Craig Smith is KGUN 9's Southeast side reporter. Send your story ideas to Craig at craig.smith@kgun9.com.
TUCSON, Ariz. — Testimony is over now in the child murder trial of Christopher Clements. This is a retrial after an earlier jury could not agree whether he kidnapped and killed 6-year-old Isabel Celis.
The judge in the case handles other business on Mondays, so the trial resumes Tuesday with closing arguments. Then it’s all up to the jury. The defense has worked to raise doubt in the prosecution's case. Since prosecutors have the burden of proof, they had a chance to bring back their witnesses to rebut the defense's case. With no DNA evidence to prove Christopher Clements was in Isabel Celis's home, cell phone tracking has been one of the rare pieces of scientific evidence in this case. Prosecutors brought in a cell tracking expert who created and sold a program called Trax. Sy Ray testified his program showed on the night Isabel Celis disappeared cell tracking showed Clements's phone connected to a cell tower in the area of Avra Valley and Trico Roads—the place where Isabel Celis's body was found. Clements actually led detectives to the body five years later. He told them he had nothing to do with the murder but still knew where she was. He offered to trade the information for getting a burglary charge dropped. The murder of a different young girl led to Clements being charged with Isabel’s death. A partial match to Clements DNA did show up on the body of 13-year-old Maribel Gonzalez. Her body was found close to where Isabel’s body was left. A jury found Clements guilty in the Maribel Gonzalez murder. He’s serving a life sentence in that case but prosecutors have not been allowed to mention the other conviction to the jury in the Celis Case.Clements was offered a chance to testify in his own defense. He declined. It’s rare for defendants to testify. Jurors are told they must not hold it against a defendant if they do not testify.Craig Smith is a reporter for KGUN 9. With more than 40 years of reporting in cities like Tampa, Houston and Austin, Craig has covered more than 40 Space Shuttle launches and covered historic hurricanes like Katrina, Ivan, Andrew and Hugo. Share your story ideas and important issues with Craig by emailing craig.smith@kgun9.com or by connecting on Facebook and Twitter.
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