The man accused of killing two Tucson-area girls and burying their remains in the desert is also facing criminal charges for a series of sophisticated burglaries in the Valley targeting elderly victims, records show.
Christopher Clements, 36, has been held in Maricopa County jail on the burglary and fraud charges for months.
In several of the burglaries, prosecutors describe a suspect who worked to research his potential victims and set up them up through elaborate schemes.
“When I got home, I could immediately feel someone had been in my house,” said one woman, who asked not to be identified. “You feel so very violated.”
But the woman, who was burglarized in late 2015, said it wasn’t so much the burglary that was violating, it was how Clements and a female accomplice carried out the crime and new intimate details about their lives and home.
According to court records:
“(Victims) received a phone call to their home from a blocked number The female caller told them the FedEx had a package for them and they needed to come pick it up...(The victims) asked to speak to a manager, at which time, a male got on the phone and reassured them they both needed to come to FedEx and pick up the package. When asked where the package was from, the male stated he could not divulge that information but that it had something to do with cancer.”
The woman, who’s in her 80’s, had recently lost her daughter to cancer and was just diagnosed herself.
“It sparked an interest when he said the package was something about cancer,” she said in an interview. “So that’s when I thought maybe, I didn’t want to take a chance and not go pick it up.”
The woman said she and her husband were gone for just 10 minutes. They returned home to front door that had been kicked open and thousands of dollars in jewelry missing.
The woman said she kept her jewelry in an unusual place in the home, causing her to suspect that Clements or someone he worked with had previously been inside her home.
“He knew exactly where to go,” she said. “He’s not a one-man show, I don’t think.”
When asked if she ever met Clements, the woman said no.
"I would love to know. That's what I've been wondering from the very day it happened," she said. "But then when I think about what he did to those two little girls, jewelry can be replaced but those little girls' lives cannot. And who knows how many other lives he's destroyed."
Phone records and GPS tracking linked Clements to the calls made to the woman and other victims, court records show.
Another victim called by the same phone number reported a similar scheme involving an undelivered FedEx packages to get them out of their home.
ABC15 has learned that Clements is a suspect in additional burglaries and that officials believe he may have committed many more in the Valley and in Tucson.
Potential victims are encouraged to contact law enforcement.
Clements has a long criminal history, including past convictions for a sex offense, failing to register as a sex offender, assault, identity theft, and false reporting a law enforcement officer.
Contact ABC15 Investigator Dave Biscobing at dave@abc15.com.
