PHOENIX (By Paul Giblin, NYTimes) July 18, 2006 — For many months now, two serial killers who are thought to be responsible for dozens of murders, rapes, robberies and shootings have frustrated scores of detectives and frightened thousands of residents across a wide swath of central Phoenix and its suburbs.
After the most recent crimes — a pair of shootings on July 8 attributed to one of the killers — the police increased a reward to $100,000, an Arizona record, for information leading to the arrest of the two, whom they call the Serial Shooter and the Baseline Killer.
“Everyone is terrified, very concerned,” said Sonya Pastor LaSota, 33, a community leader in Arcadia West, a neighborhood of spacious older homes and manicured yards that lies in the heart of the area stalked by the killers, who are blamed for 11 slayings and who the police believe are acting independently.
Last Thursday 1,500 residents of all ages, races and incomes filled the auditorium, the lobby, the cafeteria and an outdoor courtyard of an elementary school in central Phoenix to learn what they could of the danger. But the city’s mayor, Phil Gordon, and the police chief, Jack Harris, offered little new information and said that the description of one killer remained vague at best and that no one had gotten a clear look at the other.
Chief Harris said he had assigned more than 120 detectives and officers to the case, and they are receiving help from the F.B.I. and the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
“It is not an easy task,” the chief said. “We are living in a city of one and a half million people, we’re in a valley of three million people, and we’re looking for one or two people that we don’t know what they look like. Even if I knew who the person was, it’s a difficult task to track someone down in a city of that size.”
The Baseline Killer is so called because it is believed that the first of his 21 crimes, which include six slayings, were a series of rapes late last summer near Baseline Road south of Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport.
Since then, he has expanded both the scope of his crimes and his territory, attacking across an area of some 80 square miles. Like the Serial Shooter, he kills with a gun. The police believe he stalks his victims, springing on them just after sunset, probably while wearing a disguise that may include dreadlocks and a floppy fisherman’s hat. Victims have said he wore long-sleeve shirts and khaki pants.
He is described as black, but estimates of his age range from 25 to 40, his height from 5-foot-6 to 6 feet and his weight from 140 to 200 pounds.
The Serial Shooter, whose area of operation is thought to be even larger than that of the Baseline Killer, is suspected of as many as 34 random shootings since May 2005. The shootings have killed five people, wounded 16 others, killed three horses and five dogs, and wounded four animals. In addition, one business has been peppered with gunfire.
The gunman usually makes targets of people walking or bicycling alone along major thoroughfares from 10 p.m. to 4 a.m. He fires from a vehicle that is described as a light-colored van or four-door sedan, a depiction matching thousands of cars in the metropolitan area.
“You get an idea of how difficult this has been for us,” Bill Louis, commander of the Violent Crimes Bureau of the Phoenix police, told residents gathered at the community meeting. “We have no license plate. We have no identifying marks on the vehicle. We don’t have anything about tinted windows or bumper stickers.”
Until a week ago, the police said, they thought the Serial Shooter’s attacks might have been the work of two gunmen. But evidence, which they would not discuss, has led investigators to conclude that one person is responsible for all of them.
Self-defense instructors and organizers of neighborhood watches, meanwhile, say they have seen a sharp increase in interest, and many residents say the lengthy crime sprees have persuaded them to change some of their daily routines.
Mrs. Pastor LaSota, who was born and raised here, said she had begun carrying pepper spray that she bought at her local tailor, who just began stocking it.
She and her husband, Tim, also allow Doc, their 75-pound Labrador, to stay inside their house while they are at work. They previously kept him in the yard while they were away but now feel more secure with him inside.
“I’ve completely changed how I arrive home,” Mrs. Pastor LaSota said. “I open the door immediately, and he comes out with me and then walks in through the house with me.”
The couple have also hired a security company to activate an alarm system next week.
Even hanging laundry at night poses anxious moments, said Jackie Gifford, 44, who lives alone in an area where both killers have struck.
“I hear a noise now and I’m turning on my fluorescent light in back to see what’s going on out there,” she said. “It’s awful.”
One day after work last week, Ms. Gifford said, she popped the hood of her car to check the battery. That evening, after dark, she remembered that she had neglected to snap the hood completely shut. But she remained indoors, feeling trapped, until the next morning.
“It makes me angry,” she said. “I mean, I want to get hold of him, and that’s a bad attitude to have. I don’t think he should go to court. I think he should be strung up right there for all of us to watch.”
