Phoenix "Baseline Killer" trial opens, rapist Mark Goudeau accused of killing nine

(CBS/AP) PHOENIX - Opening statements began Monday in the trial of a man accused of being the Phoenix "Baseline Killer," who is alleged to have killed nine people, among other crimes including rape and child molestation.

Mark Goudeau, 46, is already serving a 438-year sentence in a 2007 conviction for the brutal 2005 sexual assault of two sisters, but if convicted he faces a possible death sentence.

Prosecutor Suzanne Cohen told the jury that Goudeau was driven by an urge to rape, and shot the victims who didn't cooperate.

"The only thing that matched his hunger to rape was his determination to not get caught and not be sitting in this chair," Cohen said. "Those innocents did nothing wrong but cross his path while he was hunting."

Police named the series of 2005 and 2006 killings and other crimes after Baseline Road in south Phoenix where many of the earliest attacks happened.

Cohen described the 46-year-old Goudeau as a wolf in sheep's clothing and detailed his alleged crimes in detail.

Goudeau has pleaded not guilty. His trial is expected to last nine months.

Goudeau previously told Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Andrew Klein that what happened to the two young women in the 2005 sex assault was horrible, "but I had nothing to do with it."

Klein said before handing down sentence in that case that Goudeau must have two "diametrically opposed" personalities, one calm and respectful in court and the other sociopathic and brutal.