‘Serial Shooter’ victim shot in 2006 dies of his injuries

Paul Patrick nearly died in 2006, gunned down in the middle of Indian School Road in west Phoenix by serial killers Dale Hausner and Sam Dieteman.

A shotgun blast had ripped open his abdomen, but a young soldier who had just returned from war ran into the street and held Patrick’s guts in place until the ambulance got there.

Patrick lived to testify against Dieteman and Hausner. Both were found guilty of multiple murders and other crimes.

Dieteman is serving a life sentence in prison. Hausner was sentenced to

death and committed suicide on death row in 2013.

Patrick, in effect, was sentenced to life in a nursing home.

He finally succumbed Tuesday morning to the lasting effects of his wounds. He was 58.

He is survived by daughter Chrystal Cleary and her two children, and by his brother, Ken, and his sisters, Ruth Jasmann and Colleen Anderton.

Dieteman and Hausner, and Hausner’s brother Jeff, were dubbed the “Serial Shooters.” They started shooting animals in mid-2005. By the time they were arrested in August 2006, they had murdered at least eight people and wounded 18 more, mostly shooting from car windows as if playing video games in real time.

Patrick was 45 when he was shot. He was an Army veteran who worked as a stocker in a supermarket.

On the night of June 8, 2006, he was walking to a nearby gas station to buy a pack of cigarettes, even though he knew his Maryvale neighborhood had been the scene of numerous shootings by the as-yet-unnamed Serial Shooters.

He never saw it coming. He felt the blast slam into him and saw his entrails fall away before he fell. Then, he looked up to see his savior, Saul Guerrero, administering first aid and telling him that no one would further hurt him as long as he was there.

Patrick lost the use of his legs and could no longer work. But he attended every day of the Dieteman and Hausner trials, seated on a scooter. He testified as a victim and specifically waited for Dieteman to take the stand: It was Dieteman who shot him, and he wanted to know why.

On the day Dieteman testified, Patrick told The Arizona Republic, “I suddenly realized there was no reason.”

But before Hausner’s trial was over, Patrick was cut down by a massive stroke caused by his wounds. Doctors could not even perform diagnostic MRIs because the magnetic force would have pulled the shotgun pellets through his body and killed him.

He remained bedridden for much of the rest of his life, but he never lost his sense of purpose.

He attended Alcoholics Anonymous meetings at his nursing home, not because he had a drinking problem, but to offer encouragement to others.

And he never lost his sense of humor. In 2006, during an interview with The Republic, he reminded a reporter that he had been shot while going out for a pack of cigarettes.

“Smoking can kill you,” he said with a grin.

He kept in touch with some of the journalists who covered the Serial Shooter case and trials and with Guererro, the soldier who saved his life. Guerrero is now an emergency medical technician. “I feel guilty for what he went through at the end,” Guerrero said.

He did not feel guilty about saving Patrick’s life, despite the suffering he went through.

“For Paul, I think it was worth it to be able to face the people who did that to him, to speak up for others who couldn’t,” Guerrero said. “God needed somebody to be the voice of justice for those other people.”