Neighbor heard male voices near Celis home morning of disappearance

TUCSON, AZ (Tucson News Now) - A woman who lives next door to the Celis family says she heard male voices and barking dogs outside her home early Saturday morning, April 21, the day 6-year-old Isabel Celis was reported missing.

Alicia Stardevant says it was around 6:30 a.m. when she was awakened by her dogs and heard the voices. A wall separates Stardevant's home from Isabel's bedroom window. Stardevant says the voices sounded like they were coming from her side of the wall, not the Celis home.

"My dogs were going crazy," Stardevant said. "Their dogs were going nuts, and I remember briefly waking up and hearing male voices outside my bedroom window. But it was light outside. I didn't really think anything of it. Then I went back to sleep. Then at eight o'clock I got a knock on the door saying she was missing."

Stardevant says she was sleepy, so she does not recall what the voices were saying. She says the men were not whispering.

"I don't think that they were police," she said. "I mean I wasn't really paying attention, you know. I was really tired, but I don't think it was."

Stardevant says since the incident, police have interviewed her several times.

The neighborhood around the home of 6-year-old Isabel Celis was opened Wednesday, April 25. The area south of Broadway and east of Craycroft had been closed to the public as Tucson police officers investigated the girl's disappearance.