A shooter stalked victims after dark and gunned them down as they stood outside their homes or sat in their cars.
"This case plagued our community for more than a year. and left behind a trail of victims that included mothers, sons, brothers, sisters and families still mourning the loss of their loved ones", Williams said at a news conference.
- Manuel Castro Garcia, 18, was killed outside his home on June 10. She said her husband and his friends began hanging out in the backyard instead of the front after the shootings.
Marina Smith was seven months pregnant previous year when her partner, Diego Verdugo-Sanchez, 21, was gunned down.
Smith was pregnant with the couple's child when Verdugo-Sanchez was fatally shot.
Holly Cortes, who lives a few doors down from the house where one victim was fatally shot, said she was relieved police made an arrest.
Saucedo was also initially suspected in a 2015 Phoenix-area freeway shooting spree before investigators in that case ultimately arrested another man whose case was eventually thrown out, CBS reported.
Phoenix police accuse Aaron Saucedo in a string of shootings and murders dating back to 2015.
Lopez said she always had a gut feeling that her son was part of the serial street shooter case but that police didn't seem to believe her.
He was taken in to custody on April 19 on suspicion of killing his mother's boyfriend in 2015.
"The tips that came in were not so specific that it had to come from someone who knew the whole case - they were general and vague in nature, but they were enough to push us in the right direction", Howard says. Authorities investigated Saucedo more closely and connected him to the serial killings.
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Investigators initially believed a serial shooter was responsible for seven deaths past year, but in recent weeks they determined two other victims - the one killed in August 2015 and another person slain in January 2016 - were shot by the so-called "serial street shooter" who they believe to be Saucedo.
It took 3,500 tips from the public and some old fashion police work by a team of dogged detectives to apprehend the suspect who allegedly sent Phoenix into a panic more than a year ago, murdering nine people during 12 random shootings.
From August 2015 to July 2016 the shootings terrorized the largely Hispanic community in Maryvale in Phoenix, Arizona.
Police while searching for the killer previous year made pleas to the public to identify a man they portrayed in a sketch that is remarkably similar to Saucedo. But the department maintains its gun analysis was correct - and Garcia said Merritt is "still our suspect" in the freeway shootings.
In the most recent attack on July 11, 2016, a 21-year-old man and his 4-year-old nephew escaped injury after the gunman shot at a vehicle they were sitting in.
Police were able to focus on Saucedo after they learned that he owned a 9mm handgun that he pawned off days after the murder. "Because there were no white people dying", resident Sirwendell Flowers said.
"I really don't care anymore, to be honest with you", he said.
"I'm glad they finally got - hopefully - the person that's responsible", Cortes said.
Because of the shootings last summer, some residents stayed inside after dark.
The Maricopa County attorney, Bill Montgomery, said his office planned to review the evidence and evaluate which charges to pursue in order to prepare the strongest case possible against Saucedo.
When Williams was gearing up to tell the public the news, she said Yahner was the first person she called.
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