Latest / The Evolution of Evil - True Crime Stories / True Crime Documentary - The Savage Murder of an Iowa College Student Snatched While Jogging
Transcript
- 0:08Speaker 1: Molly Tibbots.
- 0:11Speaker 2: This case is her story.
- 0:13Speaker 1: This case is a story of Molly's disappearance and the
- 0:17Speaker 1: story of Molly's murder.
- 0:21Speaker 3: This is the Molly Tibbets missing person's.
- 0:23Speaker 4: Keys, Molly Tibbets, Molly Tippets.
- 0:26Speaker 5: Despite search efforts over the last few days, there is
- 0:28Speaker 5: still no sign of that missing woman.
- 0:31Speaker 6: This was something huge that was happening.
- 0:33Speaker 7: We have raised one hundred and seventy two thousand dollars
- 0:37Speaker 7: that would be paid to you as soon as Molly
- 0:40Speaker 7: is safely home.
- 0:42Speaker 4: We knew she was jogging, We knew she was abducted.
- 0:45Speaker 4: On the jog.
- 0:47Speaker 1: They had seen a figure that looked like a runner
- 0:50Speaker 1: about the time and in the area where Molly would
- 0:53Speaker 1: have been running the night.
- 0:54Speaker 8: She disappeared, a black Chevy Malibu that appeared to be
- 1:00Speaker 8: circling the area. Who was driving that car?
- 1:06Speaker 9: Authorities have arrested a man for the murder of missing
- 1:09Speaker 9: University Gobia with student Molly Tibbets.
- 1:11Speaker 10: And he's brought in and he is questioned from you
- 1:15Speaker 10: for eleven plus hours, isn't that right?
- 1:18Speaker 4: Yes, she comes out at one point and says, this
- 1:21Speaker 4: is definitely your killer. But I'm I'm stuck here. Guys,
- 1:24Speaker 4: I'm gonna need some help.
- 1:26Speaker 11: You're you're right now, You're big time.
- 1:29Speaker 12: Who better to pick than undocumented immigrant doesn't speak the language.
- 1:34Speaker 2: You stabbed Molly Tibbets. Isn't that right?
- 1:42Speaker 11: Your wife?
- 1:45Speaker 2: This is what he's going to tell whom I'm gonna
- 1:48Speaker 2: have ann situation and.
- 1:49Speaker 13: I grab a gun trying to find the first place
- 1:51Speaker 13: to put a body. No, sir, the only thing they
- 1:53Speaker 13: could do was killing.
- 1:54Speaker 14: You want to sell you anything, lead a jury and
- 1:56Speaker 14: to find the defendant.
- 2:16Speaker 4: Molly Tidbit's case.
- 2:18Speaker 15: This twenty year old missing University of Iowa student who
- 2:21Speaker 15: was last seen on July eighteenth, the last scene jogging
- 2:24Speaker 15: in Brooklyn, Iowa.
- 2:25Speaker 16: We're trying to get the word out we want Molly
- 2:28Speaker 16: home safe.
- 2:29Speaker 3: So far, we've been searching by air and foot both.
- 2:32Speaker 16: We just really hoped that we can get her found
- 2:34Speaker 16: and brought back home to the people that love her.
- 2:37Speaker 17: And I think everybody in the country has adopted Molly.
- 2:39Speaker 4: So let's keep at it.
- 2:41Speaker 13: Let's go get her five.
- 2:42Speaker 1: To approximate one hundred and twenty pounds brown eyes, there
- 2:45Speaker 1: is up to a three hundred and twenty thousand dollars reward.
- 2:49Speaker 3: Beautiful young lady you see there in the football game.
- 2:51Speaker 6: So listening to this, it definitely hit close home to me.
- 2:53Speaker 6: This was something huge that was happening, and it could potentially.
- 2:56Speaker 4: Happen to me.
- 2:57Speaker 5: It has been four days since Molly Tibbet's disappeared. Despite
- 3:01Speaker 5: search efforts over the last few days, there is still
- 3:04Speaker 5: no sign of that missing woman.
- 3:07Speaker 7: We believe that Mollie is still alive, and if someone
- 3:11Speaker 7: has abducted her, we are pleading with you to please
- 3:15Speaker 7: release her.
- 3:16Speaker 18: Everybody has a Molly in their life, person that has
- 3:18Speaker 18: affected her them in a way that she affected everybody
- 3:22Speaker 18: standing up here right now, and imagine if this was you.
- 3:26Speaker 18: Somebody had taken your Mollie. Wouldn't you want to help
- 3:30Speaker 18: when you want her back? How would you feel? Just
- 3:33Speaker 18: do the right thing and you know, let her go.
- 3:38Speaker 4: My initial thought that came to my head, because it
- 3:41Speaker 4: happens a lot, is when we have missing people, it's
- 3:44Speaker 4: some sort of drug overdose, some sort of mental illness
- 3:48Speaker 4: due to drugs. Not knowing anything about Molly, That's kind
- 3:52Speaker 4: of what I thought I was heading into.
- 3:54Speaker 3: But Agent Trent Vilettas soon learned that theory did not
- 3:57Speaker 3: fit Molly seen here the day before she disappeared, at
- 4:01Speaker 3: the daycare center where she was working for the summer
- 4:06Speaker 3: at the University of Iowa. She was majoring in child psychology.
- 4:11Speaker 6: She was very logged on campus. She was probably one
- 4:14Speaker 6: of the nicest humans that anybody had ever met. Nobody
- 4:17Speaker 6: had a bad thing to say about her.
- 4:19Speaker 4: She doesn't fit our normal victim profile. It kind of
- 4:23Speaker 4: gives you the hairs on your back kind of stand
- 4:26Speaker 4: up when you suddenly realize, oh my goodness, you know,
- 4:30Speaker 4: did something really terrible happen here?
- 4:32Speaker 3: So authorities formed the town of Brooklyn, Iowa.
- 4:35Speaker 4: I think it's roughly fourteen or fifteen hundred people. People
- 4:39Speaker 4: still either doors.
