In the quiet of an Avondale, Arizona apartment, the life of 25-year-old Jesus Real was brought to a violent and sudden end on December 11, 2017. While he slept, a place of supposed sanctuary, he was shot twice in the face at point-blank range. The gruesome discovery was made not by law enforcement, but by his own sister, Lilliana Vasquez, in the home they shared with their other sister, Griselda.
A chilling silence followed the gunshots, a silence that would be broken by a series of bewildering actions that would complicate the investigation from its very inception.
Instead of immediately alerting authorities, Lilliana made the perplexing decision to leave the apartment to get her sister, Griselda. The two then picked up Desaree Coronado, the mother of Real’s child, before finally returning to the scene and calling 911. When police arrived, they found a crime scene that had been tampered with; there were no shell casings, and Real's cell phone was missing. This initial deception by the three women led to their subsequent arrests on charges of tampering with evidence and hindering the investigation, adding a layer of familial betrayal to an already tragic event. Griselda later admitted to taking the phone and giving it to Coronado.
The investigation into the murder of Jesus Real soon became entangled in a much larger and more terrifying series of events unfolding across the Phoenix area. Police identified Cleophus Cooksey Jr., Lilliana Vasquez's ex-boyfriend, as the primary suspect. Cooksey was no ordinary criminal; he was a suspected serial killer linked to a string of nine homicides. Investigators believed that Real was Cooksey's third victim, a brutal act allegedly committed just a day after Lilliana had ended her relationship with him. The connection seemed to fit a pattern of violence that was plaguing the community.
Despite the strong suspicion and the apparent connection to a known serial killer, the path to justice for Jesus Real took an unexpected turn. While Cleophus Cooksey Jr. was ultimately tried and convicted for eight other murders, prosecutors declined to file charges against him for the death of Jesus Real. The Maricopa County Attorney's Office cited 'no reasonable likelihood of conviction' as the reason for their decision, leaving the case unresolved and the final chapter of Jesus Real's story unwritten in a court of law. The man suspected of his murder was held accountable for a reign of terror, yet the specific question of who killed Jesus Real remained, officially, unanswered.
