MOLLIE Tibbetts’ alleged killer thought she was “hot” and saw the student the night she vanished three years ago, prosecutors told the murder trial today.
Cristhian Bahena Rivera, a Mexican national who came illegally came to the US as a teen, is accused of murdering the University of Iowa student in 2018 and dumping her body in a secluded cornfield.
Read our Mollie Tibbetts live blog for the very latest news and updates…
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During Opening Statements at the trial today, Poweshiek County Attorney Bart Klaver made some shocking accusations about Rivera.
“[Rivera] admitted that he had seen Mollie the night she disappeared. He admitted that he found her attractive – and that she was ‘hot’ in his words,” Klaver told the court.
The attorney cited Rivera driving a black Chevy Malibu, which reportedly had blood in it, and claimed he admitted to “jogging” to catch up with Mollie before they fought when she threatened to call the cops.
“He says the next thing he remembers [is] he notices Mollie’s earbuds [in his car,” Klaver went on moments before the court’s audio cut out and the first witness took the stand. “He admits seeing blood on Mollie’s body and neck.”
“[Rivera] described the body as [being like] someone who had fainted,” Klaver continued, alleging Rivera told cops he took Tibbett’s bloodied body from the trunk of his car and dumped it in the cornfield covered in stalks.
He said police later searched the field where they found a body later identified as Tibbetts “decomposed beyond recognition.”
Rivera, who is using a translater, looked emotional as he waited for the trial to begin wearing large, black headphones before the opening arguments commenced.
The defense deferred their opening statement and quizzed Tibbett’s boyfriend, Dalton Jack, and his older brother.
Klaver noted that Tibbetts was housesitting with her boyfriend on July 18, 2018, and was an “avid runner,” who ran cross-country and track in high school as Rivera looked on.
“It was customary for Mollie [to go running in the evening],” Klaver said, before detailing the “intensive investigation” that ensued when she went missing that day, a probe which spanned five weeks.
He described the “language barrier” when Rivera – a native Spanish speaker – was questioned by a fluent investigator, noting that he was a “farmhand” in the area who drove a black Chevy Malibu.
Just before 9.12AM ET, Blake Jack – the brother of Tibbett’s boyfriend – took the stand but microphone issues resulted in a 10-minute recess before he was quizzed by Assistant Iowa Attorney General Scott Brown.
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Jack recalled that Tibbetts had been minding their dogs and he had tried to call her cellphone after she disappeared but got no answer so he went back to the house to “check on her.”
He noted that they didn’t lock their door so he went in and let the dog out of the basement before asking his neighbors Jeff and Michelle Hall if they had seen anything unusual and another neighbor, Nate Hopwood.
“After kind of doing our best to track her down, we decided to call law enforcement,” Jack said, noting that a group of Tibbett’s friends had looked for her with him and there had been a big storm the day before.
“She ran all the time,” he said later. “I’d see her running down the street… she ran pretty much everywhere.”
He said they tried contacting her on her cellphone, on Facebook, and on Snapchat and said his brother, Dalton Jack, got along well with girlfriend Tibbetts before Rivera’s Defense attorney Jennifer Frese questioned him.
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“Her friends that were with us [had Snapchat],” he told Frese, who noted it would be “pretty usual” that Tibbett’s friends would be able to see her using the app’s location data.
Frese also asked him if he gave a DNA swab (he said no), if he took a polygraph, and quizzed Jack about his affinity for hunting deer with his brother, Dalton, as well as his knives and guns.
The lawyer also asked Jack if his brother and Tibbetts had any issues, alleging his teen brother cheated on her with another woman and had “anger problems” and had fought in school.
“Not that I’m aware of,” he said. “I’m sure he wouldn’t be the first 18-year-old to cheat on his girlfriend.”
He admitted that he found her attractive – and that she was ‘hot’ in his words.
Poweshiek County Attorney Bart Klaver
His younger brother, Sgt Dalton Jack, 23, who is in the 82nd Airborne Division stationed at Fort Bragg then took the stand, confirming that he joined the US Army on November 6, 2018.
Dalton said he dated Tibbetts for three years with no breakups before she vanished and he still knew her cellphone number, which he listed for the court.
He also confirmed that his girlfriend would usually run one to six miles in the evening, describing her as a “happy, bubbly, goofy” person who “just liked to have fun.”
