The Baseline Killer & Rapist | World's Most Evil Killers | Forensic Files

[music playing] NARRATOR: Between 2005 and 2006, the city of Phoenix, Arizona, became the hunting ground for a prolific and violent
serial killer who was targeting the community. SARAH MUENCH: What made the Baseline Killer's
murders so terrifying was the fact that they appeared to be random. Every single person was different.
And it was in different locations. And we had no idea when he was going to strike next.
NARRATOR: Police were baffled as women were snatched from the street and the bodies
started piling up. The pressure was mounting on detectives to find the elusive killer.
So you've got a ton of information and a ton of deaths and a ton of multiple robbers and shootings and rapes.
It overwhelmed the police department. NARRATOR: A year after it had been collected,
a DNA swab from one of the victims would finally give the terrorized city some answers.
They ran the DNA test. They ran the ballistics. And that was the match. And that's how they connected all of the murders.
NARRATOR: A seemingly mild-mannered construction worker, Mark Goudeau, had unveiled himself as Phoenix's
notorious Baseline Killer. His hunger for kidnapping, rape, and murder of his neighborhood
has made him one of the world's most evil killers. [theme music] In 2011, 47-year-old Mark Goudeau
was sentenced to death after he'd been found guilty of nine murders. The prolific killer had traumatized the city of Phoenix
for 12 months at the same time as the Serial Shooters, a pair who collectively were responsible for six killings.
Patrol Officer Clark Schwarzkopf remembers the summer of fear. In the annals of serial criminal behavior--
and I've done the research-- I don't know if there's ever been a case where you had
two prolific serial murderers operating in not only the same city, but almost the exact same zip code for numerous amounts
of their crimes. NARRATOR: The lone gunman responsible for multiple murders in the Baseline Road area of the city
was dubbed the Baseline Killer. DNA would eventually lead to the unmasking of local man Mark Goudeau, who'd been leading a double life.
At his trial, he was keen to paint himself as the devoted husband and respected neighbor.
SARAH MUENCH: It was robbing, raping, murdering, whatever crime he could commit at the time,
and to put on a friendly face when he wasn't doing these crimes to talk at his trial,
to the jury and say, that's not me, I'm not a monster, and knowing everything that all of these victims went through.
NARRATOR: This killer story begins in 1964. Mark Goudeau was born in Phoenix, Arizona
to parents Willie and Alberta. He was the youngest of 11 siblings. ELIZABETH YARDLEY: He came from a very large family.
And when there are a lot of children in the family, resources are stretched even further, not just
in terms of finances and food and those kind of things, also in terms of attention and care.
And children from large families often find their own ways of coping with childhood.
NARRATOR: Goudeau's childhood didn't get any easier when aged just 11, his mother, Alberta,
died suddenly from a stroke. I think the death of Goudeau's mother would have had a significant impact on this family unit
because there were 11 children. So when she dies, she leaves quite a vacuum in terms
of her role within the family. GEOFFREY WANSELL: There was a lot of alcohol abuse in the family.
It wasn't what you might describe as a calm, affectionate childhood. And I think as he got into adolescence,
he found it more and more difficult. NARRATOR: Despite these challenges, in his early 20s,
Goudeau secured a job working as a valet at a car sales garage. GEOFFREY WANSELL: He was blue collar,
relatively hard working, but capable of pretending to be ordinary. One of the things that marks him out throughout his life
was the fact that he appeared to be normal. NARRATOR: The apparently ordinary resident
had a sinister side to him, as Patrol Officer Clark Schwarzkopf found out in August, 1989,
when he was called out to a domestic disturbance in Phoenix. CLARK SCHWARTZKOPF: I'd been on a shift
probably most of the night. It was completely dark. And when I pulled into this apartment complex,
as a patrol officer, one of the safety things that you do is you always turn your lights off.
And just as I was turning my lights off and pulling in the parking lot, I noticed what
appeared to be a white female. And she was completely naked. She's not worried about running outside with no clothes
on and being judged by people. She simply wants to survive. So this shows just how fearful this woman is.
She was in a state of angst and panic. And she was having a very difficult time communicating.
It was obvious that she was traumatized severely. NARRATOR: The woman had suffered severe injuries
and told Clark that she believed her assailant was still in the apartment she'd escaped from.
Officers went to investigate and came across 24-year-old Mark Goudeau. CLARK SCHWARTZKOPF: We knocked on the door
and a younger Black male answered, not disheveled, very calm. I asked him to step out.
