Victim's mother testifies in child murder trial

TUCSON, Ariz. (KGUN) — In the murder trial for the man charged with killing 13-year-old Maribel Gonzalez, the teenager’s mother described the moment she knew her daughter was dead—-and jurors heard Christopher Clements ex-girlfriend testify the night the girl disappeared he wanted to be sure no one looked in his car trunk.

Valerie Calonge was badly disabled when a man ran her down with a car six months before her daughter Maribel Gonzalez disappeared. She said a long hospital stay, rehabilitation, and persistent disability said it made it harder to monitor her daughter.

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Maribel said she was going to visit a friend on June 3, 2014. She never came home.

Calonge broke down in tears several times as she described searching and searching. She told the jury about Maribel’s butterfly tattoo and said.:

“I got home by myself….sad. I put the news on and (they said) they found a body and I see the tattoo and I didn’t want to believe it was her.”

Melissa Stark, Clements' ex-girlfriend told the jury the night Maribel Gonzalez disappeared Clements left after an argument, returned several hours later, and demanded all the bleach in the house.

She said it wasn’t enough for him so he borrowed Stark’s car to get more.

She says when he returned he wanted to be sure no one had looked in his car trunk.

Stark says he left again, then returned close to dawn. Stark says he demanded that she immediately wash the clothes he was wearing, clean the shower he’d just used and scrub with bleach anyplace he’d walked.

Stark identified Clements iPad. Prosecutors say it showed he had researched information on trace evidence on a body and had researched the Maribel Gonzalez case.

Earlier a man named Thomas Keys testified about his friendship with the teenager. He was about 26 years old at the time and said he allowed her to spend the night at his apartment two or three times. Keys said Maribel told him she was 17 but her giggly demeanor made him suspect she was younger.

He said they always slept separately and there was nothing sexual about their relationship, though once she said she loved him and he said he loved her too.

He says he was expecting her to visit the night she disappeared. When she did not arrive he thought it was another case of her not following through on plans—until it was apparent she was missing—and police came to question him.