on Thursday. The victim was a woman found dead in her Phoenix home by her 8-year-old son.

Police have said the killer struck at night and wore disguises, which included a wig of dreadlocks and a fisherman's hat. The name Baseline Killer came from the Phoenix street where some of the earliest crimes in the string were committed.

In September, police said they were looking into whether Goudeau, a former construction worker, could be tied to those attacks.

Nine of the 23 Baseline Killer attacks occurred within three miles of the home Goudeau shared with his wife. One victim was killed just around the corner.

Goudeau also has unrelated convictions on three aggravated assaults in 1989 and armed robbery and kidnapping in 1990. He served 13 1/2 years on those convictions before being paroled in 2004.

Goudeau previously admitted to being a recovering cocaine addict and once blamed his history of violence on a weakness for crack cocaine.

After his arrest, Goudeau's wife, Wendy Carr, criticized Phoenix police and the mayor for their handling of the case, saying accusations "have been spilled into the streets with complete disregard for the truth."