The Baseline Killer
Introduction
In 2005 and 2006, residents of South Phoenix lived in fear. While the criminal or criminals known as the Serial Shooter made a sport of hunting strangers across the city and its southern suburbs, another mysterious assailant prowled the bustling, middle-class area near Baseline Road. The Baseline Killer was at one point suspected of killing as many as 23 people, mostly women in their 20s and 30s.
Ballistics tests proved 9 seemingly unrelated shootings were connected, and police linked them to a series of rapes and carjackings as well. But figuring out who was behind the crime spree was more difficult. The perpetrator seemed a master of disguise. Sometimes he was bald; sometimes he had dreadlocks; sometimes he wore a fisherman's cap. Sometimes he seemed homeless and hopeless; sometimes he approached his victims saying he needed a ride; sometimes he was a model of civility and suave politeness until he launched his brutal attacks.
Still, investigators tracked him down. In fact, it turned out that police apparently had just the evidence they needed to identify the suspect nine months before they arrested him; but seven more people died before authorities caught their own mistake and caught Mark Goudeau.
Of course, there are people who still say that the Baseline Killer wasn't Goudeau at all.