Samuel Dieteman testifies on Tuesday in Maricopa County Superior Court about wounding numerous people, and killing two, during a months-long shooting spree the summer of 2006 with his friend Dale Hausner. The men have been dubbed the Serial Shooters by authorities. Pool photo
Live from the courtroom: In the secret wiretap audio recordings of Samuel Dieteman played for the jury last month, he was a gruff and baritone, and spoke in growls. The man on the witness stand today is a far different one. He is soft spoken, even morose. The microphone barely picks up his voice.
On the witness stand, Dieteman talked in depth about his addiction to methamphetamine and alcohol in the months before he met Dale Hausner, and during the time they were living together. During one period, Dieteman would close down a bar with a friend at 2 a.m., stay a few hours at the friend’s house and then head to another bar when it opened at 6 a.m. “Looking back on it now after a couple years of being sober, I was horribly alcoholic,” Dieteman said. “I was drunk every day, basically.”
The methamphetamine, he said, would keep him awake longer so he could continue drinking. “Once I got a good buzz going,” he said, “I’d start smoking meth.”
Asked by prosecutor Vince Imbordino why he had agreed to testify against his former friend, Dieteman responded in rambling, stuttered sentences. “Give me a chance to get up here and tell people what I actually did, and what I saw the defendant do, and what his brother had done,” he said. “It helps me avoid a long, unneccesary trial.”
It took Dieteman more than a month to confess to police about pulling the trigger in the killing of Claudia Gutierrez-Cruz. He said it was because he couldn’t come to terms with himself. “I had a hard time admitting to that,” Dieteman said. But the more he confessed to police, “the better I felt,” he said.
The first day of Dieteman’s long-awaited testimony was more of a psychological probing of his life before meeting Dale Hausner than an actual confession, but it looks like his testimony tomorrow morning may stretch at least into the killing of Gutierrez on May 2, 2006.
Dieteman has already pleaded guilty to the Gutierrez murder and the murder of Robin Blasnek in Mesa. He did so, he said, in hopes of sparing his life when he is sentenced for the crimes.
After Dieteman left the courtroom, a defiant Hausner spoke loudly to his attorneys, enough so that the gallery could hear. “Lets see,” Hausner said, “he’s an alcoholic, homeless drug user, but he’s got a fantastic memory.”