Baseline Killer Suspect UpdateIt's starting to look
more and more like they may have gotten the guy who's been terrorizing south Phoenix for over a year.
A suspect arrested in the sexual assault of two sisters last year looks remarkably like the composite sketch of a serial killer who has been prowling the city for more than a year.
Mark Goudeau, a construction worker, is believed to be linked to one double attack in the series of sexual assaults, robberies and murders blamed on the "Baseline Killer." Goudeau, an ex-con, lives just about a block and a half from the last murder, smack in the area where many of the killer's 23 crimes were clustered.Police say DNA evidence links Goudeau to the Sept. 20 sexual assaults of two sisters in south Phoenix but not to any of the other Baseline Killer cases. Goudeau was arrested Wednesday and accused of aggravated assault, kidnapping, sexual assault and sexual abuse.
The Baseline Killer began his rampage on Aug. 6, 2005, and a year later, eight people are dead, 11 women have been sexually assaulted and 22 people have been robbed. In many cases, victims had conversations with the man before the attacks. Usually, the killer struck after dark and wore disguises.One thing that seems a little odd about the suspect is that he's a little old for a serial killer at 43. However, this seems to be a good explanation:
Records from the Arizona Department of Corrections show Goudeau was paroled from prison in March 2004 after serving 13 years for aggravated assault, armed robbery and kidnapping. The crimes, like those of the Baseline Killer, took place near Goudeau's residence.He's apparently been a bad 'un for quite awhile:
According to court records, Goudeau was named in a rape case in 1982 but never charged. In 1989, he was arrested after beating a woman so severely with a shotgun that he fractured her skull. Goudeau claimed they had consensual sex, but the woman said he raped her and tried to force cocaine up her nose. The location: 28th Street and Osborn Road, just blocks north of where he was arrested Wednesday.
Goudeau was allowed to plead no contest to three counts of aggravated assault.
Almost exactly a year later, and before he was sentenced for the assaults, Goudeau robbed a supermarket at gunpoint in the same shopping center where the Baseline Killer is thought to have robbed three stores on one occasion and to have abducted a woman that he sexually assaulted on another. In his presentence report, Goudeau reportedly told an officer that he robbed the store to support his crack cocaine habit. Again, he pleaded no contest.Kudos to the Phoenix police for getting their man!
