The following is a fictional interview with
Baseline task force lead investigator, Phoenix Police detective Alejandro
Femenia. The interview is fictional, but the facts are real.
Q: Mr. Femenia,
can you tell us a little about yourself and your time at the Phoenix Police homicide
division.
AF: My name is Alejandro Femenia and I was a
homicide detective with Phoenix police for more than 20 years. I’m retired now - members of PPD called my
retiring as “taking out the trash.” No, I’m not respected by PPD police or even
other detectives. I’m known for my racism and arrogance and that I’ll lie, hide
and even plant evidence to secure a conviction. Some members of PPD who used the same tactics,
well, those were my friends, or as I like to call them my “partners in crime.” Heh
heh. See we’ve been with PPD for so long that we’ve become immune to what we do
to innocent people. Frankly, we didn’t
care who we unjustly hurt as long as it secured our careers with PPD. Like I
said, we will do anything like planting evidence to arrest and convict. Oh and did I mention I’m a racist? I hate people of color. I also aligned myself
with corrupt judges to help ensure I get what I wanted.
Q: You were the
task team leader of the infamous Baseline Killer investigation; can you tell us
some of the tactics you used during this time? What was up with a homicide
victim’s Walmart ring?
AF: Well, you see after his arrest Goudeau’s home
had been searched three times, and there was nothing to be found. We realized we had rushed to charge an innocent
man based on incorrect information and we had made it such a huge media
sensationalism, that there was no way we could tell the public we had made a
mistake. So we did what we’ve done dozens of times before in our careers, me and
Mike Mieslish, planted a replica ring of one of the victims in one of Mark’s
shoes. See, her son, even though he had only seen the ring once, claimed it was
missing and produced the Tempe Walmart receipt that had the entire description
right down to the stones, name of the ring, and inscriptions. So Voilà we had one made! Pretty crafty, eh? That’s why neither Goudeau’s nor the victim’s
DNA is on the ring.
See
we know that people are gullible and would believe it when we told them Goudeau
was smart enough to wash off the DNA, but dumb enough to leave it in his shoe
in the open against a wall on a small shoe shelf for anyone to find while
police were searching his house at will. Speaking of which, never mind we had
already searched this same room 3 times prior.
In fact, and you’ve got to laugh at this, the very first search warrant’s
directive was to seize ALL AND EVERY MEN’S SHOES. Ha! But again, we knew the general public
would be too dumb to think police ever do anything wrong like plant evidence. So in their mind’s it was completely
acceptable for a ring to be found in a shoe that had been examined by police
already in several previous searches.
Q: OK, let’s talk
about the false statements you and your buddy Deputy Attorney, William Clayton,
made to the grand jury to get the indictment.
AF: Oh, there were little things and there
were big things. We like to play with
people’s heads so we told the grand jury the ring “found” (air quotes) was concealed in a zip lock baggy. Last time I checked, you can’t conceal too
much in zip lock baggies since they’re clear. I also told the grand jury that
the shoe was in a closet, when really it was out in the open on a small shelf against
a bedroom wall. The same place the shoe
had been in our 3 previous searches of their small house. I just thought it would make Goudeau sound
sneaky if I used words like “conceal” and try to hide the fact that the shoe
was out in the open. By the way, this was a very small home and you couldn’t really
miss anything.
Q: Tell us other lies you and Satan, err I
mean Clayton told the grand jury.
AF:
Sure. You know, we could tell
people anything, they don’t know the difference. For example, the double homicide at the lunch
wagon on Lower Buckeye. We told the grand jury that a witness had seen a red
truck parked near the crime scene that morning. Ok, so the truck was bigger and
newer than the one Goudeau was arrested in; and there’s the fact that it was
seen much later in the day, so really not even relevant to the crime; but here’s
the really good part! Goudeau didn’t even own a truck at the time of this
crime! Hysterical, right?! But we didn’t care, we told the grand jury he
did.
Another
homicide had a small red truck parked near the home of one of the murders.
There was a construction crew working near there. But even though Goudeau had
never worked that area, we led the jury to believe he had. You know, to tie him
in. Not only that we lied to the grand
jury and told them that there were bags of concrete in the bed of the truck. See
Goudeau was a cement finisher and we knew once the grand jury heard that - BLAMO!
