2 witnesses place Hausner at May attack scenes

Two witnesses. Both with different stories. Both with the same conclusion: It was Dale Hausner.

Read Nick Martin's live blog updates on the Serial Shooter trial

A month into a marathon eight-count murder trial, two people on Wednesday placed Hausner, the Serial Shooter suspect, at the scenes of separate attacks in May 2006.

It was the clearest link yet between the 35-year-old Mesa man and the 14-month string of murders and assaults that stretched across the Valley two years ago.

Hausner looked fidgety and nervous in court as the witnesses told their stories, but that didn't keep his defense attorneys from aggressively trying to pick apart the testimony.

The first person to identify Hausner in court was Timothy Davenport, who was stabbed nearly to death by two strangers on May 17, 2006, as he was walking to a friend's house in west Phoenix.

Davenport, 36, said he was crossing through a church parking lot just after midnight near 73rd Avenue and Camelback Road when a car pulled into the lot and the driver stopped to ask him a question.

"Are you OK?" the driver asked, according to Davenport.

Before he could answer, another man came from behind and stabbed him in the back, side and face. Davenport pointed to the scars he has from the attack.

Asked whether either of his attackers was in court on Wednesday, Davenport pointed to Hausner and identified him as the driver.

"He was the one that distracted me while the other guy stabbed me," Davenport said. "One hundred percent."

The other guy, authorities believe, was Jeff Hausner, Dale's brother, who has been charged separately in the stabbing.

The attack stands out among the series of crimes with which Hausner has been charged. Most of them took place using a gun. And prosecutors say Hausner usually acted alone or with the help of his former roommate, Samuel Dieteman, who has since confessed to two of the murders and agreed to testify later in the trial.

However, the victim fits the general description of a large number of the other suspected victims - someone walking alone at night.

In fact, Phoenix police originally didn't know the stabbing was part of the string of attacks. It wasn't until earlier this year, after Dieteman agreed to give them evidence on Hausner, that the stabbing came to light.

Davenport testified that he didn't see the other man's face and described him only as "a dark figure" with long hair. But based on Dieteman's detailed confession, authorities say they determined that Jeff Hausner was that man.

After Davenport's testimony, a woman took the stand to describe the chaos that took place after her brother, James Hodge, was wounded by a shotgun blast on May 30, 2006, in west Phoenix.

Marianne Thone said she got a call that night from her brother's neighbor, telling her something bad had happened.

She rushed to the condominium complex where her brother lived, but when she arrived, two men approached her in the parking lot.

"They said they were looking for their cat," Thone testified. "I was more concerned with finding out more about my brother."

One man told her in addition to trying to find the cat, they also saw her brother's shooting and helped tend to him until emergency crews arrived.

"The other one reiterated that they were looking for their cat," Thone said.

At the time, Thone didn't think much about the strange conversation. But a little more than two months later, she said she was watching the news on TV when she saw the men again.

They were the suspects in the Serial Shooter killings. One was Dieteman, she testified, and the other was the man sitting in the defendant's seat in court.

"There's no doubt in my mind," Thone said. It was Dale Hausner.