| A man accused of being the Phoenix Baseline Killer was sentenced to 438 years in prison Friday for a brutal attack in which he raped a woman while pointing a pistol at her pregnant sister's belly. "It is clear from the record that you cannot function in a civilized society," Superior Court Judge Andrew Klein told Mark Goudeau, who still faces trial for the slayings of eight women and a man in 2005-2006. The 43-year-old former construction worker was convicted in September of 19 counts, including sexual assault and kidnapping, for assaulting the sisters in 2005 as they walked home from a park. The sisters told the jury how Goudeau forced them into the bushes near a road and told them to strip, then raped the younger victim while pointing the gun at the other. "My daughter was in danger before she was even born," said the woman who had been pregnant when the attack occurred. Speaking through an interpreter, she said she still wakes up crying sometimes. "I will hope for him to never get out," she said. DNA evidence linked Goudeau to the rape, but he maintained that he was innocent. "What happened to those two girls was indeed horrible," he told the judge, "but I had nothing to do with it." "This is just another freak show of a hearing where they convicted an innocent man," Goudeau's wife, Wendy Carr, said outside the courthouse. Klein said before handing down the sentence that Goudeau must have two "diametrically opposed" personalities, one calm and respectful in court and the other sociopathic and brutal. Maricopa County Prosecutors had said earlier that Goudeau faced a maximum of 285 years in prison. But Deputy County Attorney Suzanne Cohen proved a prior violent record in court Friday that made him eligible for the higher sentences. Goudeau still faces trial on 74 other criminal charges, including nine murder counts, from a crime spree police have attributed to the Baseline Killer, named for the south Phoenix street where many of the early attacks took place. He has pleaded not guilty. If Goudeau is convicted of murder, County Attorney Andrew Thomas has said he will pursue the death penalty. Goudeau is the first of three suspects in serial killing to go on trial for a rash of random attacks that terrorized the Phoenix area for more than a year in 2005 and 2006. All three were arrested last year. Dale Hausner and Samuel Dieteman were arrested in the so-called "Serial Shooter" case in August 2006 and are expected to go on trial next year. Hausner faces seven murder counts and Dieteman is charged with two. Their trial is expect to begin next year. |
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