Cristhian Bahena Rivera Arrested under the Charge of Murder of Mollie Tibbetts

The case of Mollie Tibbetts got a new turn as an undocumented immigrant was charged with the murder. The police have kept the alleged person in their custody until the trial begins.

Mollie was missing since July 19. The investigation began soon after the report was filed. The video footage of the East of Brooklyn was collected by the investigators. As per sources, that was the place where she was seen. According to the collected footage, she was seen running around Middle Street in Brooklyn. In the video footage, a black Chevrolet Malibu was seen around her. This was the incident of 18th July around 7.45pm in the evening.

As per the reports, the alleged person is Cristhian Bahena Rivera. He is 24 and has been living in the area for 7 years. There are charges against him in the Poweshiek County court. In the video footage, Cristhian was seen driving the Chevrolet Malibu back and forth in the same area.

As the police officials investigated the matter after enquiring Rivera, they got to know that he was trying to contact the female whom he found running on the streets of Brooklyn. He even admitted that he persuaded her to move to the east area of the town which is in the Poweshiek County. He even said that he left the vehicle and started running behind her. Soon after, Mollie took out her phone and threatened Rivera that she would call the police.  After this, he said that he went bad and started panicking which resulted to his memory loss. He informed the police that whenever he is very upset, this memory loss happens to him. He informed the police that he can’t remember anything that happened later. It was when he found earpieces on his lap, he realized that Mollie was in the trunk. By then, he had made a U-turn and was heading towards the cornfield by driving past the highway.

As per the investigators, Mollie was abducted around the 1900 block of the 385th Avenue. However, the investigator could not confirm if Mollie was dead or alive when she was put in the car trunk. As per Rivera’s statement, he pulled Mollie from the trunk. That is when she found that Mollie had blood on her head. Soon after, he took Mollie Tibbetts into the cornfield. He chose a secluded place in the cornfield which made him carry Mollie 20 meters inside the cornfield on his shoulder. When he found a secluded place, he left her body there. He made sure to cover her body with cornstalks before leaving her there.

As per reports, he returned to Brooklyn by determining the route through his mobile. Later as per Rivera’s memory, he guided the investigators to reach the location where he kept Mollie’s body. As per the filed complaint the dress and the appearance matched with Rivera’s description.

The series of events in the case

18th July was the last day Mollie was seen fine, before she disappeared. As per reports, she was in Brooklyn to watch the dogs in her boyfriend’s brother’s home. During the evening time, she reportedly went for her routine evening jog. On the same day at around 10 pm, Dalton Jack, her boyfriend received a Snapchat message from Mollie. The message could not be deciphered as it was a Snapchat message and it is meant to disappear soon after it is sent. As per Dalton’s comments, he did not specifically remember what the content of the message was. It was a picture most probable that showed that she was inside the house at that moment. Jack said that the next day when he texted Mollie Tibbetts, he did not get any response from the other end. Mollie worked in Grinnell Day Care and when she did not go there on 19th July, Jack was contacted by one of her colleagues. The search began soon after in various open spaces of Brooklyn and the buildings that she might be in. The family members of Mollie started sending the information on Facebook to find any information about Mollie.

From then till July 27, there was no information about Mollie. The leads were insubstantial and there was no news. On July 28, Crime Stoppers of Central Iowa and The T.I.P. Rural Electric Cooperative in Brooklyn declared that they would gift a reward of $2000 to anyone who gives any useful information about Mollie. On July 31st, Dave Collum who is a retired maintenance director for the Brooklyn-Guernsey-Malcom school district informed that data could be collected from Mollie’s Fitbit that showed that she passed his home and returned back to her destination safely. He said that the investigators informed him that on the day when she jogged past her house, she returned back home to do her homework on her computer. On 2nd August, the reward was raised to $172,000 by Bring Mollie Tibbetts Home Safe Reward Fund. Mollie’s mother Laura Calderwood believed that Mollie was alive till then.

By August 5 the donations increased and the award for her return raised $260,000. On August 6, the FBI went to another farm in Brooklyn and asked the owner Wayne Cheney to give a polygraph exam. He refused to give so saying that before this the investigators came to search his house, phone, and the property and he had already informed that he had never met Mollie and has no idea what has happened to her. Later, that day Mollie’s father, Rob Tibbetts said that she was under the influence of some known person and she left the house without knowing the intention of the person asking her to move out. She was completely unaware of the impending danger. Therefore the danger caused to her was made by someone close to her. Finally, the police got some lead and enquired Cristhian Bahena Rivera on 20th August when the lead was found from one of the security cameras of those houses near which Mollie Tibbetts was last seen. On the very next day, her body was found from the cornfield in Brooklyn.