ISABEL CELIS & MARIBEL GONZALES: Arizona vs. Christopher Clements for murder of girls in 2012 & 2014 *GUILTY*

Isabel was 6 years old when she vanished from her parents' east-side home in April 2012. Maribel was 13 years old when she went disappeared while walking to a friend’s house in 2014.

Maribel's body was found a few days after she went missing. Isabel's remains were not located until March 2017.

Defense urges separate trials in Tucson child murders

The man charged in the murders of 6 year old Isabel Celis and 13 year old Maribel Gonzalez is trying to have the cases broken into two separate trials.

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Defense urges separate trials in Tucson child murders​

Attorneys for Christopher Clements, the man charged in the murders of six-year-old Isabel Celis and 13 year old Maribel Gonzalez are trying to have the cases broken into separate trials.

Six-year-old Isabel Celis and 13-year-old Maribel Gonzalez disappeared about two years apart. Maribel Gonzalez body was found three days after she was reported missing. Five years went by before the remains of Isabel Celis were found and identified. Because they were juveniles the attorneys refer to the girls as I-C and M-B.

Christopher Clements was not in court for this latest hearing.

Prosecutors say the two cases tie together and tie to Christopher Clements because when Clements tried to bargain his way out of some unrelated charges, he led investigators to Celis remains in a remote part of Avra Valley.

They were less than a mile from where Maribel Gonzalez body was found. Investigators say they found traces of Clements DNA on the older girl’s body.

Clements attorneys are trying to convince Superior Court Judge Deborah Bernini it’s not fair to try Clements for both murders in one trial. They argue Clements wants to testify in his own defense in the Celis case.

Defense attorney Joseph DiRoberto says, “It’s imperative that he testify in counts one through three. He has to explain how he led investigators to I-C’s remains back in 2017. He has to explain that. He has to take the stand and explain that.”

But if he does testify, and the two murders are in one trial, he would be vulnerable to prosecutors’ questions in Maribel Gonzalez murder while he’s on the witness stand.

Prosecutors argue similar crimes and similar locations for the remains tie the case together.

Judge Bernini did not rule right away. She will take some time to decide on the issue of separate trials and on a separate issue on what evidence jurors will be able to consider.

 

[SheWhoMustNotBeNamed]

Cell towers suggest Clements’ activity when Celis disappeared

Tracking program gives broad view, but with gaps, of Clements’ activities the night and morning that Isabel Celis disappeared

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Cell towers suggest Clements’ activity when Celis disappeared​

Just where Christopher Clements was the night that Isabel Celis went missing has been a puzzle that prosecutors have been putting together for the jury. But his defense questioned how well those pieces fit as Clements’ cell phone location came into the trial Friday.

Clement’s phone used cell phone towers that ranged from midtown, near his home, all the way to Avra Valley during the night and into the morning that Isabel Celis went missing. But his defense said that doesn’t prove he abducted and killed the little girl.

The prosecution called the developer of a cell phone tracking technology called Trax that shows the cell towers that a cell phone used at a certain time. The service areas of those towers will overlap to suggest the location of that phone. In Clements’ case, on the night of April 20, 2012, the cell towers followed his narrative that he left his midtown home to go to the hooters on Ina Road. But then the towers showed no movement for three hours into the early morning hours on April 21st before he picked up his ex-girlfriend on the southwest side, took her to her mother’s house and then headed home. Cell towers place him somewhere near the area of Isabel’s recovery site in the mid-morning of April 21, 2012.

The defense pressed the developer whether he performed drive tests of Tucson’s cell towers to establish the accuracy of the algorithm used by Trax. The developer said that drive tests of similarly located cell towers with similar technology in other parts of the country were applied for the program in Tucson.

The developer agreed the method is not absolute, but also said he did not have details of the case when asked to work with the cell phone information when it was provided to him in 2020.

DNA experts testified on the identification of Isabel Celis’ remains and confirmed blood drops in her bedroom were hers. They also testified that none of Clements’ DNA was found in her bedroom and that her DNA was not found in his car; however, the tests on his car were performed five years after she went missing.

The trial resumes Wednesday.

 

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Clements defense says cell tracking too unreliable for tie to Celis remains

Dogs and cell phone tracking were important parts of Thursday's testimony in the retrial of Christopher Clements for the kidnapping and killing of 6-year-old Isabel Celis 12 years ago.

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Clements defense says cell tracking too unreliable for tie to Celis remains​

Dogs and cell phone tracking were important parts of Thursday's testimony in the retrial of Christopher Clements for the kidnapping and killing of 6-year-old Isabel Celis 12 years ago.

When the jury’s been out of the room, defense attorneys have been up front about how their defense is to focus suspicion on somebody other than Clements— and their focus is firmly on Isabel's father Sergio Celis. They have been working to raise doubt about how any stranger could get the 6-year-old girl out of the house without waking up the rest of the family.

Clements' DNA was not found in the Celis home.


One of the witnesses for the defense was a woman who lived in a house just a few feet from the Celis home. They were separated by a wall around the Celis residence.

This witness testified that the Celis family dogs would often bark if anyone came near the wall, but said she did not hear any dogs bark in the early morning hours when Isabel Celis disappeared.

The defense is also working to undermine the cell phone tracking that is a key part of the prosecution case against Clements.

A former police officer who developed software to track cell phones also testified in Clements' previous trial on this case that Clements' cell phone connected to a cell tower that covered the remote area where Isabel Celis' body was found—and connected in the time period when the girl was discovered missing.

