“Here we are four years later and to find out that they’re asking questions at one of my jobs about myself and my sons,” Sergio Celis told KOLD. “Come on guys, let’s move on.”

Beyond the national TV speculation and the police attention, everyday Tucsonans didn’t help much. Most conversations I’ve had about the case over these years have ended up in contemplating what role Sergio or Becky Celis may have had. A colleague and I once half-seriously discussed going to the ranches of northern Sonora to look for her, under the assumption Isabel had been kidnapped and taken there.

One of the reasons we want to blame the victims is to protect ourselves — we want to find a reason it wouldn’t happen to us.

“The reason why people do that is it’s a protective mechanism,” Gierke, of Homicide Survivors, told me. “If you can find something the victim did that you wouldn’t do then you can protect yourself. In this case, I think it’s pretty clear people did that about the family members’ involvement.”

But if police and prosecutors are right in fingering Clements, Isabel’s disappearance was that rare, nightmare scenario of a stranger breaking in, kidnapping and murdering a child.