- 4:40Speaker 3: Unlocked and began to retrace Molly's steps before she disappears,
- 4:45Speaker 3: starting at the home of her boyfriend or she had
- 4:47Speaker 3: been staying.
- 4:48Speaker 8: That evening on the eighteenth of July, she went for
- 4:53Speaker 8: a run right around seven thirty seven forty five in
- 4:57Speaker 8: the evening.
- 4:57Speaker 1: She was an avid runner, and that was pretty common
- 5:01Speaker 1: for her to run in the evenings. She left the
- 5:03Speaker 1: house and didn't come back.
- 5:06Speaker 8: She would have left home, run through town, and then
- 5:09Speaker 8: gone on a blacktop east of Brooklyn, which was one
- 5:14Speaker 8: of her normal running roots.
- 5:16Speaker 4: She was in constant contact with her boyfriend Dalton, and
- 5:21Speaker 4: when that contact suddenly ceased and there was no contact,
- 5:26Speaker 4: the proverbial hand on the panic button was pressed, picked
- 5:30Speaker 4: up the phone and called the FBI because I was
- 5:32Speaker 4: assuming we had an adult abduction, which in Iowa and
- 5:37Speaker 4: I think even nationwide, are incredibly rare.
- 5:40Speaker 3: The FBI brought in drones to scour the acres and
- 5:43Speaker 3: acres of cornfields around the town.
- 5:46Speaker 4: What the FBI is doing right now is trying to
- 5:48Speaker 4: prioritize leads.
- 5:49Speaker 1: And for four or five weeks, all those leads came
- 5:54Speaker 1: up empty, and we really had nothing. At that point
- 5:57Speaker 1: in time.
- 5:58Speaker 4: We knew she was jogging, we knew she was abducted
- 6:01Speaker 4: on the jog, but we didn't no witnesses to the abduction,
- 6:06Speaker 4: no camera's video of the abduction.
- 6:09Speaker 3: But investigators then realized that Molly never went anywhere without
- 6:12Speaker 3: her cell phone, even on her runs, and they were
- 6:15Speaker 3: able to get her password.
- 6:16Speaker 4: It's amazing how simple things kind of escape us sometimes.
- 6:20Speaker 4: So we just went to Walmart, bought an iPhone, entered
- 6:23Speaker 4: her password, and we literally cloned her phone. So we
- 6:27Speaker 4: had all that data.
- 6:29Speaker 3: And a way to track. Molly's jogging route along County
- 6:32Speaker 3: Road three eighty five.
- 6:34Speaker 1: And so she's going at a speed of less than
- 6:37Speaker 1: ten miles an hour up until a point her phone
- 6:41Speaker 1: stops for a couple minutes, and then you can see
- 6:44Speaker 1: with the next ping's at the cell phone tower that
- 6:48Speaker 1: she's traveling at approximately sixty miles an hour.
- 6:51Speaker 13: It told me that.
- 6:52Speaker 1: She's in a vehicle, that she was jogging, there was
- 6:56Speaker 1: a pause in her movement, and then she's in a vehicle.
- 6:59Speaker 4: Which actually took gets close to the location of abduction.
- 7:02Speaker 8: There's always the hope that you'll find the person alive.
- 7:06Speaker 8: But as hours become days become weeks, you know, the
- 7:11Speaker 8: hope that she'll be found alive becomes, you know, less
- 7:16Speaker 8: and less.
- 7:23Speaker 7: Every day I feel Molly's presence with me, you know,
- 7:29Speaker 7: sometimes I just feel her sitting on my shoulder. Mollie's
- 7:32Speaker 7: lending me her strength every day, every night, and yes,
- 7:37Speaker 7: I have my moments of complete moultdowns. But it is
- 7:43Speaker 7: through this strength that is, somehow, and I don't know how,
- 7:47Speaker 7: being bestowed upon me that I am able to get through.
- 7:52Speaker 7: Every morning, every noon, every.
- 7:55Speaker 4: Night, we spin our wheels. We spent our wheels for
- 8:04Speaker 4: several weeks we developed suspects that none of us really
- 8:08Speaker 4: felt good about. We uh, but because of the resources
- 8:13Speaker 4: we had, we literally ran the leads into the ground
- 8:18Speaker 4: doing background on Molly. She was telling all of her
- 8:22Speaker 4: family members she was going to marry Dalton. She knew
- 8:25Speaker 4: he was about to propose.
- 8:29Speaker 8: Every investigation involving a disappearance or a homicide, officers are
- 8:36Speaker 8: going to start with the inner circle of the victim
- 8:38Speaker 8: and move their way out. Was Dalton jack of suspect,
- 8:41Speaker 8: Yes he.
- 8:41Speaker 3: Was, but text messages between Dalton and Molly suggested not
- 8:46Speaker 3: everything was happy.
- 8:48Speaker 8: There was some allegations that Dalton had had, you know,
- 8:54Speaker 8: a brief relationship with another young woman, but ultimately Molly
- 8:58Speaker 8: had forgiven Dalton for what had been going on.
- 9:01Speaker 3: And detectives were able to determine that Dalton had been
- 9:04Speaker 3: two hours away in Dubuque at the time she was abducted.
- 9:08Speaker 1: He's working construction on a road crew fixing a bridge
- 9:12Speaker 1: at that time over the Mississippi River, where it would
- 9:14Speaker 1: have been physically impossible for him to be in Brooklyn,
- 9:17Speaker 1: So he was ruled out fairly quickly.
- 9:20Speaker 3: So it was back to the area all along County
- 9:23Speaker 3: Road three eighty five.
- 9:25Speaker 4: Sometimes we were kind of chasing our tails looking in
- 9:27Speaker 4: the wrong direction. But then the canvas scene never stopped.
- 9:33Speaker 1: They found a video from a resident who actually had
- 9:37Speaker 1: four different cameras on his house and garage that when
- 9:42Speaker 1: some of the investigators were reviewing this footage, they had
- 9:47Speaker 1: seen a figure that looked like a runner about the
- 9:51Speaker 1: time and in the area where Molly would have been
- 9:54Speaker 1: running on the night she disappeared.
