PHOENIX — In the summer of 2015, metro Phoenix grappled with two serial shooting cases whose details had trickled out to the public. A series of freeway shootings and a separate string of random nighttime attacks sowed fear that led some people to stay indoors after dark or stay off the freeways where they occurred.

Then, out of the blue, investigators unveiled a third case in early 2018, accusing a man of killing eight people in Phoenix and nearby Glendale over three weeks in attacks that had generated no publicity until his arrest.

On Thursday, a jury in Phoenix convicted Cleophus Cooksey Jr., 43, of murder in all eight killings that targeted random victims and the defendant’s mother and stepfather. He also was convicted of kidnapping, sexual assault and armed robbery charges.

The sentencing portion of his trial is scheduled to begin Monday. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty.

The victims in Phoenix and nearby Glendale 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. Cooksey, an aspiring musician, knew some of the victims but wasn’t acquainted with others, police said. Authorities never offered a motive.

Cooksey looked down at the defense table as the verdict was read. He’d maintained his innocence throughout the trial that began in May.

Adriana Rodriguez, the daughter of victim Maria Villanueva, said after the verdict her family was finally getting closure, a day they had feared would never come.

“He took my mom, the only support system that I had,” Rodriguez added as she broke into tears.

The killings started four months after Cooksey was released from prison on a manslaughter conviction for his participation in a 2001 strip club robbery in which an accomplice was fatally shot.