And I immediately handcuffed him, noticed that there was blood on his hands. And, obviously, that was incident
of some type of a violent act. Took him back inside, sat him down, and then noticed that the apartment
was in an order of disarray, like there had been a struggle. It wasn't a lot of blood evidence,
but enough to know that it looked like there had been some violence. NARRATOR: The account Goudeau gave in the back of the patrol
car was somewhat different to the scene they were presented with. It was like, I'm not really sure what
happened kind of thing. I'm not really sure why she ran off kind of thing. It was obvious that he was very calculated in what he
was going to say and not say. NARRATOR: On the 29th of November, 1989, Goudeau was charged with sexual assault,
kidnapping, five counts of aggravated assault, and attempted murder. But shockingly, he was released on bail.
The charges didn't put off his girlfriend, Wendy, who remained loyal to Goudeau throughout
and maintained he was a good man. GEOFFREY WANSELL: All the neighbors that knew he and Wendy said how likable he was.
He was the chap next door, this agreeable, slightly shy, not particularly bright, but nevertheless perfectly ordinary
chap. But beneath that lurked something much darker. CLARK SCHWARTZKOPF: There was something
awfully sinister about him in my contact with him. And I mean that in a way that you just don't, you
commit these types of crimes and keep that type of a posture or that type of an attitude or that type of demeanor
without being very callous. And that's how he came across to me, as very callous.
NARRATOR: Undeterred by the charges against him, Goudeau continued committing crimes as he awaited trial.
After a series of robberies and assaults between November 1989 and July 1990, Goudeau went on to brutally attack
another woman on August the 6th. GEOFFREY WANSELL: He assaulted a woman using a shotgun.
He beat her with it, as well as raping her. This is a man who found fulfillment, if that's
the right word, in violent sex. NARRATOR: The young woman managed to escape despite Goudeau's attempts
to drown her in the bath. ELIZABETH YARDLEY: The fact that Goudeau puts his victim in the bath is an interesting one
because if you think about the bathroom in relation to the rest of the house, it's the smallest room
in the property very often. It's a room in which you don't have a lot of space to move around.
So it's a good location to put someone when you want to control them. NARRATOR: Despite significant head injuries,
the woman survived the attack. Goudeau's reign of terror culminated in an armed robbery
on the 8th of October, 1990, before he was finally imprisoned. There was an armed robbery charge, kidnapping charge, and
an aggravated assault charge. He was convicted of the charges involved in my case and another case and sentenced
to 21 years in the Department of Corrections. NARRATOR: Goudeau married his girlfriend
while he was in prison. And she would prove a useful ally in convincing a parole board that he was rehabilitated.
In 2004, after serving 13 years, he was released. GEOFFREY WANSELL: It was an extraordinary turn of events
because this likable enough model prisoner returned to his family home and to his wife.
ELIZABETH YARDLEY: I don't think that this is a turning point for him. If anything, the fact that he's been released
sends a message out to him. It sends this message out that actually, we don't consider
that you're that dangerous. We don't consider that your crimes were that bad. NARRATOR: By 2005, 40-year-old Goudeau was leading
an apparently normal existence. Even the neighbors were understanding of his criminal past.
He was an ex-con who had apparently turned himself around. And yes, he was a construction worker.
The neighbors would see him out you cutting the grass, taking care of the lawn, and just saw him as a very
stable, nice neighbor. GEOFFREY WANSELL: It's probably the most terrifying of all killers, someone who doesn't appear slightly
mad or a loner or doesn't have a tail or horns or wear a black cloak. He's the chap next door.
NARRATOR: Phoenix saw its crime rates soar over the summer of 2005. Law enforcement agencies worked double time to keep up.
So the Phoenix Police Department was in the trawls of this massive violent crime spree,
I mean, shootouts on the streets where dozens and dozens of rounds were fired, gangs prevalent.
It was ungodly hot. There had been wildfires that were raging on. It was like this perfect storm and a police
force that was just overwhelmed with all these violent crimes. NARRATOR: One of the hundreds of crimes reported in September
2005 involved two young sisters who were attacked as they walked home from a park.
They were in their early 20s. One might have been in her late teens. The older one was six months pregnant.
He took them into the bushes, forced them to strip, and sexually assaulted both of them.
At one point, one of the sisters noticed that he had put the gun down. And she grabbed it.
