In the days after 13-year-old Maribel Gonzalez's body was found in the desert off of Avra Valley and Trico Roads in June 2014, the man now accused of murdering her took a keen interest in news coverage of her death, his ex-girlfriend testified Wednesday.
She also told the jury that he had sometimes shown interest in young girls during the course of their relationship.
Christopher Matthew Clements, 40, is on trial on charges of kidnapping and murdering Maribel. He faces a second trial in February in connection with the kidnapping and death of 6-year-old Isabel Celis, who went missing from her bedroom in 2012.
Both cases went unsolved for years until law enforcement leaders announced Clements' arrest in both cases in September 2018. He was charged with 22 felonies, including two counts of first-degree murder, two counts of kidnapping of a minor under age 15, burglary and 14 counts of sexual exploitation of a minor, which is said to be related to child pornography.
On Wednesday, Clements' ex-girlfriend, Melissa Stark, told the jury, comprised of nine women and seven men, that Clements behaved strangely the night of and morning after Maribel disappeared. She also spoke of his fascination with the case after the teen's body was discovered days later.
Around 8 p.m. on the night of June 3, 2014, Clements and Stark got into a "huge argument" over Stark's out-of-town friend, who was in Tucson for a visit with the couple and their new baby, she said.
"We got into a big fight because I felt he was more interested in her at that time than me," she said. "Afterwards, he proceeded to leave the house. The next time I saw him was later on in the night or early in the morning. I think roughly midnight, or 1 o'clock."
Clements woke Stark to ask if there was more bleach in the home. She went out to the carport to retrieve the bleach from the laundry area, she said, but Clements determined that it wasn't enough. Stark said she didn't ask Clements about why he needed bleach because she was scared.
Clements took Stark's vehicle to purchase more and returned shortly after with a bag of bleach in hand, she said.
"When he came back, he had questioned me if I had looked inside the trunk of his car," Stark said, adding that he left again in his own vehicle shortly after.
Text messages on her mother's phone show Maribel left her home a few blocks away from Clements' house shortly before 10 p.m. An hour later, the friend she was on her way to meet texted Maribel's mother, Valerie Calonge, that she still had not arrived, Calonge said in court.
Around 5:30 a.m., just as it was becoming light out, Clements returned home and walked straight into the shower, Stark said.
"He proceeded to ask me to, like, make sure all of his clothes were washed that he was wearing. He wanted me to make sure the shower curtain was also washed, as well as ensure the floor was cleaned very well, from the front door all the way to the bathroom," Stark said.
When it was reported that Maribel's body was found a few days later on June 6, Clements began to take an interest in the story. He would talk about the teen when coverage of her death was on the news, Stark said.
Used teen's full name
Years later, the teen and her death came up again, this time in handwritten letters that Clements wrote to Stark in the summer of 2017.
In a letter dated May 20, 2017, Clements wrote that he knew a body had been found in Avra Valley off Trico Road. At that time, investigators had not publicly released the location where Maribel's body was discovered.
"I'm sure it's unsolved," Clements wrote in the letter, according to Deputy Pima County Attorney Tracy Miller, who questioned Stark during Wednesday's proceedings.
Clements went on to say in the letter that he was aware the body was found before the time frame when he began assisting law enforcement with an unrelated investigation in the same area, according to Stark.
A few weeks later, in a letter dated June 3, 2017, Clements used Maribel's full name in a letter to Stark while discussing the location of her body, which still had not been released to the public.
Stark said that after looking through photos and Facebook messages on her phone in the summer of 2020, she remembered the events of June 3 and 4, 2014, and contacted a lawyer. Her attorney contacted the Pima County Attorney's Office in July 2020 and Stark shared her story for the first time.
Later, prosecutors showed Stark hundreds of photos from a folder called "My secret apps" on Clements' iPad, the majority of which were of little girls in various stages of undress. Stark said in court she hadn't taken the photos and didn't know any of the children that appeared in them.
The device also included Google searches for "trace evidence on body," which Stark said were not made by her.
Defense: DNA could have been from relatives
Clements' defense attorney, Joseph DiRoberto, challenged Stark's recollection of the timeline, repeatedly asking about the timing of various events.
DiRoberto also questioned Stark about Clements' male relatives, including his brothers. During opening statements Tuesday, DiRoberto told jurors the DNA sample that linked Clements to Maribel's body could be from hundreds of other men, including any male relatives.
DiRoberto's cross examination of Stark continued into Thursday, with the jury submitting dozens of additional questions to Pima County Superior Court Judge James Marner following her testimony. Many went unasked, with lawyers for both sides saying they would open the door to topics that were not to be discussed during trial.
But one juror's question revealed that during the course of Stark's relationship with Clements, she said he had "sometimes" shown interest in young girls.
'I fell to the floor'
Wednesday was an emotional day for Maribel's mother, Calonge, who testified about her relationship with her daughter and Maribel's disappearance prior to Stark's taking the stand.
Calonge told jurors Maribel was her "Mini Me," and that the two were rebuilding their relationship, after Calonge had spent the first half of the year in the hospital and physical rehabilitation after a car crash.
She said that when she learned her daughter had not made it to her destination, she rallied family and friends to search for Maribel, checking all of the locations she used to frequent. "We did everything," she said.
Their efforts were in vain, and Calonge learned about her daughter's death when she saw Maribel's distinct tattoo on the TV news, during a story about the body discovered in Avra Valley.
"I fell to the floor, and I called her dad and my mom and told them what I saw on the news," Calonge said. "It took days before we had confirmation that it was Maribel."
Calonge had to leave the courtroom shortly after when she became overcome with emotion.
On Thursday, prosecutors also questioned Sara Bainter, a woman Clements dated at the same time as Stark.
Bainter said she met Clements at the end of 2013 while walking home from her job at Park Place mall.
"He drove up on the side and said, 'I didn’t want to be creepy or anything, I just wanted to know if you needed a ride home,'" said Bainter, who was 18 at the time. She said that because it was hot out, she accepted his offer.
Bainter said the pair continued to communicate and developed an intimate relationship. Text messages showed Clements contacted Bainter on June 3, 2014, at 11:14 p.m. asking if he could come see her. She didn't respond until days later.
The state has called 11 witnesses in the first three days of the trial, which is scheduled to last through Sept. 30.
