After 10 days of testimony from 30 witnesses, a jury is now deliberating whether Christopher Clements is guilty of kidnapping and first-degree murder in the 2012 death of Isabel Celis.
Trial for Clements, who is accused of breaking into the Celis home and abducting Isabel, age 6, began Feb. 14 in Pima County Superior Court. Prosecutors say he became a suspect when he led investigators to the location of her remains in 2017, in return for authorities dropping unrelated charges against him.
The courtroom gallery was full Wednesday afternoon for closing arguments, with dozens of law enforcement officers, attorneys, courthouse employees and members of the public crowding onto the wooden benches.
βWhen the Celis family went to bed on the night of April 20, 2012, they had no way of knowing the unbelievable nightmare they would wake up to the next morning,β Deputy Pima County Attorney Tracy Miller told the jury. βHow on earth does someone take a 6-year-old child out of their bedroom window in the middle of the night?β
βWho could do such a thing?β she asked loudly. Then, reminding them of testimony about Clementsβ behavior, she added: βHow about someone who plants a note in their front yard with the name Isabel Celis hidden under a rock? How about someone who takes surreptitious photos of little girls in the Tucson area?β
Miller projected a photo of a young Hispanic girl onto a wall-sized television screen. A detective previously identified the photo, along with several others found on Clementsβ devices, as being taken in Tucson.
βHow about someone who has folders and folders of little girls scantily clad? How about someone who for this time period in between Isabelβs abduction and when sheβs found does searches (of her name) on his devices?β Miller asked. βWho does that? The person who abducted and murdered Isabel Celis.β
Miller talked about the cell phone evidence that Clementsβ phone, in the early morning hours of Isabelβs disappearance, was near her home and in the remote desert area where her remains were later found.
She also noted Isabelβs open bedroom window and the screen that was bent and propped up against the house. Police pulled prints from the outside, but they lacked ridge detail and were indistinguishable.
Miller reminded the jury that sheβd told them there would be no eyewitnesses, fingerprints or DNA, but said the state presented an overwhelming amount of circumstantial evidence showing that only Clements could be responsible for Isabelβs disappearance and death.
βThis was something that was planned very carefully to avoid any detection,β Miller said, reminding the jury of several calls from Clementsβ cell phones to the Celis landline six months before Isabel disappeared, as well as on an afternoon a week before, when Isabelβs father, Sergio Celis, came home to find his dogs had been let out of the yard.
Miller told the jury things that seemed like coincidence were circumstantial evidence of Clementsβ guilt. She talked about the $110 carwash he got the day after Isabel was reported missing, and about his phoneβs movements, which were not consistent with the story he told police about where he was.
She said Clementsβ waited patiently for years until his knowledge of the crime was something he believed he could benefit from, then finally decided to tell police the location of the remains.
βIn this courtroom, that part of the nightmare for the Celis family β βwho did this?β β ends,β Miller said. βWe may not know exactly how he got Isabel Celis out of her window that morning, but what we do know over the last two-and-a-half weeks is that the person responsible is Christopher Clements.β
βIs there some other way ...?β
Defense attorney Eric Kessler told the jury this is one of the worst cases heβs ever tried, calling it βtragicβ and βhorrible.β
βOne thing that could make it worse, though, is to compound this tragedy by wrongfully convicting the wrong person,β he said.
Kessler told the jurors about the burden of proof the state has to prove Clementsβ guilt, asking them if there was some other way the death could have happened.
βI urge each of you to challenge at least one other juror to find one piece of evidence that makes it possible for someone other than Chris Clements to have done this,β Kessler said, adding that if they are unable to do so, that means thereβs a βreal possibilityβ Clements is innocent.
Kessler called the stateβs use of the photos found on Clementsβ devices βcharacter assassination,β saying prosecutors were simply trying to paint him as a creep.
He explained to the jury that he doesnβt have to prove Sergio Celisβ guilt to make him a viable suspect, but that he just needed to present evidence that the victimβs father might have had something to do with it.
Kessler pointed out that Isabelβs favorite clothes were missing from her room when she went missing, and that Sergio Celis claimed to be sleeping on the couch in the living room near Isabelβs bedroom.