- 9:56Speaker 3: Just a glimpse, but an important one.
- 10:00Speaker 2: The investigators.
- 10:01Speaker 8: They began to look at all of the cameras and
- 10:04Speaker 8: noticed a black Chevy Malibu as that appeared to be
- 10:09Speaker 8: circling the area just after Molly had jogged through that same.
- 10:15Speaker 3: Area, going one way, then another, and then back again,
- 10:20Speaker 3: all within a few minutes of Molly passing by.
- 10:24Speaker 8: So that really became the focus of the investigation was
- 10:28Speaker 8: figuring out who was driving that car, And it was
- 10:32Speaker 8: the thing really that broke the case.
- 10:36Speaker 4: The car guys there are like, well, these are non
- 10:38Speaker 4: factory mirrors, and their chrome mirrors are nonfactory and it's
- 10:43Speaker 4: nonfactory door handle. But how on God's green earth are
- 10:47Speaker 4: we gonna ever find that car?
- 10:49Speaker 3: But the very next day the car was spotted by
- 10:53Speaker 3: an off duty sheriff's deputy on his way home.
- 10:56Speaker 4: Well, and behold the malibus coming right at him. And
- 11:00Speaker 4: he calls me and says, hey, Trent, that car we're
- 11:04Speaker 4: looking for I'm behind it.
- 11:06Speaker 19: Now.
- 11:06Speaker 4: What do you want me to do? Just follow him
- 11:08Speaker 4: home and say, hey, we're just looking for Mali. Have
- 11:12Speaker 4: you guys seen or heard anything.
- 11:14Speaker 11: His name was.
- 11:14Speaker 3: Christian Bahina Ravera, an undocumented immigrant from Mexico working on
- 11:19Speaker 3: a large Iowa corporate farm. He said he spoke no English.
- 11:28Speaker 4: So I scrambled. I had to find a Spanish speaker.
- 11:31Speaker 4: We were at the point where everybody was shutting down.
- 11:34Speaker 4: We just thought we weren't never going to find her,
- 11:36Speaker 4: So everybody was gone, mostly the FBI was gone.
- 11:40Speaker 3: The nearest bilingual officer he could find was Pamela Romero
- 11:43Speaker 3: from the Iowa City Police Department.
- 11:48Speaker 4: She was older for a new cop, so she had
- 11:51Speaker 4: some good life experience, but a very limited experience in
- 11:56Speaker 4: those sites of interviews. So she would take a lot
- 11:59Speaker 4: of break and we would feed her questions and she
- 12:01Speaker 4: would keep us updated. But we'd literally put a rookie
- 12:05Speaker 4: cop in one of the biggest interviews probably in the
- 12:08Speaker 4: history of the state. And it was a gut call.
- 12:11Speaker 4: It was a total gut calls.
- 12:13Speaker 3: The interview began around six in the evening. It would
- 12:16Speaker 3: go on for more than eleven hours.
- 12:19Speaker 4: He really didn't give us much. That didn't say he
- 12:21Speaker 4: knew Molly said he had very little knowledge that she
- 12:26Speaker 4: was even missing. Wasn't going to be helpful. He didn't
- 12:31Speaker 4: just know anything. So we made the decision, Well, what
- 12:35Speaker 4: we'll do then is we'll show him a picture of
- 12:37Speaker 4: his car right by Molly, basically the still photo of
- 12:41Speaker 4: her jogging in his car, then a minute later driving
- 12:45Speaker 4: behind her. Okay, Once we gave him that, then he's like, oh, yes,
- 12:51Speaker 4: now I remember who that is. It was a constant
- 12:56Speaker 4: evolution he kept. What's very chilling, He actually said, oh yeah,
- 13:01Speaker 4: by the way, I have her missing Persons poster in
- 13:04Speaker 4: my house, which is your killer's trophy. Right, That's when
- 13:10Speaker 4: you know you got the right person.
- 13:12Speaker 3: But as the day turned tonight, Adrian Fletta still could
- 13:16Speaker 3: not find a way to break him.
- 13:18Speaker 4: We kind of thought we were going to be done
- 13:21Speaker 4: or he was done talking to us about to the
- 13:23Speaker 4: point where he said he saw her he thought she
- 13:26Speaker 4: was hot.
- 13:28Speaker 3: He turned around to.
- 13:29Speaker 4: Look at her again, and then he couldn't find her,
- 13:32Speaker 4: and then he left. That's kind of where we thought
- 13:34Speaker 4: we were going to be done.
- 13:37Speaker 14: Up.
- 13:37Speaker 11: Phone over to you.
- 13:38Speaker 4: The only card we had to play was the immigration status.
- 13:41Speaker 4: I put him on the phone with Ice and we
- 13:44Speaker 4: mirandized him and just said you're no longer free to
- 13:47Speaker 4: go because your immigration status. While he's on the phone,
- 13:51Speaker 4: we are back to the panic mode. What do we
- 13:54Speaker 4: do now? How do we figure out where Molly is
- 13:57Speaker 4: because he's probably not going to talk anymore. That's when
- 14:01Speaker 4: Pamela Romero comes up to us and says, Hey, can
- 14:05Speaker 4: I have one more shot? Can I have one more
- 14:08Speaker 4: shot with this guy? He likes me, let me talk
- 14:12Speaker 4: to him. So she goes back in. Everything changes.
- 14:26Speaker 3: It was now well past midnight at the Sheriff's office
- 14:29Speaker 3: in Montezuma, Iowa, and the interrogation a Christian Behina Rivera
- 14:34Speaker 3: was at a standstill.
- 14:36Speaker 8: There was more than one occasion where he would kind
- 14:41Speaker 8: of slump down in his chair, pull his hat down
- 14:43Speaker 8: over his eyes, and appear to rest.
