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Baseline Killer

November 30, 2011 by · Comments Off on Baseline Killer 

Baseline Killer, An Arizona jury on Wednesday sentenced a man convicted of being the Phoenix area’s Baseline Killer to death, rejecting his pleas for mercy and denials of guilt and agreeing with prosecutors that the nine murders he committed were especially cruel.

Jurors reached the verdict about a month after they found 47-year-old Mark Goudeau (goo-DOH’) guilty of the nine murders and 58 other charges, including kidnapping and rape.

Goudeau had been serving a 438-year sentence in a 2005 sexual assault case tied to the Baseline Killer attacks, but only recently became eligible for the death penalty after his murder convictions.

Prosecutors had argued that Goudeau was a “ravenous wolf” driven by a hunger to rape women and kill those who didn’t cooperate with his demands, and that the murders were especially cruel because the victims suffered unimaginable terror and anguish in the moments leading up to their deaths.

“He enjoyed the power and dominion he exercised over these victims,” prosecutor Patricia Stevens told jurors. “He enjoyed the threats of force, the threats of death.”

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