Christopher Matthew Clements pleaded not guilty this afternoon during a hearing in a Tucson courtroom in the killing two girls.
Clements, 36, dressed in an orange jail jumpsuit appeared in Pima County Superior Court for an arraignment.
Clements is accused of killing 6-year-old Isabel Celis and 13-year-old Maribel Gonzalez.
Members of both families were in the courtroom for today's hearing.
Clements showed little emotion and appeared to have a black eye. He was recently in a fight at the Maricopa County jail, where he was being held on unrelated charges.
Isabel went missing from her midtown home in 2012. Her remains were found in the desert northwest of Tucson in 2017. Clements led investigators to the remains in a deal he made to get unrelated burglary charges dropped.
Maribel’s body was found in 2014, just days after she went missing. Her body was found in the same general area as Isabel’s.
Clements has a long criminal history, which started when he was a teenager.
Clements faces 22 charges in the killing of the girls, including two counts of first-degree murder, two counts of kidnapping of a minor under 15, and burglary. He’s also facing 14 counts of sexual exploitation of a minor, which are reportedly related to child pornography.
