The Murder of Isabel Celis - SOLVED
On the evening of Friday, April 20th, 2012, six year old Isabel Celis was preparing for bed at approximately 11pm. Normally, she’d have been in bed sooner, but the family had returned home late when Isabel’s brother’s little league baseball game ran long. Isabel had her own bedroom, though she usually slept in the same room as her brothers. This night, though, her mother Becky sat with her, braiding her hair before tucking her into her own bed for the night.
Becky Celis went to sleep shortly after putting Isabel to bed, while her father, Sergio sat on the couch watching a baseball game. Sergio eventually fell asleep on the couch. He woke up around 5am and groggily walked toward the master bedroom, going back to bed. He didn’t report hearing or noticing anything out of the ordinary that night. The living room in which he had drifted off earlier is directly connected to Isabel’s bedroom and so the belief was, had there been any kind of a noise or struggle, Sergio would likely have been close enough to have heard it.
A neighbor, Alicia Stardevant, did report waking up when she heard her dogs barking at approximately 6:30am. When she listened more closely, she believed that she could hear voices. She didn’t think much about it, though she does recall that the voices sounded male. She went back to sleep, the sun was rising and light was breaking over the horizon. Becky Celis was getting ready for work around this same time, and left between 6:30 and 7am. For her part, Becky doesn’t recall hearing any voices or seeing anything strange. The house was quiet and nothing seemed disturbed.
A little over an hour later, at 8am, Sergio entered Isabel’s bedroom to get her ready for the day. Isabel was set to play in a little league game that morning, which I why she wanted her mother to braid her hair the night before. When Sergio entered the room, he found that Isabel was not in her bed. Sergio and his two sons searched throughout the house, unable to locate the six year old. When the oldest son, fourteen at the time, went to check Isabel’s room again, he noticed that her window was open and the screen was pushed out and laying in yard below.
UPDATE
On Friday, September 14th, 2018 Tucson Detectives arrested 36 year old Christopher Clements in connection with two murders. In total, Clements was charged with two counts of first degree murder, two counts of kidnapping a minor under 15, two counts of second degree burglary, one count of theft by controlling stolen property, one count of trafficking in stolen property and 14 counts of sexual exploitation of a minor.
According to Tucson Police Chief, Chris Magnus, the FBI received a tip in 2017 about a man who may possess information about the disappearance of Isabel Celis, and that man was named to be Christopher Clements. It appears that it was their conversation with Clements at that time which led them to the discovery of Isabel’s remains. When Isabel’s remains were recovered, they were in an area very close to where another young girl had been found on June 6th, 2014.
On June 3rd, 2014, thirteen year old Maribel Gonzalez told her family that she was going to visit a friend. She left her home, located only minutes away from the Celis’ former residence. Maribel never returned home. When her mother called the home of the friend she was visiting, she found out that her daughter had never made it there. Maribel was reported missing, though at the time there was consideration that she may have been a runaway. Only three days later, on June 6th, Maribel’s remains were found near North Trico Road and West Avra Valley Road. There were no major suspects, nor any clues as to who may have murdered the thirteen year old.
Christopher Clements has a long history of crimes. In 1998, he was convicted of a sex offense in the state of Oregon when he was only fifteen years old. He was sentenced to a year and a half in prison, and ten years of probation following his release. He was required to register as a sex offender, but in 2006, he was found guilty in the state of Florida for failing to register as a sex offender. Later that year, Clements was charged with violating a protection order and harassing someone via telephone in Oregon. In 2007 he was charged with providing false information to police when it was found that he gave a false name to Tucson Police on two separate occasions. Clements lived in various residences in Tucson between 2007 and 2012. One of these locations was an apartment complex less than two miles away from the Celis home. At the time of Maribel’s murder, Clements was out on bail. Clements was actually sentenced to 46 months in prison in 2008 for failing to register as a sex offender in Tucson. The Ninth Circuit court of appeals reversed that sentence in 2011, citing that the law requiring him to register was passed after his 1998 conviction.
Clements is currently being held on $2 million bond and is scheduled to be arraigned in Pima County on September 24th at 1:30pm. Pima County Attorney Barbara LaWall assigned three prosecutors to the case and stated “I’m really pleased to be able to say that Pima County prosecutors and all of law enforcement never gave up the hunt for the killer of these two little girls. The cases went unsolved, but they were never closed. The heart-wrenching tragedies of Maribel Gonzalez and Isabel Celis’ murders have been compounded by a very long, long wait for justice.”
The exact details relating to why Clements gave information about the location of Isabel’s remains, and what ultimately led to his charges remains a little unclear. But going forward, there is certainly to be a tremendous amount of coverage in relation to a trial. Hopefully, now, justice may be served and Clements will pay for this heinous and vicious crimes. Perhaps now, the families of both Isabel Celis and Maribel Gonzalez can see justice done, and find some closure but the loss of a child is something they will never recover from.
All praise and respect to the Tucson Police Department for their hard work on both of these cases over the past six years. I sincerely hope we will see Justice done, and perhaps have the question answered once and for all. May Isabel an Maribel rest in peace, and may their families find comfort in the hands of justice.