A man already serving a life sentence for killing a teenage girl in Arizona in 2014 was found guilty Thursday of first-degree murder for killing another girl in Tucson several years ago.
Pima County Superior Court jurors also found Christopher Clements, 42, guilty of kidnapping and robbery in the death of 6-year-old Isabel Celis, who disappeared from her parents’ home in 2012. I put it down.
Clements is scheduled to be sentenced on March 25th.
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Jurors began deliberating Tuesday in Clements’ retrial, which began Feb. 7. An earlier trial last year resulted in a mistrial when jurors could not reach a verdict.
Clements became a suspect in Celis’ death in 2017, when he told FBI agents he could lead them to the girl’s body in exchange for dropping charges in an unrelated robbery. , said he had nothing to do with her death. the police said.
During closing arguments Tuesday, Deputy County Attorney Tracy Miller told jurors that no one but Clements could have found Celis during the five years she was missing, the Arizona Daily Star reported. said it was no coincidence.
Christopher Clements, already serving a life sentence for the 2014 death of a teenage girl in Arizona, was sentenced on February 29, 2024, for first-degree murder in the death of another girl in Tucson several years earlier. was convicted. (Fox News)
“He’s not going to come forward unless he has something to gain,” Miller said. “It can’t be anyone else.”
According to the Arizona Daily Star, Clements’ attorney Eric Kessler told jurors there was nothing linking Clements to the crime and that police could not prove that Clements entered the home. Stated.
Clements, who was arrested in 2018 in the deaths of Celis and 13-year-old Maribel Gonzalez, disappeared while on her way to a friend’s house in June 2014.
Gonzalez’s body was found several days later in a remote area north of Tucson. Celis’ body was found years later in the same general area.
Clements was sentenced to natural life in prison in 2022 for kidnapping and killing Gonzalez. Jurors in Clements’ retrial were not told about his conviction or his history of sex crime convictions in multiple states dating back to when he was 16 years old.
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Celis’ mother and brother were in court Thursday but left after the verdict was read, Tucson television station KOLD reported.
A call to Kessler seeking comment on the ruling was not immediately returned.
“The jury did a great job sorting through all the evidence and all the information to arrive at the correct outcome,” Miller told KOLD.