They’d go for it! Really what was in the
bed of the truck were boxes of plaster - but hey, who cares! I sure as hell didn’t. Here’s another fun fact, Goudeau worked on
large projects, the cement was brought in by cement trucks, he wouldn’t have had
bags of anything in the back of his truck!
Am I a master at lying or what?!
Here’s
another one . . .boy there are lots of lies we told the grand jury. . . hard to
pick just a couple. . . but there was a prostitute that was murdered. Just a few
days before her murder, she told a few people she had been beat up by a couple
of Hispanic men. Well Goudeau is Black
so we told the grand jury she had been beat up by a couple of Black men. Get it?!
Q: Tell me your relationship with Phoenix New Times
writer Paul Rubin.
AF: Oh sure. See Paul
was wanting to write a year-long series of articles on homicides in Phoenix
called Murder City. We let him embed himself into homicide for
one year so he could write his stories.
He rode with me on many occasions, and hell,
I even gave him unauthorized access to classified information. Yup, gave him
the log on to our computers and records here.
Well
anyway, since we had done such nice things for Paul, we asked him to write a
couple of articles that were pure fiction; one about Goudeau and the case; the
other about the pain in the ass police officer, Rusty Stuart. It was great; he
even made up awful lies about Ofc Stuart’s divorce. He really tried to ruin
this guys reputation. Never mind Stuart
had been with PPD for a number of years with an outstanding record. We didn’t
care. We were just trying to cover up our lies and ineptness and thought if we
made him look incompetent, then it would help us.
You
see Rusty Stuart had evidence that was exonerating in nature to Goudeau, an
extensive investigation and report on a man named Terry Wayne Smith. Smith is a
violent lunatic who’s own mother thought he was the Baseline Killer, but we had
already had our HUGE dog and pony show media blitz when Goudeau was
arrested. We couldn’t shed any light on
the fact Goudeau was innocent. We just couldn’t have him keep coming to us over
and over again with evidence that exonerated Goudeau. Stuart and I had a
yelling match and I finally told him to put it into our report system, but to
put it in a format that would make it virtually impossible to be found or
retrieved. Yup, we kept that report
hidden for years until underground sources brought it to light. Damn!
Q: I
see I could go one and one with lots more questions, but before we wrap up why
don’t you tell us about the regime that oversaw the BK investigation. Who did you report to directly?
AF: Oh
good one. Well the person ultimately in
charge of the BK investigation was police chief Jack Harris. He’s gone now. He was forced to resign because he willfully
provided the feds hugely inflated kidnapping statistics. He was trying to get awarded over a million
dollars. Once had had been found out, Harris told the powers that be in a news
conference to just come and try to take “these stars off my collar.” And they did.
(Dumb, sad expression on Fenenia’s face.)
Q: Stars
on his collar? Well, I have dimples on
my butt that are more important than stars on Harris’s collar. Tell me about your relationship with County
Attorney Andrew Thomas and what’s happened with him.
AF: Oh, yeah, me and
Andy. We were like two corrupt peas in a
pod. He actively hid the Smith report I told you about earlier by Ofc Stuart.
In fact, five members of PPD and PLEA went to his office directly with the
report to try to get someone to investigate Smith, but he hid it too. Ha! Gotta love this guy! We could have been brothers! Anyway, as was his day-to-day routine, abusing
his power and authority, he was investigated then disbarred for abuse of power
and corruption. The investigation resulted in his treatment of some city
officials. Judge
Charles E. Jones said that Andy’s violations were “far reaching” and that he
had a “four-year campaign of corruption and power abuse” . . . Andy’s
misconduct in the BK investigation continues to this day to be ignored.
Well,
when I retired from PPD, I immediately started working directly for Andy ‘cause
like I said we are two corrupt peas in a pod. The double dipping was not only
great, but I was working for a boss who was just as morally bankrupt as myself.
I miss that effeminate mealy faced dude.
Q: Mr.
Femenia, since you continue in an official role here in Phoenix I can only say
God Help Us. This concludes the
interview. And by the way, Alex,1980 called - it'd like it's clothes and hair cut back.