- 14:49Speaker 3: Officer Romero was in and out of the room getting
- 14:52Speaker 3: advice from lead investigator Trent Valletta.
- 14:55Speaker 4: She comes out at one point and says this is
- 14:57Speaker 4: definitely your killer. But I'm stuck here, guys, I'm going
- 15:00Speaker 4: to need some help.
- 15:02Speaker 11: Hey, Christians, and.
- 15:06Speaker 4: It was your old school good top, bad top scene.
- 15:12Speaker 11: How are you feeling.
- 15:15Speaker 13: These?
- 15:15Speaker 3: Investigator Trent Filetta an FBI agent Nick Portritz. We're going
- 15:19Speaker 3: to turn off the heat.
- 15:22Speaker 11: And I understand that you're trying. They just and because
- 15:27Speaker 11: because you have a bad problem.
- 15:31Speaker 3: The hater Rivera had claimed he had a condition that
- 15:34Speaker 3: caused him to block out and could not remember what
- 15:37Speaker 3: happened to BALI.
- 15:38Speaker 4: I think it's the easy way out for people not
- 15:42Speaker 4: trying to talk about how much of a monster they are.
- 15:45Speaker 3: It's kind of.
- 15:46Speaker 4: A standard excuse for bad behavior. And uh so that's
- 15:52Speaker 4: where Rivera sized.
- 15:53Speaker 14: I'm trying to remember, but I'm trying for for the.
- 15:57Speaker 20: Memory to come back to come out that I know
- 16:02Speaker 20: that I'm in trouble already, and if I know something, I'm.
- 16:07Speaker 8: What you guys know.
- 16:09Speaker 11: We understand your problem because we've dealt with it before.
- 16:13Speaker 11: You're not the first person that process. Okay, Chris, you
- 16:18Speaker 11: look at me now, just look at me. She she's
- 16:23Speaker 11: going to talk, but look at me. Okay. It's it
- 16:27Speaker 11: could be.
- 16:28Speaker 19: True that you don't remember everything. Do you understand that?
- 16:33Speaker 19: Give not.
- 16:35Speaker 11: Okay? But you do remember some things that we need
- 16:38Speaker 11: to know. People that have this problem can forget that doesn't.
- 16:48Speaker 11: And I think you're scared. Question question. I think you're.
- 16:54Speaker 19: Scared because you know what happened, but you're afraid to
- 17:03Speaker 19: tell us that it's okay. It's okay to tell us.
- 17:09Speaker 4: Being nice to uh rivera very nice. I'm literally holding
- 17:14Speaker 4: his hands talking about integrity and how do you want
- 17:18Speaker 4: to be perceived.
- 17:19Speaker 11: We have been around a long time, and you know
- 17:22Speaker 11: we're old.
- 17:24Speaker 13: You're old.
- 17:26Speaker 19: We have sat across people that we we don't like
- 17:32Speaker 19: because they lie to us, and that's why we were happy.
- 17:41Speaker 19: Now because you're being honest with so we can get along,
- 17:50Speaker 19: that's okay, and we can work together to make sure
- 17:57Speaker 19: that family gets their daughter back. There will be no sure, okay.
- 18:03Speaker 19: It's that that girl was in your car.
- 18:09Speaker 11: Playing.
- 18:10Speaker 20: Yes, Like I mentioned to you already, I only remember
- 18:14Speaker 20: he jogging Ronnie and I remember talking with her.
- 18:22Speaker 4: And then we basically had it set up that if
- 18:24Speaker 4: he kept denying, Nick was just gonna yell at him
- 18:27Speaker 4: to stop playing games.
- 18:29Speaker 11: You're you're up right now, you're big time. Stop tell
- 18:36Speaker 11: us the truth. He's getting mad at you.
- 18:40Speaker 19: I kick I'm getting close.
- 18:43Speaker 11: To getting I can see in your eyes. Look, I
- 18:47Speaker 11: mean the a.
- 18:49Speaker 19: If there's something you're hanging from us.
- 18:54Speaker 11: I can tell yeah, and you know I'm right, And
- 19:03Speaker 11: it's really hard to tell me.
- 19:06Speaker 20: She can't scare jumping, really, which never happened.
- 19:11Speaker 11: It's time you.
- 19:13Speaker 4: Have to I'm that.
- 19:15Speaker 3: Yes, the good cop bad cop routine seemed.
- 19:22Speaker 11: To have worked. He wants to talk to You're not
- 19:28Speaker 11: gonna lie to me, he answers.
- 19:30Speaker 3: I'm going to tell you everything everything I know.
- 19:33Speaker 14: You're gonna tell me all you remember, all you know,
- 19:39Speaker 14: no games, nobody right, Okay.
- 19:48Speaker 3: He tells her because I don't want them to come back.
- 19:57Speaker 4: But he basically said, look, I can't tell you guys,
- 20:00Speaker 4: but I'll tell her, which means he wanted to tell Pamela.
- 20:05Speaker 4: So we laughed, and then his story evolved again.
- 20:09Speaker 3: And then the two of them alone, speaking in span.
- 20:13Speaker 3: I do remember that I was fighting with her. I
- 20:17Speaker 3: remember that I brought her into my cover. She had blood.
- 20:23Speaker 3: I remember that we were in corn. I remember that's
- 20:28Speaker 3: where I put her.
- 20:30Speaker 8: I would certainly characterize it as a confession that he
- 20:33Speaker 8: had been the one and only person responsible for Molly
- 20:36Speaker 8: Tibbett's death, and they now had the Christian Rivera telling
- 20:41Speaker 8: him that yes, I can, I can take.
- 20:45Speaker 13: You to her.
- 20:46Speaker 4: Yeah, we're about at four thirty five in the morning.
- 20:49Speaker 4: At that point, I remember just being covered in mud,
- 20:52Speaker 4: crawling through these corn Iowa cornfields, you know. Riverta actually
- 20:56Speaker 4: point out exactly where she's at.
