Paul Clifford was the only person Sabrina Vining ever called dad.
When Vining was very young, her then recently widowed mother, Christina, enrolled her daughter in karate lessons so she could learn self-defense.
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Clifford was her karate instructor, which is how he met and later married Christina, Vining said Wednesday during the jury trial of 42-year-old Jack Upchurch, the man accused of shooting her stepfather and leaving his burnt body along a dirt road.
“He was just a really great person,” Vining said as she began to get choked up.
Paul Clifford
For Vining, Dec. 23, 2024, started out as a good day. It was the first day of winter break at San Manuel High School, where she works as a teacher.
She had also recently won a free vehicle repair from a raffle her mom had entered her in and was finally able to have a repair done on her 2019 Ford Ranger she had been putting off.
In the morning, she dropped off her Ford. In the evening, she went with her sister to pick up her newly repaired truck.
On the way home, she filled up her tank and picked up groceries to cook dinner for her parents.
After dinner, her parents went off to bed at about 10:30 p.m. Vining retired to her bedroom.
Roughly an hour later, she heard her dog bark. Not wanting her family to wake up, she went out to the living room to call her dog. She returned to her bedroom and started listening to an audiobook.
She then heard the bell near the front door chime. It’s rare for people to happen upon the rural Redington area house during the day — much rarer at night. Initially, Vining thought it might be a bat.
Then, a knock came on the door and a flashlight shined through Vining’s bedroom window.
Startled, Vining called her mom, who was asleep in bed with her husband just down the hall.
Christina woke her husband to tell him about the unknown visitors.
Still half asleep and in pajamas, Clifford walked over to answer the knock as Vining watched through the open door of her bedroom.
When Clifford came back, he told his daughter that the strangers’ car had broken down, and they needed a jumpstart. He asked if he could take her Ford to help the supposedly stranded motorists, which she agreed to.
After her dad was gone for 25 minutes, Vining and her mother started to worry. She started checking the location of her truck through her phone.
When the location showed the truck over towards Redington Pass Road, she knew something was wrong.
Vining called the Pima County Sheriff’s Department to report her dad as missing.
In the early morning of Christmas Eve, Clifford’s body was found shot and burnt next to a still smoldering GMC Sierra along the narrow, winding Redington Pass Road.
Responding deputies identified the GMC as a vehicle that had been reported stolen the same day Clifford set out to do what would be his last good deed.
Vining’s truck was located at an apartment complex near West Prince Road and North Romero Road.
Six days later, on Dec. 30, 2024, the Sheriff's Department tracked down three suspects at a residence near East Benson Highway and South Country Club Road.
Upchurch, Elmer Smith and Wendy Scott barricaded themselves inside the residence. The trio ultimately surrendered and were taken into custody.
Smith, who was then 19, and Scott, who was 16, took plea deals on the condition that they would cooperate with authorities.
Upchurch’s trial is set to continue in Pima County Superior Court through July 24.
