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Let Me Make You A Model · 10 Minute Murder | Bingeable True Crime Stories

• 0:07
  Discretion is it vised ten minute murders, the promise of fame and the opportunity
• 0:36
  to have your picture seen by thousands of people. Raynaldo Rivera looked for young
• 0:41
  women that he thought would be excited by the chance to become a model.
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  He would approach them and see if they were interested in taking photos for him
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  to pass on to modeling agencies and escort services. The only true part about
• 0:54
  his story was that their picture would make it to the news, only it
• 0:59
  would not be for the reasons he promised. Raynaldo Rivera was born in September
• 1:04
  of nineteen sixty three in Madrid, Spain. His father was a doctor.
• 1:10
  When Rainaldo was seven, the family moved to Puerto Rico. When he was
• 1:15
  nineteen, he joined the Navy and he served in the Navy for a decade
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  before his discharge, and during that time he was in a pilot training program.
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  He became a lieutenant junior grade and lived in Texas, Florida, California,
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  and North Carolina. From nineteen eighty six to nineteen ninety one, he
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  worked for the Joint chiefs of Staff in Washington, d C. He eventually
• 1:34
  pursued a degree at the University of South Carolina and settled in North Augusta.
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  On February fourteenth, nineteen ninety three, he married Tammy Bonnett. They had
• 1:46
  two children together, and in nineteen ninety eight Rivera started working at the Firestone
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  Tire and Rubber Company as a tire inspector. North Augusta is in South Carolina
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  and right up the road from Augusta, Georgia. Both cities are classified as
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  part of the Central Savannah River Area or the CSRA. The CSRAY includes several
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  counties between the two states. So in July of nineteen ninety nine, when
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  seventeen year old Melissa Dinghis went missing, it was on the news in all
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  of the surrounding cities. She was from Granetville, South Carolina, and there
• 2:22
  was no trace of what happened to her. Then, in December of that
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  year, seventeen year old Tiffany Wilson went missing, only she wasn't alone.
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  She had her two month old daughter with her. She planned on getting pictures
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  with Santa that day. Her car was found in a Winn Dixie grocery store
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  parking lot in North Augusta. Witnesses said that she entered a mid nineteen eighties
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  white four door Ford. They said the car stopped and the driver seemed to
• 2:50
  be talking with Tiffany, then it sped away, apparently with her inside.
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  Three days later, her baby was found alive in her carrier outside of a
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  Georgia welcome center on the other side of the river in Augusta. A search
• 3:06
  was conducted up and down Eye twenty looking for the missing mother. They did
• 3:09
  find some clothes, but not Tiffany. On December thirtieth, two hunters stumbled
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  upon the body of a young female while hunting in a wooded area in Graniteville.
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  The medical examiner confirmed that her hands were tied behind her back and she
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  had been stabbed and raped. Fingerprints confirmed it was Tiffany Wilson. Were both
• 3:30
  women taken by the same person, That's the question investigators needed to answer.
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  For six months, there weren't any missing girls reported, but the nightmare was
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  not over. In June of two thousand, eighteen year old Tabitha Bosdel from
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  Augusta, Georgia, disappeared. Her family dropped her off at a huddle house
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  so she could go inside and apply for a job. When she went missing.
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  In September, it was reported that twenty one year old Sergeant Markie Gilsta,
• 4:00
  a soldier stationed at Fort Eisenhower at the time, called Fort Gordon had
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  barely survived an attack and sustained serious injuries. Upon investigation, they knew that
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  their case was related to the missing girls. She was hospitalized but died five
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  days later. Georgia and South Carolina worked together since the victims were from both
• 4:20
  states and had also been moved across state lines. In October, eighteen year
• 4:27
  old Chrisly Barton was also attacked in her home. The perpetrator left her to
• 4:31
  die, but she was alert enough to call for help. After receiving medical
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  attention, she was able to give the investigators details that they needed. She
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  was approached by a man in the parking lot at a huddle house in North
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  Augusta. He told her he owned an escort agency and he was a modeling
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  agent. He wanted to take some photos of her and see if he could
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  help her get some work. Christly thought that it seemed to be a pretty
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  good opportunity, so she invited him back to her house to take those photos.
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  Although once they got to her house, she was raped. She was
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  also stabbed in the throat three times with a knife. From her own kitchen.
