PHOENIX — A man convicted of killing eight people in metro Phoenix in 2017 is scheduled on Monday to start the sentencing portion of his trial, where prosecutors are seeking the death penalty.

Cleophus Cooksey Jr., 43, was found guilty last week of murder, kidnapping, armed robbery and sexual assault charges in attacks over a three-week span that targeted random victims and his own mother and stepfather.

The victims in Phoenix and nearby Glendale also 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.

Authorities say they linked Cooksey to the slayings through evidence found at his mother’s apartment in the aftermath of her killing. That

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