And she tried to shoot him. And she couldn't get the gun to work. And then he tussled with her.
The other sister got a hold of it. She couldn't get it to work either. He got the gun back.
He took that gun. He put it between the pregnant woman's legs and made her beg for the life of her baby.
GEOFFREY WANSELL: But he's sufficiently wise-- after all, he has spent a long time in prison--
to know that he wants to cover his traces, particularly these days DNA. And he realizes that he may have left DNA.
And so he tries to cover that up. NARRATOR: The attacker forced both girls to spit in their hands, mix mud into it,
before rubbing it all over their breasts in an attempt to destroy the DNA. And he abandons the girls, disappears back
into his sheep's clothing, if you like. The wolf is gone. NARRATOR: As more reports of sexual assaults and robberies
around the Baseline Road area flooded in, police began to link the crimes to a single perpetrator whom
they dubbed the Baseline Rapist. On September the 8th, the serial rapist would strike again.
But this time he was out to kill. Then the murders started showing up. The first was an exotic dancer in Tempe
named Georgia Thompson. SARAH MUENCH: Georgia Thompson was 19 years old. She moved from Idaho to Arizona.
At one point, she decided to be a dancer at a local strip club here. The night of her death, she went with a friend
to Acme Roadhouse in Tempe, which is just a fun bar. I had been there myself during college.
NARRATOR: After work, Georgia Thompson set off on the 10-mile drive to her apartment in Tempe,
but she never made it to her front door. The only thing we really know is that a neighbor
heard someone screaming. And then there was a gunshot that sounded like fireworks
or a backfire of a car. The police were called to the scene. And they found Georgia Thompson laying there on the ground
in the parking lot, her keys still in her hand and shopping bags strewn about. Her pants were unzipped.
And she was shot point blank in the head. MICHAEL KIEFER: That was the first of the murders,
but they didn't connect it to anyone. I mean, this is the fifth largest city in the US.
NARRATOR: The city didn't know it yet, but the Baseline Rapist had become the Baseline Killer.
And he was about to hunt his next victim. MICHAEL KIEFER: Tina Washington was a preschool teacher.
She was waiting for a bus. And all of a sudden, she was just snatched right off the street at rush hour
down at Southern and 40th Street and was dragged behind a building, where he was assaulting her.
It's December. It's nevertheless in plain sight. And he's not doing this in a remote area.
There was a guy who had a studio there. And he heard the noise. And he opened the back door and found himself
looking into the barrel of a gun and slammed the door shut and then called the police.
They came. And he was gone and she was dead. This is how fast this was. He knew the alleys.
He knew how to get away quickly and get back to find cover. NARRATOR: Police recovered two 38-caliber shell casings
from the scene but no DNA. Detectives suspected the Baseline Rapist had now escalated his crime spree.
The Baseline Rapist became the Baseline Killer when Phoenix Police started putting
these puzzle pieces together. And we realized that we didn't just have a rapist on our hands.
We had a murderer. NARRATOR: The Baseline Killer was quick to strike again when in February 2006, the bodies of two food vendors
were discovered in the back of their truck on Lower Buckeye Road. GEOFFREY WANSELL: Romelia Vargas was a mother of six,
including four-month-old twins. Mirna Roman was a mother of five between her and her partner.
These were two upright, cheerful women who enjoyed their job. NARRATOR: When the women failed to open up,
customers began to worry. A worker from the nearby dairy was the first to investigate
the eerie scene. MICHAEL KIEFER: They were all waiting. The lights were on, but the women weren't there.
So after a while they got a little wondering what was going on because it seemed strange.
And the man went into the wagon. And he found both women. They were bleeding to death.
He called 911. He came out when the police came. And he's covered with blood. And he was trying to do CPR.
SARAH MUENCH: It's just horrible to think of what Romelia and Mirna went through and just the shock
that they must have been in in the moments before they died. And they didn't deserve any of that.
And I know that that really hit a lot of people hard. The attack on the two women in the food truck
is quite an interesting one for me because it's what these women represent. There's something that really grates
on him about seeing women out there looking after themselves. NARRATOR: The killer had left no trace.
The police and the citizens of Phoenix had no idea who this depraved individual might be.
GEOFFREY WANSELL: He could have been in the queue for the lunch truck himself and yet still
knew that he had killed the two women who ran it. NARRATOR: As with the previous victims,
the two women had been shot and made to look like they'd been sexually assaulted,
