Dad defends himself in Tucson trial of young daughter's alleged killer

The father of Isabel Celis on Wednesday defended himself against a defense attorney’s claim that he was responsible for his daughter’s 2012 disappearance during testimony in the trial for the man accused in her kidnapping and murder.

Despite never being charged with a crime in connection with the case, attorneys for Christopher Matthew Clements said in opening statements Tuesday that they would show evidence that Sergio Celis is to blame.

Clements is facing charges of kidnapping, first-degree murder and burglary in the killing of 6-year-old Isabel Celis. He has already been convicted in the separate killing of a 13-year-old Tucson girl, Maribel Gonzalez.

Sergio Celis discovered his daughter missing from her bed the morning of April 21, 2012. During a search of the property, Isabel’s older brother, Sergio Miguel, found her bedroom window ajar and the bent window screen propped up against the side of the house.

Detectives interviewed dozens of people in the months following Isabels’ disappearance, but did not identify Clements as a suspect until 2017, after he led authorities to her remains in exchange for the dropping of unrelated charges that had landed him in the Pima County jail.

Prosecutors said Tuesday that GPS evidence places Clements within the vicinity of Isabel’s remains on the night she went missing. And a search of his electronic devices turned up hundreds of photos of scantily-clad girls.

There wouldn’t be much information about how Clements got Celis out of her bedroom, but the strength of the evidence points only to Clements, Deputy Pima County Attorney Tracy Miller told jurors.

Immediately after defense attorney Eric Kessler ended his opening statement Tuesday, Miller called Sergio Celis to the stand.

Celis choked up when he spoke about his daughter, telling the jury Isabel would have been 17 years old this year.

When asked if he had anything to do with his daughter’s disappearance, Sergio Celis firmly said to the jury, “Absolutely not.”

Miller questioned Sergio Celis about his previous work as a trauma tech in the Tucson Medical Center emergency department. He told the jury that he’d been trained to keep a level head and allow the process to run as efficiently as possible.

Celis walked jurors through a diagram of the house and told them about the four dogs living with them at the time. He went over the events of the night before Isabel’s disappearance, saying that he’d gone out to get sandwiches for dinner after the family returned late from one of their son’s baseball games.

Celis spoke of the morning after, when he woke up and went to get Isabel ready for her softball game.

After discovering his daughter missing from her bed, Sergio Celis went into his sons’ room to look for her before returning to Isabel’s room. He said he checked in the closet and lifted the blankets and comforters, just in case she was hiding at the end of the bed.

“I knew she wasn’t, but I did it anyway,” Sergio Celis testified.

He told jurors he texted his wife that Isabel was missing, after which his older son, Sergio Miguel, told him he’d discovered Isabel’s window was open and the screen popped out.

Sergio Celis spoke about his call to 911, saying that at the time, he was thinking, “This is the most important phone call of my life and I need to get the best information out so this can get started.”

He jumped on his bicycle to search the neighborhood, thinking he could cover more ground than on foot or in his car, by riding up onto sidewalks and into alleys.

Back to homepage

Subscriber Login

Keep reading with a digital access subscription.

Subscribe now

Miller played jurors an hourlong video of Sergio Celis reenacting the events of that morning with detectives, recorded a few weeks after Isabel was reported missing.

Sergio Celis talked about how they’d gotten in over their head financially when they purchased the home where the family lived when Isabel disappeared. They kept their first house, renting it out, but eventually they lost it to foreclosure, he said.

Defense attorney Kessler asked Celis if he made an effort to be honest when talking to police the morning of Isabel’s disappearance, asking why 911 wasn’t the first call he made. Celis first texted his wife and made a call to his parents before calling 911.

“I believed there was a reasonable explanation for what was going on,” he answered.

Kessler asked Celis why his text messages had been deleted when he turned his phone over to police, and reminded him of statements he’d made to police about maybe blacking out or sleepwalking the night his daughter went missing.

Celis said he couldn’t recall deleting any text messages, and didn’t remember making such statements to police.

Kessler continued questioning Celis when court resumed Wednesday, with their interaction growing contentious as the morning wore on.

Pima County Superior Court Judge James Marner told Celis he should only answer the question that Kessler was asking, giving the prosecutor the opportunity to either object or revisit the subject later.

When asked if it would have been possible for Isabel to be carried out her bedroom window, Celis responded, “Not by me.”

Prosecutors on Wednesday also called a woman who dated and briefly lived with Clements in 2012 to testify. Clements was living about two miles away from the Celis house when Isabel disappeared.

Corina Rivera said she lived in Clements’ house near East Pima Street and North Craycroft Road, for about six weeks before they ended their relationship in May 2012.

Rivera also talked about her cousin, Joe Vega, who worked as an assistant coach with Sergio Celis on one of the soccer teams he coached. She said Clements took an interest in some of Vega’s Facebook posts.

“Mostly (taken) at the park, family photos and the kids with the soccer team and functions at the parks,” she said “Christopher was curious about those.”

Rivera recalled the night of Isabel’s disappearance, saying that she was visiting an ex-boyfriend and the pair got into an argument. She called Clements to pick her up and take her back to her mother’s house before work. He obliged.

Unlike other times he’d given her rides, Clements was not interested in talking or even smoking a cigarette after they reached their destination, Rivera said. He simply dropped her off and left.

The next day, Rivera said she learned from the news that a girl named Isabel Celis had gone missing from her bedroom the night before.

Rivera told jurors that she was at Clements’ home a few days later when police who’d been going door-to-door came to ask questions about Isabel’s disappearance.

“He had this smirk on his face,” Rivera told jurors of Clements’ demeanor when he told police he didn’t know anything about the missing girl. “Kind of like a sarcastic smile. He was grinning a lot.”