Teen's mother gives tearful testimony as trial begins for Christopher Clements

During the second day of a trial for a man accused of killing a 13-year-old girl, prosecutors called the girl’s family to the witness stand on Wednesday at Pima County Superior Court.

Valerie Calonge gave a tearful testimony of her daughter's last day, and how her daughter, Maribel Gonzales, seemed to have changed in the weeks leading up to her disappearance.

Christopher Clements, 40, is also accused of killing 6-year-old Isabel Celis in a separate case, the trial for which is slated for February.

The trial in Maribel's death is scheduled to last 14 days, ending around Sept. 30 in Pima County Superior Court.

According to court documents, Clements was arrested in 2018 and indicted on 22 counts spanning many years, including burglary and two counts each of first-degree murder and kidnapping in the deaths of Isabel in 2012 and Maribel in 2014.

Prosecutors for the state include Pima County attorneys Tracy Miller and Chris Ward, while defense attorneys include Joseph DiRoberto and Eric Kessler.

Maribel went to visit friend, but never arrived

On Wednesday, according to the testimonies of Maribel’s mother and grandmother, the girl went missing the night of June 3, 2014, when she was walking with a friend to another friend’s house.

Earlier that day, her daughter had gone shopping with her and her mother.

Victoria Calonge said her granddaughter went home excited to try on the clothes she bought.

The girl's mother told jurors she realized her daughter never arrived where she was supposed to the following day. She said she called anyone who would know her daughter’s whereabouts. She then went out looking for her with her mother and some of Maribel’s friends.

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Valerie Calonge testified it was not until she turned on the TV news that she found out police found her daughter’s body. She recognized a tattoo her daughter had on her collarbone. That is when she called police, she said.

Calonge described Maribel as “very friendly” and funny, noting that she wouldn’t talk to just anyone.

Colange described Maribel as her “mini-me” and told the jury they were close and they spent a lot of time together.

“We would go shopping, go to eat, be cleaning the house, we would do a lot of stuff together,” Colange said about her relationship with her daughter before the collision. “She’d go walk with me around Reid Park everyday after work. We were very close.”

Calonge said she had been in an traumatic accident, a hit-and-run, in January 2014. The collision resulted in a traumatic brain injury. She was hospitalized and then sent to rehab for several months. While she was gone, her daughter was living with family.

Calonge said before her crash, she had a close relationship to her daughter. She pushed herself to leave the rehab before she was ready so that she could be with her daughter again.

After leaving rehab, Calonge lived with her parents for one month, and by May she was able to get an apartment with her daughter.

“We were excited about being together. We were happy to be in our own little place,” she said with a sigh. Then she began to cry as she recalled how happy Maribel had been to live with her mother again.

“She was happy that I was home, she was trying to be my little nurse to help to get better,” she said in between tears.

However, after the accident, Colange said Maribel seemed more mature and was less chatty about the details in her life.

The night her daughter disappeared, Calonge said she was told that Maribel was going to a friend's house. She said she did not know which friend.

Man, 25, testifies he was friends with Maribel

The friend’s house was that of a 25-year-old man at the time. That man, Thomas Keys, was called to the witness stand on Wednesday where he testified Maribel was supposed to see him, but she never arrived.

Keys said they had been friends for a couple months after meeting at a fair. He said when they met at the fair, she approached him and began chatting with him.

He said she would sometimes “crash” on his couch, and while he said he did not know her age, her behavior made her seem young. He said she was “giggly” and “silly.” However, prosecutors later revealed police records showed she told him she was 17.

During the trial it came to light that sometime during their friendship, Maribel had messaged Keys telling him that she loved him. He responded with a smiley face emoji and eventually told her he loved her too. On Wednesday, he told the jury they liked each other, but nothing ever happened between them.

Prosecutors also called Melissa Stark to testify. Stark said she had been in a relationship with Clements and had a son with him. They lived in the vicinity where Maribel was walking when she disappeared.

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She said on the night in question, they had gotten into a “huge” argument about the attention he was giving her best friend who had been visiting them.

Stark said Clements left the house around 8 p.m. on the night in question and returned around midnight, waking her up and asking her if they had bleach. They did not have enough, so he left the house and came back with more bleach, she said.

When he returned, he asked her if she had looked in the trunk of his car. She told him she had not looked in his car.

Stark said he left again and returned around 5 a.m., when he asked her to clean his clothes, wash the shower curtain and clean the floor “very well from the front door all the way to the bathroom.”

Stark approached law enforcement about what she experienced that night in July 2020, six years after the girl disappeared.

Prior to speaking to law enforcement, Stark told prosecutors that Clements told her to get back in touch with her friend who had been staying at her place on the night in question to ask if she and her mother, who had also been there, would testify on his behalf that he was home all night while they were visiting.

Stark said her friend declined.

Prosecutors say DNA found on girl's body, her cell phone

During Tuesday's trial proceedings, attorneys presented opening statements to the jury.

Tucson-based KOLD reported that Miller said Clements’ DNA was found on Maribel’s body and cell phone evidence put him at the scene.

Court documents showed that investigators searched Clements’ computer and found hidden photos of very young girls in lingerie or playing at beaches and playgrounds.

DiRoberto claimed in his opening statement for the defense that Clements did not know Maribel and had no contact with her family or friends, according to KOLD. He reportedly argued that there are no witnesses to establish where Maribel was or who she was with the night she died.

DiRoberto admitted a DNA test was a partial match for Clements, though he claimed a full sample would have excluded his client as a suspect.

He also criticized the accuracy of cell phone tracking, which reportedly showed Clements was in the area of where Maribel’s body was found the night of her disappearance. She was found near Trico and West Avra Valley roads in Pima County.

On Tuesday, three witnesses were called to the stand: two law enforcement officers on the case and the bus driver who discovered her body.

KOLD reported that retired Pima County Sheriff’s Department Detective Joseph Borquez said Maribel’s body was found under a tree and next to a mound of tires. He said she was naked and there were drag marks that led from the road to the body.

Coverage of southern Arizona on azcentral.com and in The Arizona Republic is funded by the nonprofit Report for America in association with The Republic.

Reach the reporter at sarah.lapidus@gannett.com.

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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Teen's mother gives testimony as Christopher Clements trial begins