KGUN 9 Reporter Craig Smith will have more on this story tonight at 5:00 and 6:00.
The Prosecution has rested its case in the child murder trial of Christopher Clements, who is charged in the kidnapping and murder of 13-year-old Maribel Gonzalez in early June 2014. He is scheduled for trial in February on the 2012 disappearance and the death of 6-year-old Isabel Celis.
Prosecutors continued their effort to show Clements had a fixation on young girls, based on hundreds of photos of girls found on his electronic devices.
However, the defense argued there was no substantial evidence for first degree murder, as there was no specific cause of death, no established contacts, no perfect DNA match and no evidence of the pictures of young girls having anything to do with Mirabel Gonzalez.
The judge in this case cited precedent that evidence must be "interpreted in a way most favorable to state," and denied motion for a direct verdict of not guilty.
Maribel Gonzalez told her mother she would visit a friend on the night of June 3, 2014. Her body was found in a remote part of Avra Valley three days later.
Prosecutors spent a lot of time telling jurors about pictures of young girls on iPads that Clements and his former girlfriend owned. Close to 1,300 were in password-protected folders from an app called My Secret.
Prosecutors said the photos were of young girls, some clothed, some unclothed but they showed jurors only photos of little girls in daily life, playing in water, standing outside their apartments, standing on the sidewalk or walking through stores.
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In new testimony, a Tucson Police Detective testified how police analyzed the background of the photos to find where they had been taken.
Prosecutors put mothers on the stand who testified they did not know who took pictures of their children or how they landed in Clements' electronics devices. The mothers who took the stand were from Tucson.
A woman, now aged 19, identified a photo of herself when she was 10-years-old. It was taken in front of her apartment but she did not know who took it or how Clements obtained it.
Earlier testimony about the electronic devices included computer experts from the police and the FBI. They testified the devices showed searches for Maribel Gonzalez performed months after she died and also showed search phrases that included: “Body found in desert.”
One expert conceded one iPad belonged to Clements ex-girlfriend and there’s no way to know when she or Clements ran the search on that device.
IN THE VIDEO PLAYER BELOW | Timeline: Disappearance of Maribel Gonzalez
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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.
