Mollie Tibbetts vanished from the community of Brooklyn, Iowa, on July 18, 2018, shocking the locals. Mollie was jogging in the neighborhood at the time. Even though the case received widespread media coverage, the authorities had very few leads until a security video revealed the details of the crime.
The Last Day: The Case of Mollie Tibbetts, a documentary on Dateline, details Mollie's untimely demise and demonstrates how the inquiry turned up evidence of a murder motivated by rage. We have the information you need if this case intrigues you and you're curious about Mollie's killer's current whereabouts.
Who Was Mollie Tibbetts?
Mollie Tibbetts was a psychology major at the University of Iowa. She was 20 years old at the time of her death. She was employed at Grinnell Regional Medical Center at a day camp for kids.
She was getting ready for her sophomore year of college when she disappeared. Before going missing, Tibbetts, who was living in Brooklyn, Iowa, was taking care of her boyfriend's dogs. But when she went for her daily jog, she never returned home. Five weeks after the search was initiated, she was located.
How Did Mollie Tibbetts Die?
Since there were no useful leads or eyewitnesses to the incident, the initial inquiry into Mollie's disappearance proceeded somewhat slowly.
The police were thorough in their search for a witness and even endured multiple interviews with the victim's acquaintances, but they were unable to identify a suspect and were forced to start over. Despite using sniffer dogs and doing a very comprehensive search, according to the episode, police enforcement was unable to locate the missing girl for days.
Authorities discovered they could track Mollie's movements with CCTV cameras after discovering the route she walked on her July 18 evening jog. Interestingly, the CCTV tape revealed a fairly grim tale as the cops observed the 20-year-old jogging across the area while a Chevrolet Malibu continued to drive by.
It was evident from the video that the car was pursuing Mollie, even though there was no evidence of guilt. Authorities were directed to the owner of the vehicle, Cristhian Bahena Rivera, who worked for a nearby dairy farm, using that as their only lead.
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The 24-year-old initially maintained his innocence and said he was unrelated to Mollie's disappearance. But when investigators opened the trunk of his car, they discovered bloodstains that exactly matched the victim.
When Rivera saw the evidence, he quickly had second thoughts and showed the police where he had hidden Mollie's body. The defendant first claimed he had no memory of killing Mollie, but he then said he was coerced into killing the young woman by two unidentified guys. However, after appearing in court, Rivera was found guilty of first-degree murder and given a life sentence without the possibility of release in 2021.
