A man suspected in a string of killings in the Phoenix suburb of Scottsdale, Arizona, fatally shot himself as police closed in Monday, June 4, ending a days-long manhunt that has left many in the legal and mental health communities on edge.
Officers with the Scottsdale and Phoenix police departments tried to contact the suspect at an Extended Stay hotel in Scottsdale on Monday morning. Sgt. Vince Lewis, a spokesman for the Phoenix Police Department, told reporters that the suspect fired multiple gunshots from inside his room as officers were evacuating the hotel, before turning the gun on himself.
Police have not said who the suspect was or why they think he committed the killings, other than that he was an adult male. No one else was injured, Lewis said. The victims in the days-long killing spree worked in related fields.
The first victim was a prominent forensic psychiatrist who had consulted in high-profile murder cases, including the 1996 killing of child beauty-pageant star JonBenét Ramsey. Police said Steven Pitt, 59, was shot Thursday afternoon, May 31, outside his office on the outskirts of Scottsdale.
Less than 24 hours later, at about 2 p.m. Friday, two paralegals were shot inside a law firm in downtown Scottsdale, across the street from government offices. Police said one of the women, who had been shot in the head, was able to get out of the building and flag a bus driver for help before she died. Police followed her blood trail and found the other victim.
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Veleria Sharp, 48, and Laura Anderson, 49, were paralegals for the family law firm Burt, Feldman, Grenier.
The fourth victim was found dead just after midnight Saturday. Police said an acquaintance found Marshall Levine, a 72-year-old psychologist and counselor, dead of a gunshot wound in his office, roughly halfway between the sites of the previous shootings.
Sgt. Ben Hoster, a spokesman for the Scottsdale Police Department, told reporters over the weekend that Pitt's killing was connected to the shooting of the two paralegals. Police confirmed Monday that the suspect was also linked to Levine's shooting.
Lewis, the Phoenix police spokesman, said investigators don't think there are other suspects, though the investigation is ongoing.
The killings of people working in related fields have fueled speculations about whether Pitt, the most well known of the victims, may have been killed because of his profession, a line of work that required him to study the minds of criminals.
"When Dr. Pitt was shot, it was speculated among a good number of people that it could be tied to a case," said Justin Yentes, a private investigator in Phoenix who works with criminal defense attorneys in the area. "We work around these types of situations. There's always a risk that you've upset the wrong person, I suppose. The general belief was that there was an upset party in a case that was potentially seeking revenge."
Criminal defense attorneys often consult with forensic psychiatrists, such as Pitt, to look for brain abnormalities and mental illnesses in defendants, Yentes said.
"That can be in a family law case or it can be in a criminal case," Yentes said. "We use them very regularly in capital cases to see if our defendants have mental illnesses or deficits that would contribute to the crimes that they're accused of."
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The shootings also have raised anxiety among lawyers in the area. Yentes said he knows of several law firms that are not open today, and some have talked about having uniformed officers in their lobbies.
Pitt, a clinical associate professor of psychiatry at the University of Arizona College of Medicine in Phoenix, was known for his role in the investigation into the death of JonBenét Ramsey, a child beauty-pageant star who made national headlines in 1996 when she was found dead in her family's home in Boulder, Colorado. The 6-year-old's parents became suspects in her death, which had been dramatized in movies and documentaries. Prosecutors announced years later that DNA tests cleared John and Patsy Ramsey in their daughter's killing.
Pitt also helped police as they tried to solve a string of crimes that terrorized Phoenix in 2006. Mark Goudeau, nicknamed the "Baseline Rapist" and later the "Baseline Killer" because the crimes first happened along Phoenix's Baseline Road, was convicted of more than five dozen charges, including several counts of murder, rape and kidnapping.
A biography on Pitt's website says he also consulted and advised prosecutors in the Colorado rape case against Kobe Bryant and in the Columbine High School shooting investigation.
Story by Kristine Phillips. Phillips is a member of The Washington Post's general assignment team. She previously covered criminal justice, courts and legal affairs at the Indianapolis Star.