- 20:57Speaker 8: She's covered and cornstocks. The thing that is the characteristic
- 21:03Speaker 8: that stands out is she had very colorful running shoes
- 21:07Speaker 8: and those were visible.
- 21:10Speaker 3: Her clothes scattered about the position of the badly decomposed body,
- 21:14Speaker 3: indicating there had been a sexual assault.
- 21:19Speaker 9: Authorities have arrested a man for the murder of missing
- 21:22Speaker 9: University Gobia with student Molly Tibbet.
- 21:24Speaker 6: Twenty four year old Christian Rivera faces a first degree
- 21:27Speaker 6: murder charge.
- 21:29Speaker 3: He had led them to Molly's body, her blood and
- 21:32Speaker 3: DNA were found in the trunk of his car, and
- 21:38Speaker 3: he had essentially confessed. The case seemed ironclad until prosecutors
- 21:44Speaker 3: learned there was a problem with the Miranda warning given
- 21:47Speaker 3: to Behina Rivera during the interrogation. Nothing on this tape
- 21:51Speaker 3: could be used at trial.
- 22:00Speaker 15: But we are about to hear the opening statements in
- 22:03Speaker 15: this monumental case. There are a lot of eyeballs on
- 22:07Speaker 15: what is happening right now. This is a number of
- 22:09Speaker 15: difficult issues, particularly about the undocumented immigrant issue.
- 22:13Speaker 3: And that issue had brought even more attention to the
- 22:16Speaker 3: case as politicians across the country had used Christian Behena
- 22:20Speaker 3: Rivera's undocumented immigration status as a campaign talking point.
- 22:24Speaker 21: You heard about today with the illegal.
- 22:29Speaker 13: Alien coming in.
- 22:32Speaker 3: Very sadly from Mexico.
- 22:34Speaker 1: Did not help our case. Know from our perspective, that
- 22:38Speaker 1: was something that was somewhat of a minefield and not
- 22:41Speaker 1: in any way of benefit to us.
- 22:44Speaker 21: Mister claver On behalf of the state of Iowa, you
- 22:47Speaker 21: may give your opening.
- 22:48Speaker 11: Thank you.
- 22:50Speaker 1: Molly Tibbots. This case is her story. This case is
- 22:56Speaker 1: a story of Molly's disappearance, in the story of Molly's murder.
- 23:02Speaker 1: Ladies and gentlemen, this is what I expect the evidence
- 23:05Speaker 1: in this case to show.
- 23:06Speaker 13: The first is a video.
- 23:08Speaker 1: The video that shows the defendant's black Chevy Malibu in
- 23:12Speaker 1: the time in the area where Molly was last seen.
- 23:17Speaker 1: Second aspect of the state's evidence for you to focus
- 23:20Speaker 1: on is Molly's blood in the defendants Malaby and the
- 23:26Speaker 1: third of the defendant's admissions, his admissions that he saw Molly,
- 23:32Speaker 1: that he found her attractive, that he ran alongside her,
- 23:36Speaker 1: that Molly threatened to call the police, that he became angry,
- 23:40Speaker 1: that he fought with Molly. Ladies and gentlemen, When you
- 23:44Speaker 1: examine this evidence together, there can be no other conclusion
- 23:51Speaker 1: than that the defendant killed Molly Tibbots.
- 23:55Speaker 13: Thank you, mister Claver.
- 23:57Speaker 2: Does the defense elect to give the opening at this time?
- 24:01Speaker 3: But Hannah Rivera was represented by the husband wife team
- 24:04Speaker 3: of Chad and Jennifer Freeze ronn.
- 24:07Speaker 10: Or, we will defer our opening to the conclusion of
- 24:09Speaker 10: the state's case.
- 24:11Speaker 3: So it was straight to the state's case and on
- 24:13Speaker 3: day one the prosecution called Molly's boyfriend, Dalton Jack. He said,
- 24:18Speaker 3: to deal with his heartbreak, he had enlisted in the army.
- 24:22Speaker 22: I mean the eighty second Airborne Division as a team leader.
- 24:26Speaker 22: I guess, being my official and decision.
- 24:29Speaker 8: How would you describe Molly's personality?
- 24:32Speaker 23: She was always happy, bubbly, goofy. She'd just like to
- 24:36Speaker 23: have fun pretty much, I guess.
- 24:39Speaker 3: Now the prosecution needed to establish Dalton's alibi that he
- 24:43Speaker 3: was in Dubuque.
- 24:44Speaker 2: What did you do.
- 24:47Speaker 8: Whenever you got back to the hotel in Dubuque on
- 24:50Speaker 8: July eighteenth, round six pm?
- 24:52Speaker 23: Just drank beers with the guys and hung out. Did
- 24:55Speaker 23: you come back to Brooklyn for any reason?
- 24:57Speaker 24: No?
- 24:59Speaker 8: The next day, so Thursday. Let's move to that July nineteenth.
- 25:03Speaker 8: Did you send Molly a message in the morning?
- 25:08Speaker 13: Yes?
- 25:08Speaker 23: I sent her the same good morning message that I
- 25:10Speaker 23: always send her.
- 25:12Speaker 2: And what is that good morning message?
- 25:13Speaker 22: And good morning beautiful? Like a kissy face or something
- 25:16Speaker 22: like that. Okay, did you receive any response from her?
- 25:20Speaker 4: No?
- 25:21Speaker 3: But on cross examination, the defense strategy became clear Dalton
- 25:25Speaker 3: was a young man with dark secrets.
- 25:28Speaker 12: You also told officers on that same interview information that
- 25:33Speaker 12: you withheld before, right, correct, And that information that you
- 25:39Speaker 12: withheld before was that you'd had a relationship with a
- 25:43Speaker 12: woman other than Molly, right, all right?
- 25:46Speaker 13: What did you tell officers? The reason you withheld that information.
- 25:50Speaker 22: I didn't deem it necessary.
- 25:52Speaker 13: You didn't deem it necessary.
- 25:54Speaker 22: I didn't think that it was pertinent to the case.
