Farm Worker Convicted in Killing of College Student Mollie Tibbetts
An undocumented migrant worker who was the prime suspect in the murder of Mollie Tibbetts was found guilty of her death last Friday.
26-year-old Cristhian Bahena Rivera was found guilty of first-degree murder last Friday by a jury of seven men and five women. The jury did not take long to settle a verdict as they deliberated for three hours on Thursday and another four hours on Friday before reading their decision in court.
The ruling comes nearly three years after the death of 20-year-old college student Mollie Tibbetts. Tibbetts was on an evening run in Brooklyn, Iowa on July 18th, 2018 when she disappeared. One month after her disappearance, the then 24-year-old Cristhian Bahena Rivera was arrested after surveillance footage of his car near where she disappeared linked him to Tibbetts. After he was in police custody, Rivera led authorities to Tibbett’s body which was buried in a shallow grave in a cornfield near the area.
In his initial defense, Rivera told authorities that he spotted Tibbett while she was out jogging and he followed her in his vehicle, later getting out to jog alongside her. According to authorities, Tibbetts told Rivera to leave her alone or that she would call the police. Rivera then explains that he “blacked out” only to come to and realize that she was in his vehicle's trunk bleeding. After he found her in the trunk, Rivera explained in his initial interview that he buried her in the cornfield before he led them to her body.
During his trial, Rivera's defense of what happened the day she disappeared changed and he explained that two men were responsible for Tibbetts’ death. Last Wednesday, Rivera took the stand in his own defense and explained that two masked men kidnapped him from his home and forced him to participate in the kidnapping. Rivera told the court that the men threatened to kill him and if he did not do what they wanted, they would go after his child and ex-girlfriend.
Rivera's defense pushed back with attorney Chad Frese sharing outside of the courtroom, "Can we tell you who did this? No," Frese said. "We can tell you that by getting to know Cristhian Bahena we are very surprised that he would be the kind of person to commit a crime like this. He is nothing but a soft-spoken, respectful, kind person." Rivera’s legal team at one point during the trial tried to cast suspicion on Tibbetts’ boyfriend, though alibies show he was out of town when the murder occurred.
At the time of her disappearance, the case gained national attention partly because it became a highly politicized case. After Rivera was identified as an undocumented immigrant, the Trump administration used Tibbetts’ death as a talking point for tighter immigration policies. President Trump explained in defense of his immigration laws, “A person came in from Mexico illegally and killed her. We need the wall, we need our immigration laws changed, we need our border laws changed."
Tibbetts’ father responded to Trump's harsh criticism of undocumented immigrants in a statement that explained, "The Hispanic community are Iowans. They have the same values as Iowans. As far as I'm concerned, they're Iowans with better food.” Tibbetts’ father also called Donald Trump's political response “heartless” and “despicable.” In defense of his daughter, Tibbetts’ father centered his attention on those politicizing her death criticizing anyone who would "appropriate Mollie's soul in advancing views she believed were profoundly racist."
With the latest surge of undocumented immigrants at the southern border, Republicans have continued to tout their concerns of the public’s safety with regard to the illegal migrants. This notion that undocumented immigrants are bringing waves of crime into the states is something that researchers continue to contest, however. A recent study from the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America explains in their most recent report, “Contrary to public perception, we observe considerably lower felony arrest rates among undocumented immigrants compared to legal immigrants and native-born US citizens and find no evidence that undocumented criminality has increased in recent years.” The study explains that when compared to illegal migrants, U.S.-born citizens are well over two times more likely to be arrested for a violent crime and roughly two and half times more likely to be arrested for drug crimes.
In Iowa, a charge of first-degree murder automatically comes with life behind bars without the possibility of parole. Rivera’s sentencing is scheduled for July 15.
