Arizona jury convicts man in string of shootings that killed 8 in metro
Phoenix
[September 26, 2025]
By JACQUES BILLEAUD and SEJAL GOVINDARAO
Phoenix (AP) — An Arizona man was convicted Thursday on eight murder
charges for a string of fatal shootings that targeted random victims and
his own mother and stepfather over a three-week span.
The crimes in late 2017 happened during a time of unease in metro
Phoenix when people were scared to go out at night or drive on freeways
because of two other serial shooting cases in the summer of 2015.
While details trickled out on those cases, the killings Cleophus Cooksey
Jr. was accused of generated no publicity until his arrest in 2018 — a
surprising development given that the public hadn’t been told about
investigators trying to find a serial killer.
Cooksey, 43, is now facing the death penalty when he is sentenced Monday
on murder convictions, as well as on kidnapping, sexual assault and
armed robbery in a trial that has spanned months.
Cooksey's victims in Phoenix and nearby Glendale 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 she was sexually assaulted.
Cooksey, an aspiring musician, knew some of the victims but wasn’t
acquainted with others, police said. Authorities never offered a motive.
Cooksey looked down at the defense table as the verdicts were read. He
has maintained his innocence.
‘He took my mom’
Adriana Rodriguez, the daughter of victim Maria Villanueva, said after
the verdict that her family was finally getting closure, a day they had
feared would never come.
“He took my mom, the only support system that I had,” Rodriguez added as
she broke into tears.
The killings started four months after Cooksey was released from prison
on a manslaughter conviction for his participation in a 2001 strip club
robbery in which an accomplice was fatally shot.
A friend of Cooksey's mother, Rene Cooksey, and stepfather, Edward Nunn,
said the defendant deserved a death sentence. Eric Hampton said he
watched Cooksey grow up and attended Thursday's hearing to see if the
defendant showed sympathy for his victims.
“I thought maybe he had a little heart. But he doesn't have any heart at
all, you know, to actually do these things to people and actually the
worst part, kill your own mom,” Hampton said outside the courthouse.
“He’s a monster, and I’m just hoping that when the sentencing phase of
this is over that, you know, that they put him to sleep,” he added.
The Maricopa County Attorney’s Office, which prosecuted Cooksey,
declined to comment on the verdict.
The Associated Press left phone and email messages for Robert Reinhardt,
an attorney for Cooksey.
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Cleophus Cooksey Jr., accused of killing eight people over a
three-week span in late 2017, listens during his trial in Maricopa
County Superior Court, May 5, 2025, in Phoenix, Ariz. (Mark Henle/The
Arizona Republic via AP, Pool, File )
A trail of victims
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 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 Nunn, 54, were found dead.
On the sofa in the living room, investigators said they found
Richards’ gun, which was later linked to the killings of Beckford,
Cameron and Villanueva. The keys to Villanueva’s vehicle also were
found there, and police say Cooksey was wearing Richards’ necklace
when he was arrested.
Police also suspected Cooksey of a ninth killing — that of his
ex-girlfriend’s brother. But prosecutors ultimately declined to
charge him in the December 2017 shooting death of Jesus Real at his
home in Avondale.
Cooksey’s trial was repeatedly delayed by the pandemic. In a January
2020 handwritten letter to a judge, Cooksey said he was in a hurry
to prove “my charges are no more than false accusations.” He said he
was not a rapist or murderer: “I am a music artist.”
Earlier serial shootings in Phoenix
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 with a
trial scheduled for December. He has declared his innocence.
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