- 25:58Speaker 12: So you didn't think it was pertinent to tell law
- 26:02Speaker 12: enforcement officers that you having an affair on your true
- 26:05Speaker 12: love was not pertinent to the case.
- 26:09Speaker 22: Right, I was nineteen years old.
- 26:11Speaker 13: Explain to me what you mean by that.
- 26:14Speaker 23: I was nineteen years old. It was the beginning of
- 26:17Speaker 23: the relationship, and I screwed up one time. Molly knew
- 26:19Speaker 23: about it and we got past it.
- 26:21Speaker 12: Let's talk about you young men.
- 26:26Speaker 13: You consider yourself to have a temper, not anymore.
- 26:30Speaker 12: You did do it one time, Yes, pretty angry young
- 26:34Speaker 12: man when I.
- 26:36Speaker 22: Was about seventeen sixteen.
- 26:38Speaker 12: Yes, tell me about the temper of the sixteen seventeen
- 26:40Speaker 12: year old Dalton Jack.
- 26:42Speaker 13: It was not good.
- 26:45Speaker 22: They're short fused, like to fight, Yes.
- 26:48Speaker 4: And I think they were trying to pulp the bear,
- 26:51Speaker 4: so to speak. They were trying to get him irritated,
- 26:55Speaker 4: and to show that. You know, it's possible that Dalton
- 26:59Speaker 4: was the killer.
- 27:00Speaker 12: Around the time that Molly was abducted or died, you
- 27:09Speaker 12: told her a number of times that you thought you
- 27:11Speaker 12: were depressed. Right, So things weren't all rosy between you
- 27:15Speaker 12: and Malley in the last thirty days before her abduction,
- 27:18Speaker 12: were they?
- 27:19Speaker 13: Now?
- 27:21Speaker 4: He was drugged through the mod. Dalton was drugged through
- 27:23Speaker 4: the mod. He was literally sitting fifteen feet away from
- 27:29Speaker 4: a guy that brutally raped and stabbed his love of
- 27:34Speaker 4: his life to death.
- 27:37Speaker 21: See if I will be called s next witness.
- 27:40Speaker 3: Iowa City Police officer Pamela Romero had conducted the eleven
- 27:43Speaker 3: hour interrogation of Behena Rivera and a follow up round
- 27:47Speaker 3: of question in the cornfield where the Miranda warning had
- 27:50Speaker 3: been correctly stated.
- 27:52Speaker 8: Now, did you have a discussion with the defendant about
- 27:56Speaker 8: the appearance of the female runner that he saw?
- 28:00Speaker 13: Yes?
- 28:01Speaker 17: I asked her what he that of the female runner first,
- 28:04Speaker 17: and his answer was I found her attractive.
- 28:08Speaker 8: Did he ever use any other term other than attractive
- 28:11Speaker 8: to describe the runner.
- 28:15Speaker 22: That he saw?
- 28:15Speaker 17: He stated at one point that he said that she
- 28:19Speaker 17: was hot.
- 28:20Speaker 3: And she described how the Haina Rivera later took her
- 28:23Speaker 3: and other officers to this cornfield and pointed to the
- 28:26Speaker 3: location of Molly's body.
- 28:28Speaker 17: He remembers that there was blood. He told me that
- 28:33Speaker 17: he took her out of the car, put her on
- 28:37Speaker 17: top of his shoulder, carry her inside into the cornfield,
- 28:42Speaker 17: laying her down, covering her with corn leaves, and leaving
- 28:48Speaker 17: right away.
- 28:49Speaker 2: Did you ever then press him then on more details?
- 28:51Speaker 2: How did you go about doing that?
- 28:52Speaker 17: His answer was, I bry you here, didn't I so
- 28:58Speaker 17: that means that I did it.
- 29:00Speaker 3: I don't remember how I did it.
- 29:04Speaker 8: Pamela Romero, our officer, I mean, really hit a grand slam.
- 29:08Speaker 8: At trial, she did a phenomenally good job in recounting
- 29:13Speaker 8: his interview, which difficult thing for a witness to do
- 29:16Speaker 8: without a recording being played.
- 29:18Speaker 3: But on cross examination, the defense did play speeded up
- 29:22Speaker 3: stretches of the video with no audio, showing their client
- 29:25Speaker 3: appearing to be asleep.
- 29:28Speaker 10: He fell asleep multiple times during breaks of this interview,
- 29:31Speaker 10: isn't that right?
- 29:32Speaker 17: According to the recording, Yes, during my presence.
- 29:35Speaker 10: No, this man he works a tough job for twelve
- 29:40Speaker 10: hours a day, twelve out of the fourteen days a week.
- 29:43Speaker 2: Isn't that right? That is what he told me.
- 29:46Speaker 10: Yes, and then he's brought in and he is questioned
- 29:49Speaker 10: from you on and off for eleven plus hours. Isn't
- 29:54Speaker 10: that right?
- 29:55Speaker 17: The interview went for eleven hours.
- 29:56Speaker 10: Yes, and it was not until the end, the last
- 30:01Speaker 10: couple of hours that he was willing to give you
- 30:05Speaker 10: really any information.
- 30:06Speaker 2: Is that right?
- 30:07Speaker 17: That's not the way that it took it.
- 30:10Speaker 10: Now, ma'am, you testified that you don't know anything about
- 30:16Speaker 10: a false confession.
- 30:17Speaker 2: Is that right?
- 30:18Speaker 10: Yes, you don't know what the definition of a false
- 30:21Speaker 10: confession is.
- 30:22Speaker 2: No, I do not.
- 30:24Speaker 10: You you don't understand that concept whatsoever.
- 30:28Speaker 17: No, not at the moment, I do not.
- 30:32Speaker 3: Having planted the seeds of doubt about a possible false
- 30:35Speaker 3: confession raising questions about Molly's boyfriend Dalton, the defense was
- 30:40Speaker 3: now ready to play its final card.
- 30:44Speaker 4: We have a shocker for you.
