Mollie Tibbetts’ suspected killer in the U.S. illegally
whose disappearance sparked a month-long search by federal, state and local authorities, and whose killing has now become a talking point for conservatives arguing for more restrictive immigration laws.
On Tuesday, investigators revealed what had happened to her, as told by the man they say killed her, then hid her body.
Rivera, 24, said he dragged, then carried Tibbetts’ body 60 feet into an isolated cornfield. Then he dropped her on the ground, face up, covered her with corn stalks and walked away.
After the interview, he led investigators to Tibbetts’ body.
On Tuesday, Rivera was charged with first-degree murder in Tibbetts’ killing. He is in jail, and on Wednesday, a judge set his bail at $5 million.
Rivera was in the country illegally and appears to have used a stolen identification to satisfy a federal immigration background check by his employer through the Department of Homeland Security’s E-verify system, a law enforcement official told The Washington Post.
Yarrabee Farms President Eric Lang told the Associated Press that Rivera had been in good standing as an employee. Lang is the brother of Craig Lang, a prominent Iowa farmer who recently lost the 2018 Republican primary to become Iowa’s agriculture secretary.
Within hours of the news conference announcing Rivera’s arrest, President Trump weighed in on the killing, telling a West Virginia audience about an “illegal alien” who had just been arrested:
“You saw what happened to that incredible, beautiful woman [Mollie Tibbetts],” he said. “Should have never happened. The immigration laws are such a disgrace. We’re getting them changed.” Authorities said University of Iowa student Mollie Tibbetts, 20, was found dead about a month after she went missing in Brooklyn, Iowa, on July 18.
And on Wednesday White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders talked about Tibbetts’ death just a few moments into the administration’s press briefing.
“Sadly the individual believed to be responsible for the murder is an illegal immigrant, making this an unfortunate reminder of why we need to strengthen our broken immigration laws,” she said.
Numerous studies have failed to demonstrate that immigrants, legal or otherwise, pose a unique threat of committing crimes. In fact, some have shown that undocumented immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than native-born citizens. For documented immigrants, that number is even lower.
That hasn’t stopped people from seizing on another powerful anti-immigration anecdote.
The broad contours of Tibbetts’ death are reminiscent of the case of Kate Steinle, a 32-year-old white woman whose 2015 shooting death in a popular area of San Francisco has become a cri de coeur for Trump and other conservatives and proponents of harsher immigration laws.
An undocumented immigrant, Jose Ines Garcia Zarate, was later convicted on a gun charge related to Steinle’s killing.
Three years later, Tibbetts, who had been housesitting for her boyfriend, went out for a jog in Brooklyn, a small town of about 1,500 – then vanished.
Authorities and dozens of volunteers searched for her for more than a month, combing cornfields and barns and scouring her Fitbit data and social media accounts for clues.
Investigators interviewed
some 1,400 people and received more than 4,000 tips, but the break in the case came within the past two weeks when they found someone with a security camera system while canvassing a neighborhood.
It showed Tibbetts jogging and Rivera’s car – and was a critical clue in identifying a suspect.
“He was very compliant,” Rahn said of the interview that followed. “He was willing to talk to us. There was no fight or struggle of any kind.”
The results of an autopsy are pending, and Rahn did not specify a cause of death.
A U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement representative said that the agency lodged an immigration detainer on Rivera with local authorities after his arrest Tuesday. That means that if Rivera is ever released, he would be sent back to Mexico.