a symbol that was becoming something of a trademark for the Baseline Killer. One of the things that police noted
was that a lot of the women had their pants unzipped and slightly pulled down, but they had
not been sexually assaulted. GEOFFREY WANSELL: He didn't manage to commit the act of that he thought he was going to.
Now, there's something very strange and complex there. NARRATOR: The lack of DNA left by the killer
made it an extremely challenging case for the Phoenix Police. The community was in utter shock at the heinous
and seemingly random attacks. SARAH MUENCH: What made the Baseline Killer's murders so terrifying was the fact that they
appeared to be a random. Every single person was different. And it was in different locations.
It appeared at the beginning that it was only a long Baseline Road. But then when police connected some more dots,
it was happening in Central Phoenix as well. And we did an inventory of all the victims
and realize that it didn't matter race, creed. With the robberies especially it didn't matter man, woman.
Age didn't matter. And this was just happening all the time. And we had no idea when he was going to strike next.
NARRATOR: On the 14th of March, 23-year-old George Chou offered a lift to coworker 20-year-old Liliana
Sanchez-Cabrera after her first shift at a restaurant located on 24th Street. When they didn't return home from work,
their families became worried. MICHAEL KIEFER: George Chou was not a target. He was just in the way.
The target there was the woman, Liliana. George just was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
But it's not enough to simply attack him or to simply remove him from the equation.
He has to kill him. He shot George in the back of the head, pushed him out of the car, took over the car,
turned around, drove back. She was found the next morning in the car with a bullet in her head and her pants undone.
NARRATOR: As police attempted to link various crimes across the city, it became clear there were
multiple serial killers on the loose, which would further hinder their investigations.
We were dealing with two separate serial murder individuals. But what wasn't real clear was how many perpetrators.
We were trying to keep some of that information under wrap. It was an unbelievably confusing time.
NARRATOR: It wasn't just the police who were confused. The citizens of Phoenix were terrified as the bodies
started piling up. With no apparent leads, a dark cloud hung over the streets. It was almost impossible to be able to try to capture--
we had police-involved shootings on a weekly basis. It was just over rampant with violent crime.
And there was only so many investigators, only so many police officers to try to curb all this.
And it just exploded. People were afraid. Women were afraid to go out at night. I remember leaving work, walking quickly
to my car from the office, getting in my car, driving home, and then looking around before getting out
of my car and walking the short distance into my home as fast as I possibly could because you didn't know
if somebody was around, I mean, somebody was going to pull out a gun out of their car.
NARRATOR: Six victims had lost their lives at the hands of the Baseline Killer. And he had no intention of stopping.
In April 2006, Phoenix Police created two task forces assigned to find the serial killers terrorizing
the streets of the city. Hundreds of officers were assigned to each of the cases
as pressure was mounting to bring them to justice. There was an unbelievable conglomerate
of undercover police officers with surveillance going on at the same time. And trying to join these investigations
was almost impossible because we had hundreds of people-- undercover officers, surveillance officers,
plainclothes officers-- all at the same time period trying not to burn each other,
trying not to be noticed, but all operating in the same five, six, seven-block area.
NARRATOR: Despite the enhanced police presence, the cunning killer was able to strike again.
And on April the 4th, the body of 26-year-old Kristin Gibbons was found in an alleyway.
Like the other victims, she'd been shot with a 38 caliber and dumped close to the Baseline Road.
The serial killer had claimed another life. What investigators assumed when it came to the Baseline
Killer was that whoever this perpetrator was had what they call a door in the area.
In other words, he lived in the area because his crimes were committed on foot. You think of serial criminals as people
not really belonging in society or having a place in society. And when I was talking to this police officer, I said,
this guy could be somebody's neighbor. And he said, he is somebody's neighbor. And that just really hit me because it's true.
NARRATOR: A week later on the 10th of April, the neighborhood was horrified when the body of Sophia Nunez
was discovered at home by her eight-year-old son. Her son was waiting to be picked up from school.
And she didn't come to pick him up. So he walked home. He came in through the garage and he heard the water
