After months of testimony, a Maricopa County jury has convicted Cleophus Cooksey Jr. of eight murders in a violent killing spree that terrorized metro Phoenix in late 2017.
Cooksey, 43, was found guilty Thursday on multiple counts of first-degree murder, along with charges of kidnapping, sexual assault, and armed robbery. He now faces the death penalty when he is sentenced Monday.
Authorities say Cooksey’s rampage stretched over three weeks, claiming the lives of random victims, acquaintances, and even his own mother and stepfather. The killings rattled the community at a time when Phoenix was still haunted by two earlier serial shooting cases that had left residents fearful of going out at night.
Cooksey’s victims included two men found shot inside a parked car, a security guard killed on his way to see his girlfriend, and a woman who was kidnapped, sexually assaulted, and left dead in an alley. Investigators linked him to the crimes through DNA, stolen items, and a gun later tied to multiple shootings.
The spree ended on Dec. 17, 2017, when officers responding to a shots-fired call at Cooksey’s mother’s apartment discovered the bodies of Rene Cooksey, 56, and Edward Nunn, 54. Police say Cooksey tried to mislead them by claiming he had cut his hand, but he was arrested after threatening to slit an officer’s throat.
Family members of victims expressed relief at the verdict. Adriana Rodriguez, whose mother Maria Villanueva was among those killed, wept as she said, “He took my mom, the only support system that I had.”
Others who knew Cooksey growing up said they were horrified that he could turn on his own family. “He’s a monster,” said family friend Eric Hampton, calling for a death sentence.
Cooksey, an aspiring rapper with a prior manslaughter conviction from a 2001 strip club robbery, maintained his innocence throughout the trial, writing to a judge in 2020 that he was “not a rapist or murderer.”
The Maricopa County Attorney’s Office, which prosecuted the case, declined to comment on the verdict.
Cooksey’s trial was repeatedly delayed by the pandemic, and prosecutors ultimately chose not to charge him in a ninth suspected killing — the death of Jesus Real, his ex-girlfriend’s brother.
His conviction marks one of the deadliest serial murder cases in Arizona history, drawing comparisons to the 2015 freeway shootings and the case of Aaron Juan Saucedo, the accused “Serial Street Shooter” whose trial is set for December.
