The Baseline Killer

When his Baseline Road neighbors spoke of their anxiety about the wave of unexplained violence threatening their families, construction worker Mark Goudeau would sadly shake his head, and observe that there was no escape from the nastiness of which some people are capable.

He knew that from his time in prison. Paroled in 2004, Goudeau had served 13 years due to a crack problem that led him to a career in violent crime. He had been convicted of three aggravated assaults, armed robbery and kidnapping. Since getting out, he'd been working 10-hour days and apparently abiding by his parole agreement.

As his wife, Wendy Carr sees it, Goudeau was a black man with a police record who was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Cops needed to collar someone as the Baseline Killer; but, Carr insists, Goudeau is the nicest guy in the world.

After Goudeau's conviction, his lawyer, Rodrick Carter, claimed that a member of the first grand jury had been biased, and they asked to have the case remanded to a new grand jury. But in August 2008, Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Warren Granville upheld the indictments. As of August 2009, Mark Goudeau still awaits trial on nine counts of first degree murder and other charges.

In June 2009, however, a leaked police report suggests that authorities had looked at whether someone else might have been connected to at least some of the Baseline crimes.