Cleophus Cooksey Jr. was convicted in September 2025 of eight murders committed in Phoenix and Glendale, Arizona, over about three weeks in November and December 2017. The victims died on separate days, and the last two were his own mother and stepfather. Authorities did not offer a motive. Cooksey, who was 43 at trial, has said throughout that the charges against him are false. A Maricopa County Superior Court jury sentenced him to death on six of the eight murder counts in December 2025.
Cooksey was arrested in Phoenix on December 17, 2017, and investigators then tied him to the earlier deaths one by one. It took nearly eight years to reach a verdict.
Cooksey was born in March 1982, according to the Maricopa County Attorney's Office. Little about his childhood was reported. Prosecutors and later news accounts described him as an aspiring musician; in a 2020 handwritten letter to a judge he called himself a music artist. In a January 2018 interview with police, reported by Phoenix New Times, he said that people who knew him by the nickname "Playboy" had the name from his success with women.
His first conviction came when he was a teenager. He entered the Arizona prison system at 19 on a manslaughter conviction arising from a 2001 robbery in which an accomplice was killed. An Associated Press account in January 2018 said he served a 16-year sentence, accumulated more than 20 disciplinary violations, including fights with other inmates, and was accused in 2011 of assaulting an officer during a search, which he disputed. In an August 2011 note to prison officials he wrote that he had "seen enough violence in my lifetime" to know that violence was not the answer.
He was released in January 2015 and returned to prison in February 2017 to serve the rest of the sentence after violating the terms of his release. He was released again in late July 2017, and Phoenix police later gave July 28 as the date. The first of the killings in this case came about four months after that.
On November 27, 2017, in Phoenix, Parker Smith, 21, and Andrew Remillard, 27, were killed. Phoenix New Times described them as friends. Authorities have never said why they were targeted.
Five days later, on December 2, Salim Richards, 31, was killed in Phoenix. Prosecutors said Cooksey took items belonging to Richards, including a gold necklace. Both mattered later. An item taken from Richards was linked by investigators to three of the later deaths, and Cooksey was wearing the necklace when he was arrested. Phoenix New Times reported that a Facebook video posted on December 3 showed him in a similar necklace.
On December 11, Jesus Real, 25, was killed in Avondale. He was the brother of a woman with whom Cooksey had recently ended a relationship, and police initially linked Cooksey to his death. Prosecutors later declined to file a charge, saying there was no reasonable likelihood of conviction, so the trial concerned eight victims rather than nine. Real's death is not among the counts on which Cooksey was convicted.
Two days later, on December 13, Latorrie Beckford, 29, was killed in Glendale. Police said witnesses had seen a man matching Cooksey's description arguing with Beckford hours earlier, and a witness later identified Cooksey from photographs. Beckford's mother said in 2018 that the arrest gave her some closure, and that her son "had the will for life" and she could not imagine he was gone.
On December 15, Kristopher Cameron, 21, was killed in Glendale. According to Phoenix New Times, the Glendale officer who spoke with a man in the area later identified Cooksey from a photograph. Glendale police chief Rick St. John credited the first patrol officer to arrive with recognizing that the man's behavior was unusual and acting on it.
Maria Villanueva, 43, was killed in the Phoenix area on December 15 or 16, 2017. Kidnapping was among the charges brought in her case.
Her daughter spoke after the verdicts. She said her mother had been "the only support system that I had," and that the family felt it was finally getting closure.
The last two victims were Cooksey's mother, Rene Cooksey, 56, and his stepfather, Edward Nunn, 54, who were killed in Phoenix on December 17, 2017. Reports from 2018 spelled her first name "Renee"; the coverage of the verdicts uses Rene.
Cooksey was arrested in Phoenix on December 17, 2017, and booked that night on two counts of first-degree murder. A family friend of the couple told reporters after the 2025 verdict that he hoped the sentence would be carried out.
Police said an item taken from Richards and keys belonging to Villanueva were recovered after the arrest, and that Cooksey was wearing Richards' necklace when arrested. Within about two days of the arrest, detectives had tied him to several of the earlier deaths. The Trace reported that Phoenix police used a federal database of forensic evidence to link him to five other homicides, and that cellphone data, surveillance video and DNA then supported those cases and connected him to two more. The department had recently changed its process so that evidence was tested within hours rather than weeks. Mayor Greg Stanton said: "What once took weeks can now take place in only a matter of hours."
