Arias prosecutor could try ‘Serial Street Shooter’ case

Juan Martinez, the flamboyant prosecutor who became a national celebrity during the Jodi Arias trials of 2013 and 2015, is listed as the prosecutor of record on the Maricopa County Superior Court calendar for a hearing set Thursday in the “Serial Street Shooter” case.

The Maricopa County Attorney’s Office could not immediately confirm whether Martinez would ultimately try the case or whether he would present Thursday’s argument. But his signature also appeared on the first charging documents filed against the suspect in the shootings.

Police and prosecutors believe that Aaron Saucedo, 23, is the person who terrorized predominantly Latino neighborhoods, seemingly at random, during the first half of 2016. Nine people died, two others were wounded and two more were shot at but escaped unscathed in a series of shootings that police believe are connected.

How they are connected remains a mystery at. The Maricopa County Attorney’s Office has sealed the probablecause statement police provide when they refer a case for prosecution.

Charges have been filed in only one case, the August 2015 murder of Raul Romero, 61, who was gunned down near his home at Ninth Street and Montebello Avenue in Phoenix.

Romero, who was supposedly a boyfriend of Saucedo’s mother, was not linked to the other shootings at first. Most of the shootings occurred in the west Phoenix neighborhood Maryvale. Three more shootings, including one other fatality, occurred in eastcentral Phoenix.

Saucedo was arrested April 19 in Romero’s murder.

On May 8, Phoenix police announced that Saucedo also was suspected in the Serial Street Shooter crimes. He reportedly made incriminating statements to investigators. He also owned an older black BMW sedan like one reported by a witness in at least one of the shootings.

But the next day, on May 9, Martinez’s colleague, Deputy County Attorney Patricia Stevens, filed a motion to seal the court record on Saucedo because the form contained “information regarding ongoing investigations and also lists the true name and additional information of under-aged victims.” Judge Scott McCoy granted the request.

A coalition of media outlets including The Arizona Republic filed to have the information unsealed, and attorneys for the media will argue that motion on Thursday.

Arias, who was convicted in 2013 of the murder of her sometime lover, Travis Alexander, was sentenced to natural life in prison in 2015. The trial became a socialmedia spectacle, partly for Martinez’s aggressive handling of witnesses.

Republic reporters Yihyun Jeong and Megan Cassidy contributed to this article.