Mike Tyson is one of the most revered boxers in the sport’s history. The former champ’s swarming attacking style and power in both hands quickly made him a fan favorite in the late 1980s en route to his becoming the first heavyweight boxer to hold the WBA, WBC and IBF titles simultaneously.
The excitement around Tyson’s performances had everyone wanting time to interview him — including a serial killer, Dale Hausner.
During a 2017 appearance on the “Jimmy Kimmel Live” show, Tyson told the story of how he got a call from his team that a reporter wanted to interview at a gym in Phoenix. The two met in 2006, a few weeks before the reporter became known to police.
Tyson described Hausner, who was also an airport janitor and an actual boxing reporter, as a “really small guy but really nice guy.” But the former champ later realized that maybe Hausner wasn’t so nice after all.
He told Jimmy Kimmel that two or three days later he’s back in the gym “and the gym is surrounded by cops, like SWAT.” Adding a little humor to the story, Tyson said he asked the sergeant who came up to him “what the hell did I do, who ass did I grab last night?” before the show’s audience roared with laughter. “So I thought hey if I grabbed somebody’s ass it wouldn’t be the feds coming to get me. It would be a cop or some lawyer.”
The then-retired boxing champ next realized that that would be too petty of a crime for his building to be surrounded by cops, he told the audience.
A police officer then showed Tyson a photo of him with Hausner, asking if he recognized him, and a still-confused Tyson said, “Well, sir, I don’t know, I was promoting a fight, if I must have said something to him, if I offended him, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to do that.”
But the cop reassured Tyson that he did nothing wrong. Finally, he got to the point of why he was questioning the champion about Hausner and said, “No, he liked you, Mr. Tyson. He didn’t like the 28 people that he shot and the eight that he killed.”
“You got interviewed by a murderer?” said Kimmel in shock, to which Tyson replied, “Yes.”
Hausner along with his partner in crime, Samuel Dieteman, were dubbed the “Serial Shooters” after committing several drive-by shootings in Phoenix that resulted in 19 people being wounded and eight being killed. They also killed at least 10 animals.
Tyson misspoke when he described Hauser to Kimmel as the Baseline shooter, who was another man, Mark Goudeau.
One person in the YouTube comments said, “The Baseline shooter is someone else. There were actually 3 different serial murderers in 2006 in Phoenix. Baseline guy worked alone while Hauser and another guy worked together.”
Another added, “He was the Phoenix serial shooter. The Baseline killer was another serial killer in Phoenix who was killing during the exact same time.”
Goudeau, a known serial killer, rapist and thief, was active at the same time as “Serial Shooters” between August 2005 and June 2006. He was sentenced to death for multiple murders in 2011.
While on their killing spree, Hausner and Dieteman were under the influence of methamphetamine before they were caught 15 months after their spree began and arrested in August 2006. Hausner never confessed to the shooting, but the evidence presented in the court was enough for Hausner to be found guilty of 80 felony charges.
In 2009, a jury found Hausner guilty, and he was given six death sentences. But Hausner had other plans to cut his sentence short, ended his own life in 2013.
During the investigation into his death, it was revealed that Hausner saved up 50 pills, some of which he received from an inmate whom he initially told he had trouble sleeping. He later confessed to that inmate that he was saving them to commit suicide. The examiner reportedly ruled the death a suicide by “amitriptyline intoxication.”
As for Hausner’s partner, Dieteman, he was also found guilty and given a life sentence with no chance of parole. He is currently serving his sentence at the Arizona State Prison Complex – Safford.
