PHOENIX — The attorney for a man police allege shot nine people to death in the Phoenix area said Friday that his client is innocent.
He said he was shocked to hear about new charges recommended by authorities.
"Anyone who did those things is clearly a monster, and I don't think Mark is a monster and I don't think he committed these crimes," attorney Corwin Townsend said.
His client is Mark Goudeau, 42, a former construction worker and ex-convict.
Townsend said Goudeau "almost slumped over when he heard the news" Thursday that police were accusing him of being the Baseline Killer.
Townsend discounted statements by police that DNA, ballistics and other evidence all pointed to Goudeau. "That's them posturing and trying to bolster their case in the public eye," he said.
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He said his office is waiting for Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas to file charges officially, and then, he said, he likely will assemble a defense team.
Bill FitzGerald, a spokesman for the County Attorney's Office, said Friday that could be a while, but would not be specific. "There's a lot to go through," he said.
Goudeau has been in custody since September, when he was arrested and charged with two sexual assaults authorities said were linked to the Baseline Killer, who spread terror across the Phoenix area for nearly a year.
But it wasn't until Thursday that police announced that they were recommending Goudeau be charged with 71 additional counts, including nine counts of first-degree murder, 10 counts of kidnapping, nine counts of sexual conduct with a minor and six counts of sexual assault.
Thomas said Thursday that Goudeau would see justice.
"I still believe this man should never again be able to walk the streets of this valley or anywhere else in freedom," Thomas said. "I'm going to do everything within my lawful authority to make sure that that is the outcome."
Goudeau is a suspect in 19 incidents, including shootings, sexual assaults and robberies that left nine people dead between August 2005 and June. The dead, eight of them women, ranged in age from 19 to 39. Most were killed as they went about their daily lives, washing a car, leaving work and waiting at a bus stop.
About half of the Baseline Killer attacks occurred within three miles of the Phoenix home Goudeau shared with his wife. One woman was killed just around the corner.
Goudeau served 13 1/2 years in prison for three aggravated assaults, armed robbery and kidnapping before being paroled in 2004. He once blamed his history of violence on a weakness for crack.
The Baseline Killer was one of two serial-killer cases that spread fear across the Phoenix area recently.
In August, police arrested two roommates in what was dubbed the Serial Shooter case. The two men are accused of driving around the city and its suburbs at night, firing at people randomly from a car. Seven people were killed.
They are awaiting trial.