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  She was able to tell the investigators what he looked like and what he
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  drove. His car was located outside of the Rainbow Terrace Motel in Clearwater,
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  South Carolina. He didn't answer the door to the motel when the police announced
• 5:24
  that they were there. When they entered the room, they found him inside,
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  slashing his wrists in an attempt to commit suicide. The arresting officers prevented
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  him from doing any further damage to himself and brought him to the Medical College
• 5:39
  of Georgia, where he was put in an isolated cell under suicide watch.
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  He eventually told them where to find the bodies of Tabitha Bosdel and Melissa Dingis.
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  Rivera's wife wrote a letter that was published in the Augusta Journal. She
• 5:53
  expressed her faith in God and grief over the deaths. She wrote that she
• 5:58
  had been praying for the person responsible to be apprehended, but had no idea
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  that that person would be her own husband. After Rivera's picture was shown on
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  the local news, investigators got over thirty calls from other women that had been
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  approached by Rivera. From nineteen ninety nine to two thousand. All of the
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  stories were the same. He complimented their appearance, mentioned that he could get
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  them help into modeling, and tried to continue conversations. He even followed some
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  of them not only around stores, but out to their cars. They were
• 6:30
  mostly young women with blonde hair. The charges against him were so confusing with
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  many counties involved, Richmond County could only charge him for the crimes that happened
• 6:41
  in their district, so they could not include all the murders. On November
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  third, Rivera was charged with capital murder and thirteen other charges, including rape,
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  aggravated assaults, aggravated sodomy, burglary, and possession of a knife during
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  a commission of a crime. It included the crimes again Aainst Glista and Barton,
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  and they intended to seek the death penalty. When the prosecution seeks the
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  death penalty in the state of Georgia, the trial happens in two phases.
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  The first part is to decide whether the defendant is innocent or guilty. If
• 7:15
  convicted, they move on to the penalty phase. The penalty phase once again
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  includes opening and closing statements and the opportunity to present evidence. The jury may
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  decide life in prison with or without parole or death, but the jury must
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  be unanimous on their decision. In the first part of the trial, Rivera
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  was found guilty on all counts beyond reasonable doubt. The defense had pleaded that
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  if he was found guilty, he should also be found mentally ill, but
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  the jury rejected that idea, and during the penalty phase Rivera was allowed to
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  address the court. He called the process a joke. He called the district
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  attorney a liar. He said he was a sex addict that had managed to
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  live a life. He even suggested that maybe it was some kind of mental
• 8:03
  illness and that his ailment should be studied. Maybe he could even help find
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  a cure, like he's got osteoporosis or something and not a cold blooded murderer.
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  He went on to admit that he fantasized about the attacks, the rapes,
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  and how he killed the girls. Rivera actually warned the jury that if
• 8:22
  released, he would do it again. After all, he claimed it was
• 8:26
  an addiction. Finally, he asked them to give him the death penalty,
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  and they did not. Only did they sentence him to death for murder,
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  they also added seven life sentences plus one hundred five years for all of the
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  other charges. When he was given the death penalty, he was automatically able
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  to appeal the case. In two thousand and six, he denied the appeal's
• 8:48
  process. Rivera has been sitting on death row at a prison in Georgia since
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  then. But in twenty sixteen, Rivera shocked the country when he claimed that
• 8:58
  he was actually innocent. He said he falsely confessed to all the crimes.
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  The families of the victims were outraged and the communities were kind of shocked by
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  the claims, but not completely shocked. Rivera had not only confessed to the
• 9:13
  crimes, but he led the police to where they could find the missing bodies,
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  and in closing statements at his trial, he said that if given the
• 9:20
  chance, he would do it again. The fear felt by those that could
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  have easily become one of his victims was felt all over again. The idea
• 9:30
  of running into Rivera in public, knowing what his intentions had been was terrifying.
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  The court, however, found no merit in this new statement. The
• 9:41
  court did say that they would allow the lawyers to show any errors that they
• 9:43
  felt occurred during the trial. The defense said that the trial was brutal,
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  they were not only in court against the prosecution and trying to persuade jurors,
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  but they were constantly arguing with Rivera about what to say and what not to
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  say. What they did not seek a new trial. There is also a
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  debate about whether or not a man could really start such a horrific behavior in
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  his mid thirties. It's not really your typical midlife crisis kind of activity.
