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Phoenix Police Arrest Dale Hausner and Samuel Dieteman in the "Serial Shooter" Attacks

For more than a year, someone had been shooting people and animals at random at night across metropolitan Phoenix. Police said the two roommates took turns.

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Illustration of police cars with flashing lights and officers outside a stucco apartment complex under palm trees at night. Not an actual scene from the case.

For more than a year, someone had been shooting people and animals at random at night across metropolitan Phoenix. On August 4, 2006, police announced that they had arrested two roommates in the "Serial Shooter" attacks.

Police arrested Dale Hausner, 33, and Samuel Dieteman, 30, near midnight on August 3, after following them for about two hours. Each faced two counts of first-degree murder and 14 counts of attempted first-degree murder. Police said the pair were being investigated in 36 shootings, 17 of them aimed at people and the rest at animals, and that their evidence included weapons and a map marking the locations of dozens of shootings. Investigators had begun looking for Dieteman in July as a suspect in arson fires at two Wal-Mart stores in Glendale, then watched him and Hausner for most of the week before the arrests. "We are so confident that these are the people," said Police Chief Jack Harris.

According to a probable cause statement, Dieteman told police the two took turns shooting from a car. Among the victims were Claudia Gutierrez-Cruz, 20, shot on May 2 after she stepped off a bus on her way home from work, and Robin Blasnek, shot on July 30 as she walked to her boyfriend's house in Mesa; both died in the hospital. In a jailhouse interview, Hausner denied the killings and said Dieteman might have used his car and guns. "I am not a monster," he said.

Dieteman later entered a plea agreement and testified against Hausner. At a 2009 trial, a jury convicted Hausner of six murders and many other crimes and sentenced him to death for each of the murders.

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