Arizona jury sentences man to death in string of killings in metro
Phoenix during 2017
[December 19, 2025]
By JACQUES BILLEAUD
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.
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A list of nine homicide victims all linked to a convicted felon is
displayed by the Phoenix Police Department at a news conference,
Jan. 18, 2018 in Phoenix. Cleophus Cooksey Jr. was charged and
convicted in eight of the killings. (AP Photo/Terry Tang, File)
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.
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