PHOENIX (AP) — In a significant conclusion to a lengthy legal battle, an Arizona jury on Thursday handed down a death sentence to a man responsible for a series of brutal murders in the Phoenix metro area over a three-week period in 2017. This verdict follows a seven-month trial that delved into the chilling attacks, which included the murder of random victims as well as the defendant’s own mother and stepfather.

Cleophus Cooksey Jr., aged 43, was convicted late September on charges of murder for eight separate killings. Alongside these murder convictions, Cooksey was also found guilty of related charges, including kidnapping, armed robbery, and attempted sexual assault, for his crimes committed in Phoenix and the neighboring city of Glendale.

The jury decided to impose the death penalty for six of the eight murders. However, they were unable to reach a consensus regarding the appropriate punishment for the murders of Cooksey’s mother and stepfather.

Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell is currently weighing options on whether to pursue a sentencing retrial for these two particular convictions or to forgo seeking the death penalty altogether. If the latter path is chosen, a judge would then be tasked with issuing life sentences for these counts.

The list of victims from Cooksey’s spree includes two men discovered deceased in a parked vehicle, a security guard who was fatally shot while en route to his girlfriend’s residence, and a woman who was kidnapped and later found dead in an alley after reportedly being sexually assaulted.

Authorities say they linked Cooksey to the killings through evidence found at his mother’s apartment in the aftermath of her killing. That evidence included a gun used in several of the killings, vehicle keys belonging to another victim and a victim’s necklace that Cooksey was wearing when he was arrested, investigators said.

Authorities never offered a motive.

Cooksey, an aspiring musician, knew some of the victims, but he wasn’t acquainted with others, police said. He has maintained his innocence.

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 Maria 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 stepfather Edward Nunn, 54, were found dead.

“Anyone who questions why we need the death penalty needs to look no further than this case,” Mitchell said in a statement. “It takes a special kind of evil to prey upon the vulnerable and needlessly take the lives of eight innocent people. Death is the only just punishment for him, and we will do everything in our power to see it carried through.”

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, whose trial had been scheduled to start earlier this month but has been postponed until December 2026. He has declared his innocence. ____ This story has been corrected to say Aaron Saucedo’s trial that had been scheduled to start earlier this month has been postponed until December 2026.