running in the bathroom and he assumed his mother was taking a shower. So he waited for a while.
And then he noticed that there was water coming out from under the door. And he went in and he found his mother in the bathtub,
half naked. She had a bullet under her eye and the eye was open. He pulled her out and tried to perform CPR
and called the police, but she was dead. NARRATOR: Just like the other victims, 37-year-old Sophia had been shot in the head.
But unlike the others, police were able to retrieve DNA from the scene. Investigators would later discover that Sophia had
been known to her assailant. This tells me that he's becoming bolder in his offending.
And we do see this sometimes with serial killers. They simply get bored and they want
to push the boundaries a little bit more, especially those who have a hedonistic strand
to their personalities. NARRATOR: On May the 5th, 2006, Phoenix Police went public with a list of 18 crimes
they believed to be the work of the Baseline Killer. A composite sketch was created, taken from the descriptions
given by the surviving victims. It was widely circulated. And they offer up $100,000 for any information.
SARAH MUENCH: He was wearing a fisherman-style hat. And it looked to be dreadlocks.
And he had a small mustache. And that was the image that was plastered all over Phoenix--
on bus stops, on billboard. That was the image that we had of this guy. But that could be anybody.
It's hard to really see from a sketch and try to find somebody who looks like that.
And you're really looking for a needle in a haystack. NARRATOR: Police were inundated with thousands of tips,
but nothing of any substance. There was a lot of confusion in the public, a lot of fear,
a lot of panic, and not a lot of good information. I remember this as a reporter, when
I dropped a friend off at her apartment and she lived near Baseline Road. And I saw a guy walking in the parking lot
with a fisherman's hat. I was just terrified. I was thinking, maybe that's him. I called the police nonemergency line and said, hey,
there's a guy walking around. And I think about how many people probably did that because we all wanted this to end.
NARRATOR: A vital break in the case came when a ballistics expert linked all the casings from the murders to a single 38-caliber weapon.
The end was in sight, but it didn't prevent the killer from targeting one final victim
on June the 29th, 2006. Shocking CCTV footage emerged that captured the abduction
of a 37-year-old mother of two. The murder of Carmen Miranda was another homicide
that really hit me hard because here's Carmen Miranda at the car wash, washing her car,
talking on her cell phone to her significant other. And she says, oh, hold on a second.
And here's this guy who she thinks is just a homeless man or posing as somebody.
And then you hear a scream. [busy signal beeping] MICHAEL KIEFER: The line goes dead.
He calls the cops. He calls his girlfriend's brothers. And they all go running to the spot.
And they're there almost instantly. It happens so fast. You think of these things happening in real life.
And you think about what you would do if this had happened. But she didn't have a chance.
They tried to get there as quickly as they could. And it was just too late. They had looked for her for hours.
And then hours later, they found her less than 100 yards away behind a barbershop with a bullet in her head
and her pants unzipped in the car. At that point, when we saw that video, then the panic really hit.
ELIZABETH YARDLEY: Abducting someone in plain sight is a very high-risk thing for an offender to do.
There's a high likelihood that they're going to get caught, they're going to get apprehended,
somebody else is going to intervene. So it's an incredibly bold move. He's escalating at pace.
The killings are increasing. And he is really now a killing machine. He's doing it for pleasure.
He's doing it without any sense of remorse. He's doing it because he can. And he's going to get away with it.
After all, he's got away with it up till now. NARRATOR: Carmen Miranda had become
the ninth person to lose her life at the hands of the Baseline Killer. Women living in the city were paralyzed with fear.
When you think about how this could be you, I mean, it really could be. You could be washing your car.
You could be taking a walk with your sister in the park. You could be any of these things.
This just happened to anybody and everybody. And there was no decision on a specific type of person.
It was just whoever he had the chance to do it to. NARRATOR: But his chances had run out.
And in July another breakthrough came when a woman who recognized the man in the sketch came forward.
It was a familiar name to Patrol Officer Clark Schwarzkopf when the report landed on his desk.
I start to thumb through it. And a light bulb goes on. I go, I go, oh my god. I see my name on the report.
And I see the investigator on the report. And then I turn the suspect page. And there in bold letters is Mark Goudeau.
NARRATOR: Police finally had a suspect for the evasive Baseline Killer. 41-year-old Mark Goudeau was put under surveillance
