Mollie Tibbetts Murder (2018)

Date: July 18, 2018

Place: Poweshiek County, Iowa

Summary

Iowa college student Mollie Tibbetts was murdered in July of 2018 and her death was later linked to an undocumented Mexican immigrant. US president Donald Trump and anti-immigration activists pointed to Tibbetts’s murder as an example of the dangers posed by people entering the country illegally.

Key Events

  • July 18, 2018—Mollie Tibbetts is last seen alive jogging in Brooklyn, Iowa, in the evening.
  • July 19, 2018—Tibbetts’s family reports her missing to Iowa police after she does not appear at work.
  • August 21, 2018—Tibbetts’s body is found by police in a cornfield in Poweshiek County, Iowa. Mexican immigrant Cristhian Bahena Rivera is charged with first-degree murder in the case.
  • August 22, 2018—US President Donald Trump releases a video in which he mentions the Tibbetts murder and suggests Republicans, not Democrats, will pursue immigration policies that will prevent similar incidents.
  • September 19, 2018—Rivera pleads not guilty to the murder and is scheduled for trial in April 2019.

Status

As of the beginning of 2019, Rivera awaited trial in the Tibbetts murder case, scheduled for April 16 of that year. The case earned some renewed attention in late December 2018, when reports emerged that Tibbetts’s mother, Laura Calderwood, had taken in the son of a Mexican immigrant couple who had been coworkers of Rivera. Tibbetts’s brother Scott reportedly urged Calderwood to allow Ulises Felix, an American-born high-school-age boy, to live with them after Felix’s parents moved to Illinois. Meanwhile, the anti-immigrant rhetoric of President Trump and many other Republicans continued well after media attention to the Tibbetts case had largely faded.

In-Depth Overview

Mollie Tibbetts, a twenty-year-old psychology student enrolled at the University of Iowa, went missing on July 18, 2018, after going on an evening jog in Brooklyn, Iowa, where she was staying at her boyfriend’s house. Tibbetts worked at a children’s day camp hosted by a local medical center, and she was reported missing by her family on July 19 after failing to show up for her shift at work. Her boyfriend, out of town at the time, had spoken to Tibbetts shortly before she left for her jog, and those who knew her reported that it was very unusual for her to abruptly go out of touch.

After Tibbetts disappeared, family and friends posted signs searching for information while police investigated potential leads. Authorities attempted to use data from Tibbetts’s Fitbit, a fitness device with GPS capability, to track her whereabouts. Efforts on the ground were complicated by the time of year in the local farming community, as tall stands of corn made it difficult to search nearby cornfields for evidence of a body. Several potential sightings and investigations proved fruitless, and Tibbetts’s family held out hope that she might be alive, making public appeals for any captors to release her. By mid-August, donations of almost $400,000 had been contributed to the reward offered for evidence in the case.

About a month after her disappearance, police working on the case received a tip from an Iowa citizen who believed he might have captured an image of Tibbetts on his home security cameras. The footage showed Tibbetts running past the property and apparently being pursued by a black car identified as a Chevrolet Malibu. The vehicle identification led police to twenty-four-year-old Mexican immigrant Cristhian Bahena Rivera, who had not previously been a suspect and did not have a criminal record. When approached by police, Rivera surrendered without incident.

In interviews with law enforcement, Rivera claimed he had approached Tibbetts on foot after following her in his car, running alongside her until she took out her phone and threatened to call the police. At that point, he said, he essentially blacked out with anger and panic, coming to sometime later in his car at an intersection. Rivera then allegedly turned around and drove into a cornfield, where the sight of headphones in his lap jogged his memory that Tibbetts was in the trunk of his car. Upon opening the trunk he said he noticed blood on her head, and then took her into the field and covered her body with cornstalks. Autopsies later indicated Tibbetts had been killed by multiple stab wounds.

