Dale Hausner faces 87 counts.

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PHOENIX — A lawyer for a man accused in a notorious string of shootings across metropolitan Phoenix described a key prosecution witness as the real killer who was implicating his client to avoid the death penalty.

Ken Everett told jurors during his opening statement on Tuesday that his client, Dale Hausner, always has denied involvement in dozens of shootings that killed eight people and targeted 20 others.

Samuel Dieteman, Hausner's former roommate, confessed to two of the murders and is expected to testify against Hausner.

Everett told jurors that Dieteman is the serial shooter and is pointing the finger at Hausner to avoid execution. Hausner simply had the bad luck to be his roommate, he said.

"(Dieteman) has every motive to lie," Everett said. "He has every motive to blame my client. His testimony is his effort to shift blame to Dale and save his own life."

Everett said jurors shouldn't buy Dieteman's claim that he went along with some of the shootings because he was afraid of Hausner.

"The evidence is going to show Sam Dieteman ain't scared of nobody, no how and no way," he said. "He is a mean, vicious man, and he is a shooter."

Hausner's trial opened Monday with prosecutors calling him a narcissist who watched with excitement as news reports logged his killings and fear spread across the Phoenix area in 2005 and 2006.

Hausner, 35, has pleaded not guilty to the 87 criminal counts, including the eight killings. Prosecutors plan to seek the death penalty if he is convicted. The trial is expected to last nine months.

During Monday's session in Maricopa County Superior Court, Deputy County Attorney Vincent Imbordino told jurors that Hausner kept newspaper clippings of the shootings in a binder. Hausner recorded an America's Most Wanted show about the serial attacks and bragged to Dieteman that the death toll was higher than the official police count, he said.

But Everett said Tuesday that the locations of the shootings in metro Phoenix were closer to the places where Dieteman lived. He said the shootings moved east when Dieteman moved in with Hausner in Mesa in July 2006.

"The shootings follow where Sam is," Everett said.

It was Dieteman and not Hausner, Everett said, who had access to the weapons used in the shootings. He said recorded conversations between the roommates revealed only Hausner's dark sense of humor, not a confession.

Everett went count by count through the charges, detailing what he said are Hausner's alibis. One of those was a Nov. 11, 2005, incident in which a man was killed and two dogs shot.

Everett said Nov. 12 is the anniversary of the death of Hausner's two young sons in a Texas car crash, and that Hausner spent the 11th and morning of the 12th with a girlfriend and couldn't have committed the shootings.

Everett said Hausner's other alibis included a Wal-Mart shopping trip, a night out at the Phoenix Zoo with his daughter, a trip to Las Vegas and nights spent at his girlfriend's place.

"The police lied to my client, they yelled at my client. They called my client names — nasty names," Everett said. "Despite all that screaming and yelling at him, my client has been steadfast in his denial."

Phoenix resident Paul Patrick, 48, a victim of the serial shootings, said he was in the courtroom Tuesday to give a face to the rest of the victims, including the eight who didn't survive their wounds.

Patrick said he nearly died from his gunshot wound and now has to use a motorized wheelchair. He said he didn't think much of Everett's opening remarks.

"I'm not buying it one bit," he said. "There's way too much evidence that's going to be a slam dunk.

"But I'm keeping an open mind as best as I can."