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  Had he been attacking women long before it was noticed? Some of the other
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  places that he'd lived started researching cold cases to see if he could be connected
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  to any of those unsolved crimes. Rinaldo Rivera did not make any of his
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  victims models, but their pictures were seen by thousands of people. They were
• 10:31
  beautiful young women with bright smiles and a promising life ahead of them, Whether
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  they were already mothers, serving the military, or just starting to think about
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  their future, they certainly did not plan to die so young. Their families
• 10:46
  were robbed of years that they should have had together. Sometimes when things seemed
• 10:50
  too good to be true, they are. And sometimes when a strange man
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  says that he has a life changing opportunity for you, day alive and run
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  the other way. WHOA that's ten Minute Murder for today brief and binge able
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  true crime. I'm Joe, the host, and I really appreciate you listening.
• 11:15
  If you're new to ten Minute Murder, welcome, settle in, make
• 11:18
  yourself comfortable, and please subscribe now so that you can more easily catch up
• 11:22
  on all the back episodes. Connect on social media. See the pictures of
• 11:24
  what we talk about here in the podcast. And if you like this episode.
• 11:28
  If you like this podcast, leave a rating and review on Apple,
• 11:31
  Spotify or any place that's possible, because your positive feedback is appreciated and it
• 11:37
  helps this show grow more and more. Go to ten minute Murder dot com
• 11:41
  for all things related to ten Minute Murder. Quickly to an email, Hi
• 11:46
  Joe, love your show. Thank you for doing what you do in a
• 11:50
  more tactful way than some and then she goes on to describe an interesting story
• 11:54
  she wants me to cover. And for my question, I just always wondered
• 11:56
  what you edit out of your podcasts, if there's the ums and the hums
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  and coughs or whatever. We're all human and probably want our best selves displayed,
• 12:05
  especially as a podcaster. I was wondering if you could do a raw
• 12:09
  and uncut version. Even if it's a bit longer, I'm sure people would
• 12:13
  find it entertaining. Just a thought. Well, happy holidays to you and
• 12:16
  yours hugs, April. Thank you for your email, April. You didn't
• 12:20
  leave a country name, city name, state name, or anything, so
• 12:24
  I have no idea where you're from, but I do appreciate you sending the
• 12:26
  email, taking the time to do that. And yeah, I edit a
• 12:30
  lot out of this podcast. Mostly it's mistakes, the coughs and the sneezes,
• 12:37
  the taking a drink of my drink, all of that I edit out
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  as well. Also, I say names wrong pretty often. If you've been
• 12:45
  listening to this podcast for any length of time, you know that I struggle
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  with names for literally no reason, like that should be something that I get
• 12:52
  pretty easily. Like, for instance, in this episode today, Rinaldo Rivera,
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  I said Horaaldo Rivera at least a half a dozen times, So that
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  is going to be one of the things that I go you'll never hear it,
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  because I'm going to go back and edit that part out. But I
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  called this man Heeraldo at least six times. There are also times when I'll
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  go off on a tangent about how the police are handling a case. I'll
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  go off about the murderer themselves. And then there are times when I'll go
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  really deep into a certain part of the story, and then later on I'll
• 13:20
  realize, first of all, this isn't fifteen minute murder, so I need
• 13:24
  to cut some stuff out. And the stuff that I went into big detail
• 13:28
  about doesn't really add to the story, so I'll cut that out. And
• 13:31
  then occasionally I'll say something kind of funny during a podcast episode, and later
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  on, listening back to it, I'll decide that's probably not a good place
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  for me to be funny, or it wasn't the best joke to begin with,
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  so I'll cut that out and you never hear that what I do an
• 13:48
  episode unedited. But for the reasons I just listed, that's going to be
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  a no for me. Dog It would make me so uncomfortable to put out
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  an episode where I had tons of screw ups and things like that that in
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  it, So I don't think I'll do that. However, the closest I
• 14:03
  could come to doing it is if I did Facebook Live or Instagram Live,
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  and I just did an episode on live, and I recorded it and went
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  back and edit it for release on my regular podcast. But if you were
• 14:15
  watching the live you would see it in real time where I'm making all the
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  mistakes and doing all the things that could be a possibility. But I don't
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  know, maybe that's a strong maybe. Okay, thanks for listening to another
• 14:28
  ten minute Murder Podcast episode. I'll see you soon on the next one.
• 14:31
  Bye, got Chau