'Isabel Celis' searches found on computer of suspect in her killing

At least two internet searches for Isabel Celis were run in 2014 on a computer belonging to the man accused in the 6-year-old child’s kidnapping and slaying, an expert testified Tuesday.

Christopher M. Clements, 41, is on trial in the case. Isabel went missing from her Tucson bedroom in 2012 and her fate wasn’t known until 2017 when Clements led authorities to her remains in a desert area, in exchange for getting unrelated charges dropped.

Clements was convicted last year at a separate trial in the kidnapping and killing of Maribel Gonzalez, 13, who disappeared on the way to a friend’s house in 2014.

Former Tucson police digital forensic examiner Russell Blaylock told jurors Tuesday that someone ran searches in 2014 for “Isabel Celis sexy,” “body found in desert” and “trace evidence on body” on a computer identified as belonging to Clements.

Blaylock said there was also evidence on the computer that someone accessed two articles on the Daily Mail UK website about Isabel Celis and her disappearance.

Blaylock said he discovered more than 1,300 images of women and young girls, many of them identified as being taken in Tucson, in a password-protected folder on two iPads belonging to Clements, a convicted sex offender. He testified that user data on the device containing more than 1,200 of the photos indicated Clements was the primary user, although his girlfriend at the time also had access.

Blaylock said many of the young girls in the photos were “scantily clad” and there were screenshots of images from websites including underageladies.com, littlemodels.biz and tinymodels.biz.

Deputy Pima County Attorney Tracy Miller projected many of the images on television monitors overhead, including a series of photos from January 2014, showing the back of a woman as she walked through a local store.

Clements’ ex-girlfriend testified last week that she didn’t know the girls and had no knowledge of the photos stored in the secret folder.

Blaylock also identified five photos of Clements’ face taken from his tablet — photos generated by a My Secret Apps security feature that’s enabled when someone enters an incorrect password.

Jurors heard from the father of three girls pictured in a photo found on Clements’ iPad. Rolando Roman said his daughters would have been between the ages of 6 and 9 at the time. His kids always played in the backyard pictured in the photos, he said, adding he didn’t know they were being photographed and his family had never met Clements.

Two women Clements used to date also testified Tuesday. Sara Bainter told jurors she briefly dated Clements in late 2013 and identified photographs of herself found on Clements’ devices as ones she’d sent him during their relationship. Tiffany Denlinger also identified photos of herself found on Clements’ devices, saying she had posted them on social media but never sent them directly to Clements.

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Two forensic anthropologists with the Pima County Medical Examiner’s Office also testified Tuesday, about their involvement in the search and identification of Isabel’s’ remains.

Dr. Jennifer Vollner told jurors about a March 4, 2017 search in the area of Avra Valley and Trico Roads, a day after authorities located cranial bones later identified as belonging to Isabel. Clements had taken authorities to the location.

Members of the second-day search found three thoracic vertebrae, one lumbar vertebra, and pieces of a tailbone and femur.

Vollner said she and her colleagues estimated the remains belonged to a child who died between two and five years before their discovery, but couldn’t be more specific than the three-year window.

Dr. Bruce Anderson, who is also with the medical examiner’s office, talked about their examination of the bones, saying they were all consistent with a child between the ages of 5 and 8.

Anderson said a fracture discovered in the first thoracic vertebra had to have occurred “hours to days before death to hours to days after death.”

He was more specific in his estimate of the child’s time of death, saying that while the “postmortem interval was two to five years, 2012 was much more likely the year she died than any other year.”

During his cross examination of Anderson, defense attorney Eric Kessler asked if he could exclude animal activity as the cause of the vertebral fracture. The doctor answered that given the lack of a complete skeleton, it couldn’t be ruled out.

Deputy Pima County Attorney Chris Ward followed up on the issue, with Anderson saying having seen thousands of bodies that were in the desert over the years, “it’s not a usual place of fracture when a body is being jostled around by animals.”

Trial is set to resume Wednesday at 10:30 a.m. in Pima County Superior Court. It’s scheduled to last through March 9.