Police said physical and forensic evidence, witness statements, surveillance video and cellphone records linked Cooksey to all of the killings. By mid-January 2018 they were calling him a suspect in nine deaths. Sgt. Jonathan Howard said it was "a distinct possibility" that there were other victims, and the department asked the public for information. Police chief Jeri Williams said investigators kept working after the arrest and found seven additional deaths linked to him. In his January 2018 interview, Cooksey denied the killings but acknowledged being at some of the places concerned, according to Phoenix New Times, and said he did not know how the victims had died.
The case moved slowly. In 2020 Cooksey wrote to a judge asking for a speedy trial and calling the allegations false accusations. Delays largely caused by the pandemic, including its effect on expert evaluations, pushed the start of trial more than seven years past the killings. His attorney in 2018 was Gary Beren; by the time of trial he was represented by Robert Reinhardt.
The trial opened on Monday, May 5, 2025, in Maricopa County Superior Court in Phoenix and was expected to last more than eight months. Prosecutor Josh Maxwell told jurors the victims had all been vulnerable when they were killed and described the case as a whodunit in which Cooksey was the answer. Reinhardt urged jurors to be fair and impartial, said no motive had been presented, called the crimes random and unrelated, and said the state had offered no evidence of premeditation. Prosecutors said they would seek the death penalty if he was convicted.
On Thursday, September 25, 2025, the jury found Cooksey guilty of eight counts of first-degree murder, three counts of armed robbery, two counts of kidnapping and one count of attempted sexual assault. The Maricopa County Attorney's Office classed the murder, robbery and kidnapping counts as dangerous felonies. Cooksey looked down at the defense table as the verdicts were read.
The sentencing phase began on Monday, September 29, 2025, with Cooksey waiving his right to be in court. The jury first had to decide whether an aggravating circumstance existed that made him eligible for death, and then whether to impose it. Jurors began deliberating the week before the decision and reached it on Wednesday, December 17; the clerk read it on Thursday, December 18, with Judge Mark Brain presiding.
The jury voted for death on six of the eight murder counts. On the counts concerning Rene Cooksey and Edward Nunn it could not agree. Under Arizona procedure, prosecutors can seek a new sentencing trial on those counts or drop the request, in which case a judge imposes life sentences. Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell was reported to be weighing the choice, and AP noted that the second option would make little practical difference given six death sentences. On November 14, 2025, Cooksey had already been sentenced to more than nine years on the non-murder counts.
Mitchell said in a news release: "Death is the only just punishment for him, and we will do everything in our power to see it carried through." She also said: "Anyone who questions why we need the death penalty needs to look no further than this case." Reinhardt did not respond to the Associated Press after the sentence. Cooksey maintains his innocence.
Cooksey denied the killings from his 2018 police interview onward, and the defense argued at trial that the crimes were random and unconnected and that no motive had been shown. Police said he knew some of the victims but not others. The death of Jesus Real, which police had initially linked to him, was never charged.
As of December 18, 2025, the death sentences on six counts had been imposed and the two remaining murder counts were unresolved. No outcome on those two counts has been reported.
March 1982: Cleophus Cooksey Jr. is born.
2001: A robbery in which an accomplice is killed leads to his manslaughter conviction; he enters prison at 19.
January 2015: released; returned to prison in February 2017 for violating release terms.
July 28, 2017: released again.
November 27, 2017: Parker Smith, 21, and Andrew Remillard, 27, are killed in Phoenix.
December 2, 2017: Salim Richards, 31, is killed in Phoenix.
December 11, 2017: Jesus Real, 25, is killed in Avondale (uncharged).
December 13, 2017: Latorrie Beckford, 29, is killed in Glendale.
December 15, 2017: Kristopher Cameron, 21, is killed in Glendale; Maria Villanueva, 43, is killed in the Phoenix area (December 15 or 16).
December 17, 2017: Rene Cooksey, 56, and Edward Nunn, 54, are killed in Phoenix; Cooksey is arrested.
January 2018: police call him a suspect in nine killings.
May 5, 2025: trial opens.
September 25, 2025: guilty verdicts on all counts.
November 14, 2025: sentenced on the non-murder counts.
December 17 and 18, 2025: jury returns death on six murder counts and deadlocks on two.