He opened the last ever Snapchat from Tibbetts on July 18, 2018, before Dalton received a worrying call from her co-worker the next day.
Dalton described his relationship with Tibbetts as true love and said he was devoted to her before she was abducted.
After a brief recess, prosecutor Chad Frese asked Dalton if he told cops he was away drinking beers and “hanging out with the boys” the night she vanished.
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He then showed Dalton reports previously indicating he told police that he had spent the night “in [his] room watching movies.”
Frese also asked Dalton why he neglected to tell law enforcement that he “had an affair” with another woman, which started on Snapchat in late 2017 asking: “Mollie was upset that you cheated on her, correct?”
Dalton – who was 20 when his girlfriend died – previously told the defense lawyer that he didn’t think those details were relevant to the case and that Tibbetts knew about his infidelity and they worked through it.
Frese then asked him about another woman Dalton said he had a relationship with “simultaneous to starting the relationship” with Tibbetts.
Dalton said he didn’t voluntarily want to participate today when Frese demanded why he couldn’t recall so many details, declaring: “I didn’t want to be in the same room as your defendant there,” in reference to Rivera.
Moments later, Frese questioned Dalton about “talking with Mollie in the months before about breaking up,” to which he replied: “Yes.”
The Defense then said they were probably going to recall Dalton before Poweshiek County Deputy Matthew William Simpson took the stand and was questioned by the prosecution and then the defense.
He told the court that there was nothing missing or signs of a disturbance at Blake Jack’s home after he got the call of a missing person.
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As Rivera’s trial got underway shortly after 9.30AM local time, Judge Joel D Yates said the defendant was innocent until proven guilty after the intense media scrutiny and interest in the case.
On Tuesday, eight women and seven men were selected – the majority of them white – after attorneys grilled a pool of 183 people about Tibbetts’ case, police, and immigration.
Today, Yates urged jurors to consider whether witnesses had made conflicting statements and consider whether they had any “motive” or “bias” before the proceedings got underway.
After the jury selection yesterday, Prosecutor Scott Brown warned they will be shown graphic photos and hear disturbing testimony about the jogger’s stabbing death.
“We’re going to talk about the violent death of a young girl, Mollie Tibbetts,” said Brown. “It’s not going to be pleasant.”
According to KCCI, the only non-white juror in the immigrant’s trial is one woman who may be of Hispanic or Native American descent.
Jury selection for the high-profile trial began on Monday morning in a Scott County courtroom after proceedings were halted for several months as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.
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If jurors expressed that they had already formed an opinion on the case, they were questioned privately but this wasn’t necessarily grounds for their removal, reports say.
Legal experts have claimed that ensuring a fair trial for the farmhand will be difficult after former President Donald Trump weighed in on the case.
Tibbetts was brutally attacked and killed three years ago in July 2018 while going for her routine jog in the small, 1,700 person town of Brooklyn, Iowa.
Rivera, a father of one, was blasted by Trump as a criminal who exploited lax immigration laws and was used as an example by the ex-president as he pushed for harsher immigration policies ahead of the 2018 midterm elections.
The 20-year-old, who was studying to become a child psychologist, never made it back to the house where she was dog sitting for her boyfriend and his brother.
Her disappearance sparked a massive search involving hundreds of law enforcement and volunteers.
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Rivera was identified as a suspect a month later after surveillance video revealed a dark Chevy Malibu appearing to circle Tibbetts as she ran.
A deputy later spotted the farmhand driving in the town in the same vehicle.
Investigators interviewed Rivera at the dairy farm where he was working and he initially denied involvement in her death.
After hours of interrogation, he confessed to approaching Tibbetts as she ran, killing her in a panic when she threatened to call the cops, and hiding her body in a cornfield.
Rivera reportedly led police to the place where he had hidden her body under leaves.
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An autopsy report revealed Tibbets died of sharp force injuries after she was stabbed.
The murder weapon has not been discovered but blood found in the trunk of Rivera’s vehicle matched Tibbetts’.
Bennett has described her as an extremely likable victim who “probably didn’t have an enemy in the world.”
He added that the jurors are also likely to question Rivera’s immigration status due to his use of an interpreter, even if the judge doesn’t allow mention of him being undocumented.
