SKOWHEGAN — Albert P. Cochran, 60, said in a loud, clear voice Wednesday morning that he was not guilty of the 1976 killing of Janet Baxter. Cochran was appearing before Justice Donald Alexander in Somerset County Superior Court, arraigned for “criminal homicide in the first degree.”

The former Waterville native, arrested last March in Florida, has admitted to killing four people — his wife and his three young children — and is a suspect in the killing and disappearance of two Maine women.

He has denied killing Baxter, but was convicted of killing his young wife in 1964 and has admitted to stabbing his three small children to death. He is also the prime suspect in the 1976 disappearance of his roommate, Pauline Rourke of Fairfield.

Cochran was arrested earlier this year after DNA evidence linked him to Baxter’s death. The body of the Oakland nurse was found in the trunk of a car just moments after her death in November 1976. She had been raped and shot twice. Samples of hair and semen taken from her body were recently compared to samples taken from Cochran back in 1977. He was then one of several suspects in Baxter’s murder but was never charged in the case.

During Wednesday’s court appearance, Cochran, whose feet remained shackled while he was in the courtroom, had difficulty breathing after he slowly walked up two flights of stairs to the courtroom. He was removed from the courthouse by elevator after his hearing.

Dressed in a navy blue, pin-striped suit, white shirt, red tie and new black shoes, Cochran appeared frail, walking slowly and moving stiffly. His attorney, Michaela Murphy of Waterville, requested until July 15 to file motions in the case.

Justice Donald Alexander granted that request, but said that because he had been working in the Attorney General’s Office at the time of Baxter’s death, he would be recusing himself from further proceedings in which Cochran might be involved.

Justice Donald Meade has been assigned the trial and Assistant Attorney General Thomas Goodwin will be prosecuting the case. No date has been set for the trial.

Cochran was ordered held without bail pending his trial.

At the time of Baxter’s killing in 1976, Cochran was on parole for the 1964 murder of his teen-age wife in Illinois. Apparently upset over a marital separation, Cochran confessed that he strangled his wife and then stabbed his three small children, ages 2 and 3 years, and 10 months, in a bathtub. The lie detector confession Cochran made regarding the deaths of his children was thrown out of court, and he was convicted only for the murder of his wife.

He received a sentence of 50 to 75 years but served only nine years in jail before he was released and had his parole transferred to Maine where he began working at his brother’s Oakland construction company.

Within weeks of Baxter’s murder, nearly 22 years ago, Pauline Rourke of Fairfield disappeared. Rourke had been living with Cochran at the time. Police investigators have said Cochran is a key suspect in her disappearance.