Cooksey pleads not guilty
Phoenix man charged in eight Valley murders
A Maricopa County Superior Court judge on Thursday entered not-guilty pleas on behalf of a Phoenix man charged in eight murders.
And the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office has decided to decline prosecution in a ninth murder that police said is connected to the serial killings.
Cleophus Cooksey Jr., 34, was indicted March 1 on eight counts of firstdegree murder, as well as multiple counts that include kidnapping, sexual assault, burglary and armed robbery.
Cooksey was previously indicted on two of those murders, that of his mother and her boyfriend; the case was dismissed Thursday as charges for their murders were included in the new indictment.
Judge Warren Granville entered notguilty pleas on Cooksey’s behalf. Cooksey did not attend the hearing and is next scheduled for a court appearance on April 23.
Judges often enter such pleas in cases where defense attorneys may not want to make a definitive plea that could contradict a future plea agreement. But the not-gulity plea is necessary in order for the criminal case to go forward.
Police believe that Cooksey in fact
committed nine murders in November and December, but so far he has not been charged in the Dec. 11 killing of Jesus Bonifacio Real, 25, who was shot to death at an Avondale apartment.
At a press conference Wednesday, Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery said the case was still under investigation.
On Thursday, a spokeswoman for Montgomery said, “We have declined prosecution in that case. After reviewing the submittal for charging from Avondale, we determined there was no reasonable likelihood of conviction. That is all I can offer on both that case and the charging decision.”
The Real murder case is complicated by the presence of three women in the apartment who may have information about the shooting and who were arrested in January — but not charged — for hindering the investigation by hiding the victim’s phone from police.
Two of the women were Real’s sisters. One of them, Liliana Vasquez, was thought by police to be Cooksey’s girlfriend. Vasquez is on probation for a prior conviction of tampering with physical evidence in a 2012 armed robbery and aggravated assault. In late December, 10 days after Real’s murder, she was brought before a judge for a probation violation, but her probation was not revoked.
Cooksey is believed to have acted alone in the other murders. The potential involvement of other suspects in the ninth could significantly muddy the entire prosecution.