F**k off

In 2006, I was a college student at ASU. I lived in an off campus apartment (on the ground floor) and it was a block off a major street here in Phoenix called Baseline. ​These details are important.

In the summer of 2006, Phoenix Arizona was plagued by two serial killers. One was the "Phoenix Shooter" who ended up being a team of two guys randomly shooting people, and the other was the "Baseline Killer," a rapist and murderer. Having two serial killers put the entire city on edge, and everyone was talking about it. I even saw articles in Time or Newsweek about the situation.

So, the Fall 2006 semester had just started. Now, you may have heard this, but Phoenix is HOT in August. It would get stuffy in my apartment, and so I'd leave the window cracked a little because the morning air is nice. The blinds provided visual cover.

Anyways, one morning, a strange sound woke me up. It was the crack of dawn-4:45 am, and the sun was just barely coming up. It was the sound of someone lightly tapping on the window...and it seemed intentional. In my tired state, I figured it could be a bird or some branches or something trivial.

Tap tap tap...silence.

After about 90 seconds of nothing, the tapping returned, and it was absolutely purposeful. I was positive it was a human producing this noise. I thought it was my boyfriend, who thought it was cute to try and scare me sometimes. I decided I'd be a bit of a brat and make him wait, but I was also getting really angry:

"How dare he pull a prank when I'm trying to sleep! This is just like him. I'm going to give him a piece of my mind about disturbing my sleep like this."

Tap tap tap...

At a certain point, I got up to get a glass of water, still being in the mindset of wanting to annoy my stupid boyfriend who thought this would be funny.

But I saw some movement through the slit in the blinds, and I marched over and yanked the blinds so I could see:

Definitely. Not. My. Boyfriend.

I said very loudly, "What the FUCK?!" He sort of seemed taken back by my anger, but only slightly.

The man I saw will be with me forever, or more specifically, his eyes and the feeling they gave me were insanely...CREEPY. Honestly, words can't do justice to how terrifying his eyes were.

They looked like black orbs with no white in them. Absolutely predatory. When I see pictures of Ted Bundy or Charles Manson, that's exactly what he looked like. Even if you saw a picture of how they looked, it's different when you experience it in person. It totally floored me-something about this man was profoundly WRONG.

He was crouched down, like an umpire. He had on dark pants, a dark purple shirt, and a dark Nike hat.

He had dark skin-I thought he was Hispanic, but later I found out he was a light skinned black guy (you'll find out how I learned his name later).

Anyways, after I yelled "What the FUCK" at him, he whispers to me, "Can I talk to you?" If you want to know how insanely creepy that is to hear, just whisper that sentence out loud to yourself right now. It still sends chills down my spine when I think of how that sounded...

His hands subtly moved towards his waist. I later learned he would blitz attack his victims and he probably had a gun. All that separated us was a mesh screen.

Now, this is about a 3 second interaction at this point. For some reason, I thought of Ted Bundy and how he'd pretend to be crippled to target his victims. I thought of my mom telling me to not be nice to strangers-don't be afraid to be a bitch. My thinking wasn't as "calculated" as all that, but it was more the nano-processing of how to deal with the situation.

So, when he whispered that, I started yelling at him: "Hell no, get the FUCK out of here douchebag!!"

I shut the window angrily and locked it. I can't over emphasize how incredibly irritated I was that this person had the audacity to disturb my precious sleep.

I laid back down and wondered if I'd been too mean. What if he needed help? But that didn't really make sense. Why would he be, like, tapping and whispering if he was truly in trouble? I decided he was a creep after all. I was too annoyed to go back to sleep, but I sort of laid back back down.

I told my room mate about an hour later and she sort of jokingly asked if it could've been the Baseline Killer....

When she said that, my heart sank. His face looked exactly like it did in the police sketches that were on billboards EVERYWHERE. The only problem is that those billboards showed him with dreads, and the man at my window had no dreads. Apparently, he was some sort of disguise artist who'd wear wigs (updating the police sketch would've been a nice move, but they didn't.)

I called the Phoenix Police, and the detective I talked to agreed that it sounded like his M.O. The suspect would say something to throw off his target, and then he'd blitz attack. The detective said that my angry response probably made me seem like too much of a hassle and moved on. The only problem was that I thought the guy looked Hispanic, and the detective said many witnesses described him as black.

I thought they might want to come out and try for samples or surveillance video or something, but I didn't hear back from the detective.

My parents freaked out. Then got us knives, pepper spray, and put up signs. EDIT: Some ppl asked why I didn't get a gun. I can't remember why I didn't at the time, but I remember it being something I was open to when my dad brought it up.

We learned another tenant had complained that same morning! I never learned the details, but this idiot was apparently going around the damn complex trying to find a target.

The stupid apartment wouldn't let us out of our lease, so we moved to a 2nd floor apartment right above our old unit (Sidenote: the neighbors who moved into our old unit were HORRIBLE. Obnoxious tweakers who would do meth and play Pitbull on repeat for hours and have knife fights at 11am on weekdays. There were times I wondered if they might be worse than the actual serial killer who came to my window. So, that unit was cursed somehow).

Anyways, on September 4, 2006, they arrested Mark Goudeau. I think the detective didn't call me back because they were days away from arresting Goudeau.

When I saw his mugshot, I was sick but also relieved. He was absolutely the guy outside my window. To me, he looked like he could be Hispanic. You can judge for yourself if you google it.

He's on Death Row in Arizona now. His wife tried to mount some campaign to show that the police were framing him or something. On a personal level, it certainly would make for an interesting coincidence if this poor innocent man who they "framed" was also whispering like a creep and tapping my window.

​I can't think of something more scary than a serial killer tapping on your window. That actually happened to me, and if it happens to you, just scare them right back. Don't be afraid to be downright rude to someone who's injecting themselves into your space. It could save your life if you're not afraid to throw your weight around and tell someone off. TRUST YOURSELF!

You can still be a kind and generous person and still tell someone to fuck off.

[Arizona Republic Article: Summer of Fear](https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/phoenix-best-reads/2016/09/02/summer-fear-when-serial-shooter-and-baseline-killer-terrorized-phoenix/89557694/)

[Phoenix New Times: Baseline Killer](http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/news/take-a-chilling-look-inside-the-baseline-killer-case-6451168)

All edits I make are minor grammar/sentence flow corrections. I also added some quality articles for anyone who wants to learn more.