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Are the I-10 shootings and Serial Street Shooter investigations linked?

12 News has learned that a gun linked to the possible person of interest in the Serial Street Shooter case was among eight weapons investigated in the I-10 freeway shooting case.

PHOENIX - A gun linked to the possible person of interest in the Serial Street Shooter case was among eight weapons investigated in the I-10 Freeway Shootings, 12 News has learned.

But a spokesman for the Arizona Department of Public Safety, which continues to investigate the 2015 Freeway Shootings, says any connections between the two cases are a "coincidence."

DPS confirmed Monday that it's been in contact with the Phoenix Police Department about its arrest last week of Aaron Juan Saucedo.  

Saucedo is believed to be the person of interest in the Serial Street Shooter case from 2016. 

RELATED: Phoenix PD may have person of interest in Serial Street Shooter case

He was arrested April 19 for a 2015 homicide near 7th Street and Bethany Home Road.

The Serial Street Shootings left seven people dead and two wounded over a four-month period in 2016. Most of the shootings occurred in Maryvale, on Phoenix’s west side.

In the Freeway Shootings case, there were 11 documented incidents in August and September of 2015 in which I-10 commuters on Phoenix’s west side were struck by bullets or other projectiles. No one was seriously injured.

The Freeway Shootings and Street Shootings overlap in intriguing ways.

The suspected weapons in both cases are the same make and caliber -- 9mm Hi-Point handguns, according to Trooper Kameron Lee, a DPS spokesman. Both weapons were pawned by their owners, according to authorities.

Lee said 9mm Hi-Points were commonly used in crimes and later found at pawn shops.

Most intriguing of all, a weapon linked to Saucedo was one of eight investigated by DPS in the Freeway Shootings, according to both Lee and Jason Lamm, the attorney for Leslie Merritt Jr., who had the charges against him dismissed in the Freeway Shootings.

Lamm told 12 News that during discovery in Merritt's case, he saw Saucedo's name and address on a list of people tied to eight guns that authorities tested in the case.

DPS' Lee confirmed a weapon linked to Saucedo was one of eight weapons obtained from Valley pawn shops in the I-10 shootings investigation.

Lee also confirmed that testing was stopped after the fourth gun, owned by Merritt, was determined to be a match.

"Only one gun is going to give you a match," Lee said, explaining why the four other guns weren't tested at the time.

"Saucedo's gun was not one of the (weapons) that was compared to projectiles from the vehicles" hit by bullets on I-10, Lee said.

DPS has since gone back and done the comparison with Saucedo's weapon. Lee said the weapon was not a match.

"We have done that comparison," Lee said. "It's a coincidence."

The criminal case against Merritt crumbled last year after a key ballistics expert for Maricopa County prosecutors rejected the findings of DPS' crime lab. The expert said Merritt's weapon could not be definitively linked to the projectiles found at the I-10 shootings.

"All I'm going to say is our experts found a match," Lee said.

DPS has continued to focus on Merritt as a possible suspect in the case.

Phoenix police will not confirm anything about Saucedo's connection to the Serial Street Shooter investigation.

12 News has learned police showed Saucedo’s photo to at least one Serial Street Shooter survivor.

Saucedo’s neighbors tell 12 News police impounded a black BMW from his home. Witnesses in the Serial Street Shooter case said the shooter drove a black BMW.%INLINE%

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