as investigators desperately searched for proof. But the breakthrough would come from an unexpected direction.
Poor-quality DNA evidence recovered from the two sisters he attacked in a park 10 months earlier was re-examined.
He tried to foil the investigation. First, he forced both sisters to spit in his hand.
And he put dirt and made mud in his hand and he rubbed that over their breasts to try to cover it up.
And, of course, when they tried to pull DNA from that, they got gumbo. There was nothing that they could
do with standard DNA testing. NARRATOR: The DNA sample previously analyzed at the city's forensic lab in 2005
was sent for testing at the more advanced Arizona State Laboratory. What they did was they used a newer form of DNA testing
that focuses on the Y chromosome or the male chromosome. And, of course, because Goudeau has been in prison
and because there's a record of his DNA, it's instantly a match. NARRATOR: Investigators were now convinced that Mark Goudeau
was the Baseline Killer. But they only had evidence linking him to the September 2005 attack on the two young sisters.
Believing it was enough to convict the suspected killer, on September the 6th, 2006, Goudeau was arrested
and his house was searched. MICHAEL KIEFER: At 11 o'clock my phone rang. And it was my editor saying they think they
caught the Baseline Killer. We were going up and down the street at midnight with all the TV trucks and everything.
And that's when we came up with the name Mark Goudeau. And over the next 24 to 48 hours,
we worked around the clock trying to figure out, put together who this person was.
It's hard to put a finger on what every single person in the public thinks of Mark Goudeau being arrested,
but what I seem to remember at the time-- and I'm speaking from a reporter's perspective
and seeing this-- everybody just was happy that someone was caught. And I think the majority of people
thought this is the right guy. NARRATOR: Investigators seized various items from Goudeau's house in the hours after his arrest.
They find blood on the soles of pairs of sneakers that belonged to Goudeau, that matched the victims.
NARRATOR: Forensic testing would later identify the blood as being that of George Chou, murdered on the 14th of March,
and Kristin Gibbons, found in an alleyway two weeks later. The main thing was the DNA.
The DNA doesn't lie. NARRATOR: The second search of the property a month after his arrest in October 2006 revealed another key piece
of evidence linking Goudeau to the savage murder of preschool worker Tina Washington.
They find Tina Washington's ring with "We Love Mom" inscribed in it. ELIZABETH YARDLEY: This is a ring
that is very precious to her. It's very special. It has the names of loved ones engraved upon it.
And Goudeau will realize that this is something that's of significance, that is of importance to his victim.
So he takes it. And this is all part of the extending feelings of control over the victim.
NARRATOR: As officers continued investigating Goudeau for the nine murders linked to the Baseline Killer,
the trial relating to the sexual assault of two Phoenix sisters was already underway.
In September 2007, despite maintaining his innocence, he was found guilty on all charges
and sentenced to 438 years in prison. I never doubted that the police found the right person,
but it's always just this weird dichotomy because you're just expecting this brutal killer
with something wrong with him. And then when you actually see him talking and his personality, it's not like that.
It's like he's just a person. And I thought, if this guy did all these things, then I'm not a very good judge of human character.
NARRATOR: The final piece of the puzzle in the Baseline Killer case came when the daughter of Sophia Nunez, the 37-year-old
whose young son had found her shot dead in her bathtub, recognized an image of Goudeau on the news after his arrest.
The daughter said, hey, that's my mother's friend. And so she dropped a dime and told the police.
Police went back, looked at Mark Goudeau's records, found a number of calls he had made to Sophia,
matched the bullet, got the DNA. And that tied all of the murders together because it for once
tied the ballistics to the DNA to Mark Goudeau. And they were off with the next batch of indictments.
NARRATOR: Goudeau was charged with 74 crimes, ranging from kidnapping to sexual assault and murder,
and would plead not guilty when the next trial began in April 2011. The case was split into 13 chapters, each one focusing
on a scene or a murder. It was a complex case for Judge Warren Granville. This was a whodunit trial.
So the whole focus of all of the evidence that state was intending to prove that it was Mr. Goudeau who did these
acts. So the DNA was identification evidence. DNA says it's Mr. Goudeau. The same thing as ballistics was identification evidence.
NARRATOR: The witnesses gave compelling and emotional testimonies in court. A witness to the Tina Washington murderer
