PHOENIX (AP) — A person convicted of killing eight folks in metro Phoenix in 2017 is scheduled on Monday to start out the sentencing portion of his trial, the place prosecutors are looking for the demise penalty.
Cleophus Cooksey Jr., 43, was discovered responsible final week of homicide, kidnapping, armed theft and sexual assault expenses in assaults over a three-week span that focused random victims and his personal mom and stepfather.
The victims in Phoenix and close by Glendale additionally included two males discovered useless in a parked automobile, a safety guard shot whereas strolling to his girlfriend’s house and a lady who was kidnapped, her physique present in an alley after she was sexually assaulted.
Authorities say they linked Cooksey to the slayings by means of proof discovered at his mom’s house within the aftermath of her killing. That proof included a gun utilized in a number of of the killings, automobile keys belonging to a different sufferer and a sufferer’s necklace that Cooksey was carrying when he was arrested, investigators stated.
Authorities by no means supplied a motive.
Cooksey, an aspiring musician, knew a few of the victims however he wasn’t acquainted with others, police stated. He has maintained his innocence.
The killings began 4 months after Cooksey was launched from jail on a manslaughter conviction for his participation in a 2001 strip membership theft during which an confederate was fatally shot.
The primary victims, Parker Smith, 21, and Andrew Remillard, 27, had been discovered Nov. 27, 2017. That they had been fatally shot whereas sitting in a automobile in a car parking zone. 5 days later, safety guard Salim Richards, 31, was shot to demise whereas strolling to his girlfriend’s house.
Over the subsequent two weeks, Latorrie Beckford, 29, and Kristopher Cameron, 21, had been killed in separate shootings at house complexes in Glendale, and the physique of Maria Villanueva, 43, was discovered bare from the waist down in an alley in Phoenix. Authorities stated Cooksey’s DNA was discovered on her physique.
Lastly, on Dec. 17, 2017, Cooksey answered the door when officers responded to a shots-fired name at his mom’s house. He advised officers who had seen a considerable amount of blood that he had minimize his hand and was the one one residence. Police say when an officer tried to detain him, Cooksey threatened to slit the officer’s throat. Rene Cooksey, 56, and Edward Nunn, 54, had been discovered useless.
Cooksey’s arrest adopted two different serial capturing circumstances in metro Phoenix.
In 2015, 11 shootings occurred on Phoenix-area freeways between late August and early September. Nobody was severely injured, and expenses had been later dismissed in opposition to the one individual charged.
The subsequent case occurred over practically a one-year interval ending in July 2016. Bus driver Aaron Juan Saucedo was arrested in April 2017 and charged with first-degree homicide in assaults that killed 9 folks.
Prosecutors are looking for the demise penalty in opposition to Saucedo, with a trial scheduled for December. He has declared his innocence.