But the defense has called its own cell phone expert to question whether jurors can trust that tracking.

What's not in dispute is the fact that Clements led investigators to Isabel Celis' remains. He traded that information for getting some unrelated charges dropped. He told detectives he knew the location of her body but had nothing to do with her death.

 

[SheWhoMustNotBeNamed]

Tucson child murder trial goes to jury next week

The jury gets the case Tuesday in the child murder trial of Christopher Clements charged with kidnapping and killing 6-year-old Isabel Celis.

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Tucson child murder trial goes to jury next week​

Testimony is over now in the child murder trial of Christopher Clements. This is a retrial after an earlier jury could not agree whether he kidnapped and killed 6-year-old Isabel Celis.

The judge in the case handles other business on Mondays, so the trial resumes Tuesday with closing arguments. Then it’s all up to the jury.

 

[SheWhoMustNotBeNamed]

 

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Man already serving life sentence convicted of killing Tucson girl who vanished from parents' home

An Arizona jury has convicted a man of kidnapping and killing a 6-year-old girl in Tucson. Jurors in Pima County Superior Court delivered the verdict Thursday in the retrial of

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Man already serving life sentence convicted of killing Tucson girl who vanished from parents' home​

A man already serving a life sentence for the 2014 death of an Arizona teenager was convicted Thursday of first-degree murder in the killing of another Tucson girl years earlier.

Pima County Superior Court jurors also found Christopher Clements, 42, guilty of kidnapping and burglary in the death of Isabel Celis, who was 6 when she vanished from her parents' home in 2012.

Clements is scheduled to be sentenced March 25.

 

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Christopher Clements sentenced to natural life for kidnapping and murder of Isabel Celis

Christopher Clements received a natural life sentence today, April 10, for th murder of Isabel Celis in Tucson more than a decade ago.

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Christopher Clements sentenced to natural life for kidnapping and murder of Isabel Celis​

Christopher Clements received a natural life sentence today, April 10, for the murder of Isabel Celis in Tucson more than a decade ago.

Clements was convicted in February of first-degree murder, kidnapping, and second-degree burglary for the abduction and death of 6-year-old Isabel Celis. The first trial ended with a hung jury and a mistrial last year.

At today’s sentencing, the judge sentenced Clements, in addition to the natural life sentence for murder, to 17 years for kidnapping and 3 and 1/2 years for burglary.

Today’s sentence was ordered to be served consecutively to previous convictions and sentences Clements is already serving.

Isabel Celis’ parents both addressed the court on Wednesday.

“His actions took Isabel away from her brothers,” said Isabel’s mother Becky Celis. “He took away a beautiful life presence. We will never get to see her grow into a beautiful woman, to watch her grow up, graduate high school, go to college.” She also said “My solace is knowing in the Bible there is a verse in Matthew: If anyone hurts or abuses these little children, these little ones who believe in me, it would be better for him to have a heavy boulder tied around his neck and hurled into the deepest sea than to face the punishment he deserves. The Bible speaks of God’s wrath and it has been shown to be great.”

“We, my son Julian, Sergio Miguel, Becky and myself, we all are going to serve a life sentence of this unescapable, never-ending nightmare,” said Isabel’s father Sergio. Sergio added “Until the day I die, I will feel responsible for not doing my job and protecting my little girl from the evil that lurked outside her window.”

Clements also addressed the court, during which he criticized his trial, the judge, and maintained his innocence.

 

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Christopher Clements sentenced to natural life for kidnapping and murder of Isabel Celis

Christopher Clements received a natural life sentence today, April 10, for th murder of Isabel Celis in Tucson more than a decade ago.

www.kold.com

Christopher Clements sentenced to natural life for kidnapping and murder of Isabel Celis​

Christopher Clements received a natural life sentence today, April 10, for the murder of Isabel Celis in Tucson more than a decade ago.

Clements was convicted in February of first-degree murder, kidnapping, and second-degree burglary for the abduction and death of 6-year-old Isabel Celis. The first trial ended with a hung jury and a mistrial last year.

At today’s sentencing, the judge sentenced Clements, in addition to the natural life sentence for murder, to 17 years for kidnapping and 3 and 1/2 years for burglary.

Today’s sentence was ordered to be served consecutively to previous convictions and sentences Clements is already serving.

Isabel Celis’ parents both addressed the court on Wednesday.

“His actions took Isabel away from her brothers,” said Isabel’s mother Becky Celis. “He took away a beautiful life presence. We will never get to see her grow into a beautiful woman, to watch her grow up, graduate high school, go to college.” She also said “My solace is knowing in the Bible there is a verse in Matthew: If anyone hurts or abuses these little children, these little ones who believe in me, it would be better for him to have a heavy boulder tied around his neck and hurled into the deepest sea than to face the punishment he deserves. The Bible speaks of God’s wrath and it has been shown to be great.”

“We, my son Julian, Sergio Miguel, Becky and myself, we all are going to serve a life sentence of this unescapable, never-ending nightmare,” said Isabel’s father Sergio. Sergio added “Until the day I die, I will feel responsible for not doing my job and protecting my little girl from the evil that lurked outside her window.”

Clements also addressed the court, during which he criticized his trial, the judge, and maintained his innocence.

GOOD. DP would be more fitting but he should be away for good based on more than one murder sentence for two different victims. HOPEfully. These days well...