was able to positively ID Mark Goudeau. The typical prosecutor questions are, do you see that man in the courtroom today?
Yes, I do. And he pointed to Mr. Goudeau and says, that's him. NARRATOR: The young son of Sophia Nunez
also testified in court about the tragic events on the day of his mother's murder.
Nothing freezes a courtroom more than when you have a little person come into the courtroom
to testify. He was the youngest of the witnesses. And I just remember the drama that you feel when
he walks in the courtroom to testify about finding his mom in the tub. NARRATOR: It was an extremely difficult time
for friends and family members of all of the victims during the court proceedings.
MICHAEL KIEFER: Liliana Sanchez's mother at one point on the stand said, "I wish I could stick my hand into my heart
and pull it out and show it to you." SARAH MUENCH: One of the saddest things that Georgia Thompson's father said to me
was, I'm "just sorry that I couldn't have been a better daddy and kept my girl at home."
And so just to hear that from this father, who is clearly heartbroken, and it was just--
yeah, it really, I really felt that. NARRATOR: One witness described finding the two
women in the food truck and his futile attempts to resuscitate them. MICHAEL KIEFER: When he testified in court, Romelia's
husband was sitting in the back of the courtroom, big man named Alvin. Alvin follows the man out.
I got up and followed Alvin out. Alvin goes up to the man and says, "I knew someone was there.
Thank you for trying to help my wife." These two giant men, he said, "I wish I could have done more."
These two giant men embracing in the court hallway. NARRATOR: In October 2011, Mark Goudeau
was found guilty of 67 crimes, including all nine murder charges. But it wasn't over yet.
WARREN GRANVILLE: The jurors had a decision to make. You have found him guilty. You found him eligible for the death penalty.
What sentence do you think is right? NARRATOR: Goudeau was given the opportunity
to address the jurors before final sentencing. ELIZABETH YARDLEY: He talks about himself
in the third person. He's not the person who committed these offenses. I think this is really insulting to the victims
and their families, that he's given this platform when he's effectively silenced these poor women.
NARRATOR: In November 2011, Mark Goudeau was sentenced. They had the choice of either a life
sentence or a death penalty. So they made nine independent judgments for each one of those murders.
It should be the death penalty. NARRATOR: The verdict brought little comfort to the friends and families of all the victims.
What stands out about this case is the absolute grief of the survivors, the mothers,
the husbands of the victims and the insights they have and the things that they say that were
this unimaginable tragedy. NARRATOR: For the residents of Phoenix, the summers of 2005 and 2006 will forever leave
them trying to understand why. What would ever make a person do something like this?
You'd have to be like that person to understand why they do it. Maybe there's no reason.
Knowing what I now know about serial murderers, what I now know about violent individuals, it
does not surprise me one bit that he turned into a person that I always thought he was back
in 1989, a cold, callous, psychopathic sexual predator. NARRATOR: Mark Goudeau enjoyed the power and dominion
he exercised over women. He was driven by a hunger to control them. The brutal attacks caused unimaginable terror and anguish
to his victims and unbearable suffering to their families and the community. Mark Goudeau will forever be known as one of the world's
most evil killers. [music playing]

Season 7, Episode 17

Mark Goudeau terrorized victims in the Phoenix metro area between August 2005 and June 2006. In addition to committing nine murders, his extensive crime spree included 84 other felony crimes, totaling 93 felonies over the ten-month period.

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Brief Summary

Mark Goudeau, the Baseline Killer, terrorized Phoenix with random murders and assaults before being captured and sentenced to death in 2011.

Key points

The Baseline Killer Unmasked. Mark Goudeau, a mild-mannered construction worker, was revealed as Phoenix's notorious Baseline Killer.
Summer of Fear in Phoenix. In 2005, Phoenix experienced a surge in violent crime, leaving citizens terrified.
The Attack on Two Sisters. Two young sisters were brutally assaulted, highlighting the escalating violence in Phoenix.
The Discovery of Sophia Nunez. The body of Sophia Nunez was found by her young son, shocking the neighborhood.
Breakthrough in the Case. A ballistics expert links all murders to a single weapon, heightening the urgency.
Mark Goudeau Arrested. Mark Goudeau is arrested, bringing relief to a terrified community.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

He was the chap next door.

Geoffrey Wansell describes the deceptive normalcy of Mark Goudeau.

11:40WatchJan 30, 2023

Tension

85/ 100High tension

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