Talk about a bad weekend for the family of Isabel Celis. The whereabouts of the 6-year-old Arizona girl missing since mid-April remains a mystery, and now her father, Sergio Celis, is in trouble. The man who reported his daughter missing from her bed on a Saturday morning has lost custody of his two sons.
The boys, Isabel's older brothers, are now in the care of their mother, Rebecca (Becky) Celis. Which means that Becky and Sergio do not live in the same house ... already. Not looking good for dad, is it?
Cops in Isabel's missing persons case say the CPS decision to bar Sergio from access to his sons does not make him a suspect in the search for the little girl. But they also say they haven't "eliminated anyone" from their list of possible suspects. Read between the lines here. Dad isn't a suspect. But he's not not a suspect either.
And now he sounds like a bit of a jerk ... if nothing else.
We first heard that Becky went to work as a nurse on the morning of April 21, and that Sergio went to wake their little Isa around 8 a.m., only to find her bed empty and a screen knocked out of her bedroom window. Now we're hearing the couple doesn't live in the same house? Less than a month after the girl disappeared? Yikes!
Everyone responds differently to tragedy. I get that. But when the Celises took several days before making a public plea for their daughter's life, we were hoping it's because they were clinging to each other for support. Now it's looking more like the other -- much less heartwarming -- reason. They didn't want people digging up skeletons that very much exist.
Even if Dad didn't play a role in Isabel's disappearance -- and honestly, I hope he didn't -- this whole tragic case has brought to light other issues inside the Celis household. If CPS considers Sergio a serious enough threat to his older kids that he's been barred from being around them, that's a pretty big skeleton, folks. Now throw whatever has split these two parents on top of it, and I'm thinking Sergio Celis has a lot to answer for.
Watch cops commenting on Sergio:
See this video on The Stir by CafeMom.
What have you thought of this whole sad case?
Image via National Center for Missing & Exploited Children