Mollie Tibbetts
Mollie Tibbetts vanished while taking her usual evening run
ACHILLING FBI WARNING THAT whoever abducted Iowa jogger Mollie Tibbetts was hiding in plain sight came shockingly true when police arrested a man in connection with her murder, Cristhian Rivera, 24, led officers to Tibbetts’ body on Aug. 21. Police say Rivera confessed to kidnapping and killing her. Tibbetts had apparently threatened to report him to police after he followed her while jogging in Brooklyn, Iowa. The alleged illegal immigrant was charged after police linked him to a black Chevy Malibu car that was seen following Tibbetts on the night she went missing.
It wasn’t the ending her family and friends hoped for after the 20-year-old psychology student from the University of Iowa disappeared on July 18. “We are all devastated,” close friend Alyssa King told WHO. “It’s definitely not going to be easy, not for a long, long time, but we’ve got a pretty sweet angel with us all … And we will continue to spread her love and life to everyone.”
Tibbetts was living with her boyfriend Dalton Jack and his brother Blake for the summer when she went for her regular run at 7.30 PM on July 18. Both brothers were out of town and she was dog-sitting, but the next morning when Jack sent a message to Tibbetts it went unanswered, which he thought unusual. That afternoon a co-worker at the day camp where Tibbetts worked called Jack and said she hadn’t shown up or called in sick.
Jack raised the alarm and her family reported Tibbetts as missing to the police. On July 20, a Facebook group called “Finding Mollie Tibbetts” was created and more than 200 people took part in a massive search of the area. Tibbetts’ mother Laura Calderwood from Montezuma, Iowa, was terrified for her daughter’s safety but also hopeful she was still alive. Calderwood told ABC News, “She is just such an outgoing, fun, loving life, loving person. Sometimes I feel her sitting on my shoulder … Lending me her strength every day, every night.
“She was getting ready to move into her first apartment. This is so out of Mollie’s character and there were alarms going off immediately—there are no words to describe how you feel when you don’t know where your child is.”
On July 26 police searched a pig farm in Guernsey about a 15-minute drive from Brooklyn after a red shirt was found nearby— it was claimed that staff at the day camp where Tibbetts worked wore red shirts.
The FBI, who were scouring Tibbetts’ social-media records for clues, confirmed that several searches were being conducted
in and around the county, but nothing showed up. There were no clues and no leads, despite a $172,000 reward for information.
On Aug. 14 detectives identified five locations that could be connected to the case near where Tibbetts was last seen and they urged anyone to be alert to any sudden changes in someone’s behaviour, adding that Tibbetts’ abductor could be hiding in plain sight in the community.
A week later on Aug. 21 police issued a statement saying they had found what they believed to be Tibbetts’ remains in a field in Poweshiek County and later that day Iowa authorities announced they had charged Rivera with first-degree murder.
According to the arrest affidavit obtained by WHO Rivera confessed to approaching Tibbetts while she was running and he ran alongside her. Also in the affidavit, Rivera said Tibbetts grabbed her phone and said, “I’m gonna call the police.” Rivera told authorities he then panicked, got mad and “blocked” his “memory” and didn’t remember anything after that before he drove into a field and realised Tibbetts was in his trunk.
Rivera saw that her head was bloody and he admitted that he then dumped her body, face up, in the field and covered it with cornstalks.
“He was not known to the police department,” Rick Rahn, Special agent from Iowa’s Division of Criminal Investigation, told Fox News. “We weren’t aware of him throughout the investigation. We do believe this was a premeditated attack.
“I can’t really speak about the motive. I can just tell you that it seems that he followed her and seemed to be drawn to her on that particular day and, for whatever reason, he chose to abduct her.”
Rivera’s arrest has ignited an immigration row in the US, since it is claimed he is an immigrant from Mexico who had been living in the US illegally for four to seven years and working at a dairy farm using a fake ID. US President Donald Trump used Tibbetts’s death as rhetoric for his “build the wall” argument to keep out illegal immigrants.
Tibbetts’ aunt Billie Jo Calderwood however,wrote in reply, “Please remember, evil comes in every colour.” •