Three years after the disappearance of University of Iowa student Mollie Tibbetts, 27-year-old farmhand Cristhian Bahena Rivera has been sentenced to life behind bars without the possibility of parole for her abduction and killing.

The 20-year-old Tibbetts was out for a jog in her rural hometown when prosecutors allege Bahena Rivera crossed paths with her while he was driving down the road she was jogging on. Video surveillance obtained by authorities shows Bahena Rivera’s vehicle following the college student on the road where she was abducted.

Investigators on the case explain that Bahena Rivera got out of his vehicle and a confrontation between him and Tibbetts ensued. Bahena Rivera later led authorities to a cornfield where Tibbett’s body was buried in a shallow grave under broken corn stalks and leaves.

Tibbetts' mother, Laura Calderwood, also spoke to Bahena Rivera in her victim impact statement which she read out loud to the court. "Mollie was a young woman who simply wanted to go for a quiet run on the evening of July 18 and you chose to violently and sadistically end that life," she said. The jury agreed with Calderwood as they convicted him in a unanimous decision.

The case against Bahena Rivera sent ripples throughout the community as well as the nation because of its senselessness and because of Bahena Rivera’s immigration status. During his trial, Bahena Rivera testified that he came to the states illegally from Mexico when he was a teenager. His immigration status played into the immigration narrative that dominated the nation’s political scene at the time.

The case was not without its own unusual twists and turns. During the trial, his defense pushed forward with the claim that Bahena Rivera was a victim in the case and not a suspect. According to Bahena Rivera, two masked men abducted him from his home and took him on a drive where they encountered Tibbets, forced him to watch the attack, and forced him to put Tibbett’s body in the trunk of his car and bury her in the cornfield. Bahena Rivera explained that the men told him if he did not comply that they would go after his girlfriend and his young daughter.

At his sentencing, Judge Joel Yates did not buy into the defense’s claim, and Yates did not mince words when handing down the sentence. "Mr. Bahena Rivera, you and you alone forever changed the lives of those who loved Mollie Tibbetts," he told the court.

Following his trial, Bahena Rivera motioned the court for a new trial after new details potentially linked to Tibbets’ murder emerged in the case. Two individuals came forward with new details including one individual who claimed a 21-year-old man who was a known violent offender confessed to him that he killed Tibbets. Another woman claimed that weeks before Tibbett’s was abducted, she was kidnapped after she met with an alleged sex offender. While Yates did delay the sentencing which was originally supposed to take place in July, Yates eventually denied Bahena Rivera’s motion for a new trial, citing that the new information was unreliable and not enough for a new trial to take place.

Bahena Rivera’s defense maintains that his confession was coerced and false. His team plans to appeal the sentence.