Case Update

An arrest has been made in the abduction and murder of six-year-old Isabel Celis, featured in episode 20.

Welcome to Trace Evidence. I'm your host, Stephen Pacheco. In this bonus update episode, I'll be

discussing the breaking news and arrest of a suspect in the 2012 murder of six-year-old Isabel Celis.

For comprehensive details, I recommend listening to episode 20, but I will begin here with a short

summary of the case. On the evening of Friday, April 20, 2012, six-year-old Isabel Celis was preparing

for bed at approximately 11 p.m. Normally, she'd have been in bed sooner, but the family had returned

home late when Isabel's brothers little league game ran long. Isabel had her own bedroom, though she

usually slept in the same room as her brothers. This night, though, her mother Becky sat up with her,

braiding her hair before tucking her into her own bed in her own room that night.

Becky Celis went to sleep shortly after putting Isabel to bed, while her father, Sergio, sat on the

couch watching a baseball game. He eventually fell asleep on the couch. When he awoke up around 5 a.m.,

he realized he'd fallen asleep on the couch, got up, and walked into the master bedroom to go back

to bed. He didn't report hearing or noticing anything out of the ordinary that night.

The living room in which he had drifted off earlier is directly connected to Isabel's room,

and so the belief was, had there been any kind of noise or struggle, Sergio likely would have been

close enough to hear it. A neighbor, Alicia Stardavant, did report waking up when she heard her

dogs barking at approximately 6.30 a.m. When she listened more closely, she thought she could hear voices.

She didn't think they were close enough to her home to draw concern, though she does recall

that the voices sounded male. She went back to sleep, the sun was rising, and light was breaking

over the horizon. Back at the seveless home, Becky was getting ready for work around this same time,

and left between 6.30 and 7.00 a.m. For her part, Becky doesn't recall hearing any voices or seeing

...