As her alleged assailant looked on, one of two sisters who survived a sexual assault told a Maricopa County Superior Court jury how for an instant she got her hands on her attacker’s gun and nearly turned the tables on him.

It was a suspenseful moment in the rape trial of Mark Goudeau, who police and prosecutors believe to be the “Baseline Killer.”

The woman — The Republic does not publish names of sexual assault victims — told jurors how her attacker made her remove her clothes and get on the ground where he assaulted her repeatedly. As he performed a sex act on her, she said through a Spanish-language interpreter, “He told me not to open my eyes, but I did. And I looked toward the wall and saw the gun was there,” she continued. “I grabbed it.”

Then, she and her older sister tussled with the attacker over the gun, each of them getting it in her hands at some point. But he eventually got it back and continued his attack. Goudeau, 42, is on trial in Maricopa County Superior Court on 19 counts, including sexual assault, sexual abuse, kidnapping and aggravated assault stemming from the September 2005 attack.

No trial has yet been set for the remaining 74 counts for which Goudeau is charged, including nine murders. The sisters were walking home from a park in south Phoenix when they were jumped by a man wielding a gun. He took them into the bushes and assaulted them even as cars drove past them in the suburban-style neighborhood.

Both women have identified Goudeau as their attacker. The witness winced Wednesday when forced to look in his direction in the courtroom.

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