He told the jury there was no evidence presented to show that Sergio Celis didnβt go into his daughterβs room, pack up her things as if she were going on a trip, and walk her out the front door βto somebody else,β returning later to lock the door from the inside and report his daughter missing.
He also noted that the cell tower near Isabel's house that Clements' phone pinged off of in the early hours of the morning she disappeared has a coverage area of about 150 square miles, which included his own home.
Kessler referred to testimony by the cell phone tracking expert, which showed Clementsβ phone in the area of the desert recovery site at around 10 a.m. the morning of Isabelβs disappearance.
βItβs an interesting theory that someone who would meticulously plan the abduction of Isa, so successfully avoid waking up any of the dogs, waking up any of the people, not being caught on any surveillance videos and not being seen by neighbors, would pick the middle of the day to deposit that body,β he said. βIt doesnβt make sense.β
Kessler said having knowledge of a crime isnβt illegal and that there are βany number of ways he could have known,β saying it was up to the state to prove how Clements knew, but they failed to do that.
βThey just thought, βhe knew where the remains were, the jury will find him guilty,β β Kessler said. βBut thatβs not what the jury instructions (from the judge) tell you to do.β
During her rebuttal, Miller told the jurors that Kessler was inviting them to do what police did in 2012 and look at the family. Police never charged any family member with being involved.
βThis has been enough of a nightmare for this family and to suggest that they had anything to do with Isabel disappearing is offensive,β Miller said, voice raised. βEspecially at this point, especially given everything we know about Christopher Clements and this case.β
Defense presents its case
Before closing arguments, the defense called witnesses Tuesday and Wednesday, including a former Tucson police detective. She allegedly expressed previous doubts Clements was guilty, but the jury did not hear about that.
The prosecution filed a motion last week seeking to prevent the former detective from testifying about those doubts.
Superior Court Judge James Marner ruled Monday that the former detective would not be allowed to testify about her doubts, saying he found the information to be immaterial and irrelevant.
The former detective, Bryn Fox, instead testified for the defense about her involvement in the investigation into Isabelβs disappearance, saying she was one of the first detectives assigned to the case. She described an attempted recreation of entering and exiting the house through Isabelβs bedroom window, saying a fellow officer struggled to enter the window without resting his hands on furniture inside the bedroom.
When Kessler asked her if they considered the front door to the home a potential point of entry, she said Tucson police had βconsidered every access point into and out of that home.β
Kessler asked Fox what evidence of an intruder they found during the initial investigation, as he cited the lack of fingerprints and physical evidence tying anyone to Isabelβs abduction. Fox said the lack of an βanswer to how entrance and exit had been made to the houseβ was evidence enough, although not blatant.
During the initial investigation, Tucson police asked Isabelβs mother, Becky Celis, to participate in a monitored phone call with her husband Sergio to try to uncover new details. Fox agreed with Kessler that it was βfair to say that when police are contemplating doing (such) a confrontation call,β their suspicion of the subject βhas been elevated.β
Clementsβ defense team also called another police detective involved in the initial investigation.
Detective Dan Berry testified he examined copies of Sergio and Becky Celisβ phones, finding no text messages prior to April 20, 2012 on either. He said that while he couldnβt remember the specific model of phone Sergio Celis had been using, his report indicated it was βcapable of holding large amounts of data.β
Sergio and Becky Celis previously testified they frequently deleted text messages to preserve data.
Jury instructions
To secure a conviction of first-degree murder, the state must prove the crime was either premeditated or considered βfelony murder.β
Marner explained to the jury in his final instructions before they began deliberating late Wednesday that premeditation requires a decision to kill, reflection on that decision, and acting on the decision. βFelony murderβ in this case would be a murder committed in the course of a kidnapping, which Arizona law defines as restraining someone with the intent to do physical harm or to aid in the commission of a felony.
The jury does not have to unanimously degree on whether the crime was premeditated or felony, they just have to agree that it was one or the other.
Clements, a convicted sex offender, has already been sentenced to natural life in prison in connection with 13-year-old Maribel Gonzalezβs 2014 murder, and another 17 years for her kidnapping, which will be served consecutively. That information was not given to jurors in the Celis case.
The jury of eight men and four women began deliberating Thursday morning in Superior Court.