PHOENIX (AP) — A court hearing scheduled Wednesday for an Arizona man accused in nine shooting deaths in metro Phoenix late last year has been called off.
Cleophus Cooksey Jr. has pleaded not guilty to murder charges in the deaths of his mother and stepfather.
Authorities say Cooksey fatally shot seven other people, though he hasn’t been charged in those deaths.
The deaths occurred from late November until mid-December in Phoenix, Glendale and Avondale.
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Judge Michael Kemp hasn’t yet decided whether to grant a request from prosecutors to order Cooksey jailed until trial.
Four months before the killings started, Cooksey was released from prison on a manslaughter conviction for his participation in a 2001 robbery of a strip club where an accomplice was fatally shot.