'RAVENOUS WOLF' SENTENCED TO DEATH

Another poster boy for the death penalty.

JOY FOR RELATIVES OF BASELINE KILLER’S VICTIMS AS HE IS SENTENCED TO DEATH FOR NINE MURDERS, KIDNAPPING AND RAPE
He had asked jurors for mercy that he never himself showed

By Jessica Satherley

Mail Online
December 1, 2011

A man convicted of being the Phoenix area's Baseline Killer has been sentenced to death.

Jurors in Arizona reached the verdict, about a month after finding 47-year-old Mark Goudeau 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 the murder convictions.

Police named the series of killings and other crimes after Baseline Road in south Phoenix where many of the earliest attacks happened.

Prosecutors argued that the murders were especially cruel, saying that the victims suffered unimaginable terror and anguish in the moments leading up to their deaths.

Goudeau was accused of attacking his victims as they went about daily activities.

'It's a relief that it's over,' said Maria Nunez, the mother of murder victim Sofia Nunez. However, she said she didn't know if the sentence could bring her any real comfort.

'It's not going to bring Sofia back,' she said.

Goudeau didn't want to be in the courtroom when verdicts were read, but Judge Warren Granville forced him to stay. He sat quietly and didn't flinch as the verdicts were read.

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.'

Stevens said that each of the eight female victims was forced to agonise over whether they would be raped or killed in the moments before they were shot, and that two of them were forced to watch Goudeau kill another person before he turned the gun on them, prolonging and intensifying their own terror.

The sole male victim was killed before prosecutors say Goudeau attacked his female co-worker.

Two weeks ago, Goudeau forced his lawyers to stop calling on witnesses in support of a life sentence after a psychologist implied that Goudeau struggled with impotence and insecurity.

He opted instead to address jurors himself against his lawyers' wishes, telling them to follow their hearts when they decide whether to sentence him to death or life in prison.

'I am no monster,' he told them. 'I could look in each and every one of your eyes today and tell you Mark Goudeau is no wolf in sheep's clothing ... I do pray that one day you guys learn the truth about this case.'

Stevens pointed out to jurors that Goudeau offered no apologies to any of the victims in the case or their families and that they must ask themselves whether Goudeau deserved to be shown any mercy at all.

'He and he alone decided how each of these nine would leave this world, what their last few minutes on this Earth would be like,' she said.

'He put them through unspeakable terror, and he ended each and every one of these lives by putting a gun to their head and executing them, and now he asks you for mercy. He asks you for mercy that he never himself showed.'