- 30:45Speaker 15: In Iowa and the Christian Behina Rivera trial, the man
- 30:48Speaker 15: accused of killing Molly Tibbets.
- 30:50Speaker 10: Defense calls Christian Behena Rivera.
- 31:03Speaker 15: The prosecution finished their case yesterday, and today the defense
- 31:07Speaker 15: began their.
- 31:08Speaker 3: Case, and the defense called Molly Tibbett's boyfriend, Dalton Jack
- 31:12Speaker 3: back to the stand for another effort to imply he
- 31:15Speaker 3: might have been the killer.
- 31:16Speaker 12: At any point in the twelve months before Molly disappeared,
- 31:22Speaker 12: did you ever tell her that you realized you were
- 31:26Speaker 12: clinically insane?
- 31:27Speaker 22: I don't remember that at all either.
- 31:29Speaker 12: Did you mention to Molly that you have a temper?
- 31:32Speaker 22: I don't remember.
- 31:34Speaker 3: So he showed Dalton text messages he had sent to Molly,
- 31:37Speaker 3: saying just.
- 31:38Speaker 12: That you recall in October thirty, twenty seventeen, you and
- 31:42Speaker 12: Molly's relationship kind of hit a real.
- 31:44Speaker 13: Bump, didn't it. I don't recall that either. That's what
- 31:48Speaker 13: she told you. She was moving in with friends. Then, yeah,
- 31:51Speaker 13: I remember that upset you.
- 31:54Speaker 12: Yes, you told her you were angry about that.
- 31:57Speaker 13: Yes, she was ditching you.
- 31:59Speaker 12: Yes, you don't recall telling Malli that you had a temper. No,
- 32:04Speaker 12: you don't recall saying that's what makes you dangerous.
- 32:07Speaker 19: No.
- 32:08Speaker 3: After a break for lunch, the defense sprung the surprise
- 32:11Speaker 3: they had planned all along.
- 32:13Speaker 10: Defense calls Christian Behina Rivera.
- 32:17Speaker 8: The defense hid it from us, which they can do,
- 32:20Speaker 8: even in their opening statement, and they made no mention
- 32:22Speaker 8: that he was going to testify.
- 32:24Speaker 10: Sir, I'm going to bring up on your screen that
- 32:27Speaker 10: is defendants Exhibit F.
- 32:31Speaker 3: Photos of Behina Rivera and his family, and.
- 32:34Speaker 8: The jury's able to see the defendant. They were able
- 32:37Speaker 8: to get photos in actually or over our objection, so
- 32:40Speaker 8: it personalized him to that point. So I think you
- 32:45Speaker 8: know that was one one of the things I was
- 32:47Speaker 8: concerned about.
- 32:48Speaker 3: And then Behina Rivera offered his version of what happened,
- 32:52Speaker 3: showing where he said two men in ski mask and
- 32:55Speaker 3: sweaters with weapons forced him to drive where they passed
- 32:58Speaker 3: Mali Tibbets, he was running.
- 33:00Speaker 2: What happened next?
- 33:02Speaker 3: One of them got out of the car.
- 33:04Speaker 10: What happened next?
- 33:07Speaker 2: I've heard them opening the trunk.
- 33:09Speaker 10: What happened next?
- 33:12Speaker 17: I've just heard a movement in the car and then
- 33:15Speaker 17: that the trunk closed.
- 33:18Speaker 3: And then he testified he was ordered to drive to
- 33:21Speaker 3: the cornfield where Molly's body was eventually found and the
- 33:25Speaker 3: two masked men disappeared.
- 33:27Speaker 10: Did you look in the trunk?
- 33:29Speaker 20: See?
- 33:30Speaker 2: Yes? What did you see a body?
- 33:35Speaker 10: Was that the body of Molly Tibbets?
- 33:39Speaker 2: Yes? What did you do next?
- 33:44Speaker 22: That's the way?
- 33:45Speaker 17: Well, I stay there a couple of minutes thinking what
- 33:48Speaker 17: to do, and then I just I decided to take
- 33:52Speaker 17: the body out.
- 33:54Speaker 2: Why didn't you call the police, sir?
- 33:59Speaker 20: Because I was, well, the jury thing is fabulous, confabulated
- 34:04Speaker 20: or just an outright lie.
- 34:05Speaker 22: Well, they feel manipulated.
- 34:06Speaker 9: It's one of the biggest fish stories I've ever seen
- 34:09Speaker 9: a defendant foot in a criminal trial.
- 34:12Speaker 8: He was unbelievable. And to hear you come up with
- 34:16Speaker 8: this completely different story. You know, nearly three years later
- 34:20Speaker 8: you claim that you went to a cornfield where Molly
- 34:24Speaker 8: Tivvett's body was placed with two other men. See yes,
- 34:29Speaker 8: Whenever you left the cornfield, you left alone.
- 34:32Speaker 13: See yes.
- 34:35Speaker 8: The other two men that were there, did they just
- 34:39Speaker 8: walk back?
- 34:41Speaker 4: They ran towards the road.
- 34:43Speaker 2: So they ran towards the road and just disappeared.
- 34:46Speaker 12: I didn't see them again. I don't know where they went.
- 34:50Speaker 8: The two men that you say you were with, you
- 34:56Speaker 8: don't know who they are.
- 34:58Speaker 13: Let's see it.
- 34:59Speaker 2: That's correct. But you just.
- 35:01Speaker 8: Happened to remember that one of them used the name Jack, See.
- 35:07Speaker 3: Yes, the last name of Molly's boyfriend, Dalton Jack.
- 35:11Speaker 2: You stabbed Molly Tibbets. Isn't that right?
- 35:15Speaker 14: No?
- 35:16Speaker 2: No, you're the one that did that. Isn't that true? Yes,
- 35:19Speaker 2: that's an answer. You alone took Molly Tibbetts into the
- 35:25Speaker 2: corn isn't that right?
- 35:27Speaker 1: We'll see.
- 35:28Speaker 2: Yes, the two men that you mentioned didn't help you
- 35:32Speaker 2: do that? Is that right? Correct?