Rivera led authorities to the location of Tibbetts’s body on August 21, 2018, and was charged with first degree murder, with a $1 million bond. As the arrest and charge hit the press, it emerged that Rivera was not in the country legally, according to the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (UCIS) and the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency. This fact was quickly emphasized by anti-immigrant politicians, who framed the murder as a result of the flaws they perceived in the US immigration system and an example of the danger posed by undocumented immigrants—particularly those from Mexico and elsewhere in Latin America. Most notably, on August 22, 2018, US president Donald Trump posted a video on the social media site Twitter in which he directly referenced the Tibbetts case and, despite the fact that the case was ongoing, blamed illegal immigration for the murder. Trump then urged support for his proposed wall along the Mexican border, as well as immigration and border control reform, and further argued that voters should choose Republicans because Democrats would not support such policies.

Other politicians referencing the Tibbetts case included Iowa Republican governor Kim Reynolds, who blamed the US immigration system for Tibbetts’s death. References to the murder by politicians were not well received by friends and family of Tibbetts, however. Rob Tibbetts, the victim’s father, gave a statement criticizing the way that his daughter’s death had been politicized. At Tibbetts’s funeral, her father spoke out against the rise in anti-immigrant incidents in Iowa, stating his support for the state’s Hispanic community. In an editorial he wrote for the Des Moines Register, Rob Tibbetts reiterated those same views, arguing that Mollie herself would have considered the politicization of her death racist. Other family members and friends also spoke out against the political use of Tibbetts’s death.

Criticism of conservatives’ efforts to politicize the case increased when it emerged that at the time of the murder Rivera was employed by Yarrabee Farms, whose owners had significant ties to the Republican Party and prominent anti-immigrant figures. Critics called it hypocritical to take a hardline stance on immigration while benefiting from employing undocumented workers. The farm owners, meanwhile, claimed Rivera had passed background checks and appeared to have citizenship, though some observers questioned these claims.

On September 19, 2018, Rivera pleaded not guilty to first degree murder and refused his right to a trial within ninety days. The judge scheduled a trial for the case to be held in April 2019.

Key Figures

Laura Calderwood: Mother of Mollie Tibbetts who later took in the son of Mexican immigrant coworkers of the suspect in her daughter’s murder.

Kim Reynolds: Governor of Iowa who blamed Tibbetts’s death on the country’s immigration system.

Cristhian Bahena Rivera: Suspect accused of murdering Mollie Tibbetts in August 2018.

Mollie Tibbetts: College student and day camp worker murdered in Iowa in August 2018.

Rob Tibbetts: Father of Mollie Tibbetts who spoke out against the politicization of his daughter’s death.

Donald Trump: President of the United States who referred to the Tibbetts case in his calls for immigration reform.

Bibliography

Andone, D. (2018, September 2). Mollie Tibbetts’ father: Don’t use her death to promote “racist” views. CNN. Retrieved from https://edition.cnn.com/2018/09/02/us/mollie-tibbetts-father-op-ed/index.html

Chavez, N. (2018, August 22). Mollie Tibbetts case mystified police until a security camera offered a key clue. CNN. Retrieved from https://edition.cnn.com/2018/08/22/us/mollie-tibbetts-cristhian-rivera-search/index.html

Foley, R. (2018, August 24). Iowa murder suspect lived on land owned by prominent GOP fundraiser. Chicago Tribune. Retrieved from https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/ct-gop-fundraiser-iowa-suspect-20180824-story.html

Levenson, E., Said, S., & Almasy, S. (2018, August 22). Man leads police to body, faces murder charge in Mollie Tibbetts case. CNN. Retrieved from https://www.cnn.com/2018/08/21/us/mollie-tibbetts-missing-iowa-student/index.html

Peters, J. W. (2018, August 23). How politics took over the killing of Mollie Tibbetts. The New York Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/23/us/politics/mollie-tibbetts-republicans-immigration-trump.html

Rojas, N. (2018, September 19). Mollie Tibbetts’s accused murderer pleads not guilty, trial date set. Newsweek. Retrieved from https://www.newsweek.com/mollie-tibbetts-alleged-murderer-cristhian-rivera-pleads-not-guilty-trial-1129278

Ta, L., Fleig, S., James, M., & Bacon, J. (2018, August 21). Undocumented immigrant charged with murder in killing of Iowa student Mollie Tibbetts. USA Today. Retrieved from https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2018/08/21/mollie-tibbett-iowa-students-body-found-media-reports-say/1050186002/