Arizona jury sentences man to death in string of killings in metro Phoenix during 2017

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PHOENIX (AP) — An Arizona jury on Thursday sentenced a man to death in a string of killings in metro Phoenix during a three-week span in 2017, marking the end of a seven-month trial over attacks that targeted random victims and the defendant’s own mother and stepfather.

Cleophus Cooksey Jr., 43, was found guilty in late September of murder in eight killings. He also was convicted of kidnapping, armed robbery and attempted sexual assault charges stemming from the attacks in Phoenix and nearby Glendale.

Jurors sentenced Cooksey to death in six of the eight killings for which he was convicted of murder. The jury was undecided on the punishment for his convictions in the killings of his mother and stepfather.

Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell is considering whether to seek a sentencing retrial on the two murder convictions involving Cooksey’s mother and stepfather or drop the effort to seek the death penalty and let a judge impose life sentences on those two counts.

The victims included two men found dead in a parked car, a security guard shot while walking to his girlfriend’s apartment and a woman who was kidnapped, her body found in an alley after police say she was sexually assaulted.

Authorities say they linked Cooksey to the killings through evidence found at his mother’s apartment in the aftermath of her killing. That evidence included a gun used in several of the killings, vehicle keys belonging to another victim and a victim’s necklace that Cooksey was wearing when he was arrested, investigators said.

Authorities never offered a motive.

The Associated Press left phone and email messages for defense attorney Robert Reinhardt.

Cooksey, an aspiring musician, knew some of the victims, but he wasn’t acquainted with others, police said. He has maintained his innocence.

The first victims, Parker Smith, 21, and Andrew Remillard, 27, were found Nov. 27, 2017. They had been fatally shot while sitting in a vehicle in a parking lot. Five days later, security guard Salim Richards, 31, was shot to death while walking to his girlfriend’s apartment.

Over the next two weeks, Latorrie Beckford, 29, and Kristopher Cameron, 21, were killed in separate shootings at apartment complexes in Glendale, and the body of Maria Villanueva, 43, was found naked from the waist down in an alley in Phoenix. Authorities said Cooksey’s DNA was found on her body.

Finally, on Dec. 17, 2017, Cooksey answered the door when officers responded to a shots-fired call at his mother’s apartment. He told officers who had noticed a large amount of blood that he had cut his hand and was the only one home. Police say when an officer tried to detain him, Cooksey threatened to slit the officer’s throat. Rene Cooksey, 56, and stepfather Edward Nunn, 54, were found dead.

“Anyone who questions why we need the death penalty needs to look no further than this case,” Mitchell said in a statement. “It takes a special kind of evil to prey upon the vulnerable and needlessly take the lives of eight innocent people. Death is the only just punishment for him, and we will do everything in our power to see it carried through.”

Cooksey’s arrest followed two other serial shooting cases in metro Phoenix.

In 2015, 11 shootings occurred on Phoenix-area freeways between late August and early September. No one was seriously injured, and charges were later dismissed against the only person charged.

The next case occurred over nearly a one-year period ending in July 2016. Bus driver Aaron Juan Saucedo was arrested in April 2017 and charged with first-degree murder in attacks that killed nine people.

Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty against Saucedo, whose trial had been scheduled to start earlier this month but has been postponed until December 2026. He has declared his innocence. ____ This story has been corrected to say Aaron Saucedo's trial that had been scheduled to start earlier this month has been postponed until December 2026.