A Pima County jury on Friday convicted Christopher Clements of first-degree murder and kidnapping in the 2014 death of 13-year-old Maribel Gonzalez.
Clements, 40, is facing a second trial in February in connection with the kidnapping and killing of 6-year-old Isabel Celis, who went missing from her bedroom in 2012.
Maribel was killed two years later, in June 2014. Both cases went unsolved until 2018, when law enforcement leaders announced Clementsβ arrest in connection with the death of of both girls. The jury of six men and six women spent Wednesday afternoon and Thursday deliberating before returning with a guilty verdict Friday afternoon. The trial lasted 10 days and and the state called 24 witnesses. Clements did not take the stand.
Pima County prosecutors say Clements encountered Maribel while she was walking to a friendβs house, after heβd left his own house following a fight with his girlfriend. Deputy Pima County Attorney Tracy Miller told the jury that while they donβt have a witness to explain how or why Clements abducted or killed Maribel, they believe that Clements β who was more than a foot taller and 100 pounds heavier than Maribel β suffocated the teen and put her body in his trunk.
He then briefly returned to his house looking for bleach before going to the remote desert area in Avra Valley where Maribelβs body was eventually found, prosecutors say. Clementsβ girlfriend told jurors that when he came home the next morning he headed straight for the shower, then insisted she clean his clothes, the floor where he had walked and the shower curtain.
Cell phone records of Clementsβ movements the night of Maribelβs death puts him in the vicinity of where her body was recovered. The records also revealed that he had been using a police scanner app the night she was killed.
Clements was not connected to the case until March 2017, when he was assisting investigators with an unrelated case and pointed out landmarks in the area where Maribelβs body was recovered. At the time, law enforcement had not released any details about the specific location.
Detectives collected DNA from Clements, which when tested against a hair found on Maribelβs body, could not rule him out as a suspect. A search of his electronic devices turned up a password-protected folder on a tablet that contained dozens of pictures of underage girls, some scantily clad and some later identified as local children. His computer showed searches that included βMaribel Gonzalez,β βtrace evidence on body,β and βbody found in desert.β
Miller told the jury during closing arguments that the βmountain of circumstantial evidenceβ pointed only to Clements and provided no reasonable doubt of his guilt.
Clementsβ attorney, Joseph DiRoberto, presented witnesses who disputed the stateβs expertsβ testimony, but called no character witnesses and did not establish an alibi for Clements the night of Maribelβs death.
A collective sigh of relief could be heard from the first two rows of the gallery, with several of Maribelβs family members crying softly as Judge James Marner polled the jury for their individual verdicts. There was no visible reaction from Clements, who stared straight ahead, motionless.
Clementsβ sentencing is scheduled for Nov. 4. He faces at least 35 years in prison or up to life behind bars.