- 35:35Speaker 25: And you left her there for nearly five weeks? Correct?
- 35:41Speaker 2: Correct? Good morning, ladies and gentlemen of the jury.
- 35:48Speaker 8: You've heard a case and evidence about a young woman
- 35:54Speaker 8: who went for a run on July eighteenth of twenty eighteen,
- 36:00Speaker 8: and she never came home.
- 36:02Speaker 2: She was confronted by this man she crossed paths.
- 36:07Speaker 25: With him, and it ended her life. She was attacked
- 36:17Speaker 25: brutally by him.
- 36:21Speaker 2: She was stabbed repeatedly by him.
- 36:25Speaker 25: Can you imagine what that was like for her?
- 36:33Speaker 8: Five weeks Molly's body laid in that cornfield. And you
- 36:39Speaker 8: know who knew about that.
- 36:43Speaker 2: One man. One man knew and he is here. His
- 36:50Speaker 2: name is Christian the Haina Rivera.
- 36:56Speaker 8: I want to break for just a second and talk
- 37:00Speaker 8: about just briefly this man's testimony yesterday.
- 37:06Speaker 25: Right, all of a sudden, now we have two of
- 37:09Speaker 25: these two men. Right, he gets up and gives us
- 37:12Speaker 25: this different version.
- 37:15Speaker 2: Of what happened.
- 37:18Speaker 25: You know what the problem is with it. It doesn't
- 37:22Speaker 25: make sense. Why would this happen because he's angry, because
- 37:30Speaker 25: he wants to have some sort of relationship with her,
- 37:33Speaker 25: because he finds her hot or attractive. Goodness, that's what happens.
- 37:40Speaker 2: Molly's no longer on this planet because of the defendant.
- 37:44Speaker 2: All of the evidence here points to one verdict.
- 37:48Speaker 25: The defendant, Christian Behina Rivera, is guilty of murder on
- 37:52Speaker 25: the first degree.
- 37:53Speaker 2: That is your verdict.
- 37:55Speaker 25: Thank you.
- 37:58Speaker 12: You don't decide this case based upon emotions. You don't
- 38:04Speaker 12: decide this case with emotions tugging at your heart strings,
- 38:08Speaker 12: and you have to ask yourself if this crime could
- 38:12Speaker 12: have been committed by five foot seven inch, one five
- 38:18Speaker 12: pound Christian Behina in that short time frame.
- 38:23Speaker 13: Could he have overpowered this woman?
- 38:26Speaker 12: Could he have stabbed her nine times, tossed her in
- 38:29Speaker 12: the trump and.
- 38:29Speaker 13: Then headed south. That makes no sense.
- 38:32Speaker 12: You saw Christian Behena's testimony. He sat there yesterday and
- 38:40Speaker 12: he gave you his version of the events. It makes
- 38:44Speaker 12: every bit as much sense as the state's theory that
- 38:47Speaker 12: an undocumented immigrant runs up alongside Molly Tibbots on a
- 38:54Speaker 12: highway in broad daylight, gets angry and decides to stabber. Absolutely,
- 39:02Speaker 12: does we think Christian's confession or his statement was an
- 39:10Speaker 12: accurate It was false. You see here he fall asleep
- 39:15Speaker 12: three different times. Who better to pick than an undocumented immigrant?
- 39:20Speaker 12: Does it speak the language? Who has nobody here to
- 39:24Speaker 12: speak of to help him out? Folks, there is serious
- 39:29Speaker 12: doubt in this case, serious doubt. Christian Behina Rivera has
- 39:38Speaker 12: not had the case.
- 39:39Speaker 13: Against him proved and beyond a reasonable doubt.
- 39:41Speaker 12: And the only verdict that you can come up with
- 39:45Speaker 12: under these facts and what you've heard right there is
- 39:50Speaker 12: not getting thank you.
- 39:54Speaker 3: The jury was out for some seven hours over two days.
- 39:57Speaker 6: I remember that day, just waiting and waiting. Why is
- 40:00Speaker 6: it taking so long.
- 40:01Speaker 8: The longer it goes, the more worried you get, and
- 40:03Speaker 8: everybody's nervous. You don't really look at anybody, talk to
- 40:06Speaker 8: anybody until the jury comes in.
- 40:12Speaker 21: At this time, mister Bohena, I'm gonna ask that you
- 40:15Speaker 21: rise along with your attorneys, please, and I would ask
- 40:21Speaker 21: that the court attendant read the jury's verdict.
- 40:25Speaker 16: We the jury find the defendant, Christian Bahina Rivera, guilty
- 40:35Speaker 16: of the crime of murder in the first degree.
- 40:44Speaker 12: I mean, we had a situation where a client gave
- 40:46Speaker 12: a statement.
- 40:49Speaker 13: And he had her.
- 40:51Speaker 12: DNA in the trunk and he led him to the body.
- 40:56Speaker 12: That's all pretty incriminating evidence.
- 41:01Speaker 21: Mister Behina Rivera, You and you alone forever changed the
- 41:08Speaker 21: lives of those who love Malli Tibbets. And for that,
- 41:15Speaker 21: you and you alone will receive the following sentence, a
- 41:21Speaker 21: lifetime sentence with no eligibility for parole.
- 41:38Speaker 24: I think part of her life legacy is the effect
- 41:42Speaker 24: that her disappearance in her life that was cut short
- 41:47Speaker 24: had on the nation in the world.
- 41:49Speaker 3: A statue dedicated to Mali Tibbets and the artwork of
- 41:53Speaker 3: children she had hoped to one day work with, now
- 41:55Speaker 3: on display near the place where she was killed.
- 42:00Speaker 7: Seeing those kids like painting and sewing quilts. This is
- 42:05Speaker 7: important to us.
- 42:06Speaker 24: It's exactly how she would have
- 42:09Speaker 3: Painted at the Molly's parents hope their daughter will be
- 42:13Speaker 3: remembered not for how she died, but for how she lived.