Source: Victoria Times Colonist [Canada]
“An Arizona jury convicted a man Thursday on eight murder charges for carrying out a string of shootings in metro Phoenix over a three-week span in 2017. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty against Cleophus Cooksey Jr. The victims in Phoenix and nearby Glendale included Cooksey’s mother and stepfather, a security guard walking to his girlfriend’s apartment and a woman whose body was found in an alley after she was sexually assaulted. Cooksey, described by police as an aspiring musician, knew some of the victims but wasn’t acquainted with others, authorities said. He has said the allegations against him were false. The first of the eight killings occurred 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.” (09/25/25)