For more than a year, a predator known as the Baseline Killer has terrorized the Phoenix area with killings, rapes and robberies. Police continue to try to understand how and whether Goudeau is connected, Thomas said.

The case is one of two serial-predator cases in the Phoenix area in the past year. Police have arrested two men in the other, dubbed the "Serial Shooter" investigation.

At a news conference, Thomas said Arizona's parole board was "naive and misguided" when it granted early release to Goudeau in 2004. Goudeau had eight more years to go on a prison sentence for unrelated assault charges.

"The victims of these brutal crimes deserve justice," he said. "I will do everything in my power to ensure that this defendant never again walks the streets a free man."

Goudeau is accused of attacking two sisters, who were 21 and 23, in September 2005 while they were walking in a park at night. Defense lawyer Corwin A. Townsend said that Goudeau plans to plead not guilty to the charges. And as soon as he gets the chance, Townsend said, he will independently test the DNA evidence that authorities used to arrest Goudeau.

"This is a huge miscarriage of justice," Wendy Carr said. "And they have an innocent man in prison. This is all a mistake. He shouldn't be in prison for something he didn't do."

The Baseline Killer, so named because the earliest incidents occurred along Baseline Road, has been linked to 23 crimes in the metro area dating to August 2005, including eight killings, 11 sexual assaults of women and girls, and several robberies.

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