The illegal alien charged with murdering 20-year-old University of Iowa student Mollie Tibbetts says two masked men showed up at his residence, kidnapped him, and killed Tibbetts before he dumped her body in a cornfield.
In August 2018, Cristhian Bahena Rivera, a 25-year-old illegal alien from Mexico, was charged with the murder of Mollie Tibbetts after police said he admitted to confronting and chasing her down.
Following a nationwide search, Tibbetts’ body was found in a cornfield in Poweshiek County, Iowa. The illegal alien lived in a region of Iowa surrounded by sanctuary cities, Breitbart News reported. He worked on a dairy farm using a stolen ID and Social Security card after crossing the U.S.-Mexico border at 17-years-old.
During the defense’s second day of their case, Bahena Rivera took the witness stand, where he claimed that two masked men entered his residence on the night of July 18, 2018 — the day Tibbetts was abducted, murdered, and dumped in a cornfield.
According to Bahena Rivera, he was taking a shower after working a shift at the Yarabee Farms dairy farm where he was employed when two masked men in long sleeve sweaters showed up at his residence. Bahena Rivera said he noticed them when he got out of the shower, claiming one man had a knife and the other had a gun.
Bahena Rivera said the men told him “I shouldn’t do anything stupid and everything was going to be okay” and were in his residence for a while, whispering between each other, before forcing him into his car. The man with the knife, Bahena Rivera said, sat in the passenger seat while the other sat in the backseat and instructed him to go into the town of Brooklyn, Iowa, where Bahena Rivera had just come from while picking up a vacuum from his uncle’s home.
Bahena Rivera, who does not speak English but said he knows the basics, said he could hear the men mention something about a person jogging. After making it into Brooklyn, Bahena Rivera said he saw a person jogging on the street and was told by the men to circle back around the jogger — later identified as Tibbetts — roughly three to four times.
The masked men, Bahena Rivera alleged, crouched down in his car as though trying not to be seen. Previously shown video footage from the area showed Bahena Rivera’s car circling back around the location multiple times, but the footage cannot confirm if Bahena Rivera was the only individual in the car.
At that point, Bahena Rivera said he was told by the man with the knife to stop the car. Then, the man got out of the vehicle and ran up the road, according to Bahena Rivera, while the other man in the backseat allegedly said, “Come on Jack” after a while.
Tibbetts’ boyfriend at the time was Dalton Jack. The defense, as Breitbart News has reported, has sought to tie Jack to Tibbetts’ abduction.
Eventually, Bahena Rivera said the man with the knife came back to the car and asked him to keep driving. Afterward, Bahena Rivera said the men asked him to stop the car as they got out, and they asked for his keys, and began opening his trunk. That was when he said he noticed the car moving before they closed the trunk.
At that time, Bahena Rivera said he was instructed towards the cornfield where Tibbetts’ body was found about a month later. He said he was told by the men to turn off the car as they reached the cornfield, taking his keys and phone. Bahena Rivera said he was threatened by the men not to speak of the incident or else his ex-girlfriend and daughter, both living in the United States, would be harmed.
Bahena Rivera said he walked to the trunk of the car and saw Tibbetts’ body. At first, he claims she was moving but then that movement quickly stopped. It was then that Bahena Rivera said he decided to take Tibbetts’ body out of the trunk and dump her in the cornfield, placing corn stalks over her to shield her from the elements.
“I picked her up and then I put her in the cornfield,” Bahena Rivera told jurors.
After dumping her body in the cornfield, Bahena Rivera said he drove off, using his phone to find his way back to his residence. He said he noticed Tibbetts’ phone Fitbit device, and headphones in the trunk of his car and left them on the side of the road.
Bahena Rivera told jurors that he “most probably” would never have told anyone the story if investigators had not approached him in late August of 2018.
While being cross-examined by prosecutors, Bahena Rivera told the jury that he, alone, is the only person who could have taken investigators to Tibbetts’ body because he, alone, placed her in the cornfield.
Bahena Rivera said the two masked men have not contacted him since that evening and he continues not to know who they are, what their connection is to him, how they found him, how they arrived at his residence that evening, or how they fled the cornfield after he drove off.
Likewise, Bahena Rivera said he has not been threatened by anyone since he took investigators to Tibbetts’ body in the cornfield in late August.
This week, the jury was told by the medical examiner who reviewed Tibbetts’ body that she was stabbed potentially up to 12 times by her killer. Tibbetts, the medical examiner said, suffered stab wounds to her head, right hand, neck, and torso.
Last week, the jury was shown photos of the cornfield where Bahena Rivera allegedly dumped Tibbetts’ body. The jury was also shown photos of Tibbetts’ body covered in corn stalks. Likewise, the jury saw photos of Bahena Rivera’s car trunk where four locations of human blood, identified as Tibbetts’, were found.
In detailed testimony by the bilingual investigator whom Bahena Rivera allegedly confessed murdering Tibbetts to, the jury was relayed portions of the transcripts. In those transcripts, Bahena Rivera said he saw Tibbetts jogging, chased her down, blacked out, then remembered driving with her body in the trunk of his car before dumping her in a cornfield.
According to prosecutors, Bahena Rivera was the last person who saw Tibbetts jogging on the evening of July 18 in Brooklyn, Iowa. She went missing later that night.
Bahena Rivera allegedly stabbed Tibbetts to death, dumped her body in a cornfield, and placed corn stalks over her to prevent law enforcement from finding her. The illegal alien has been held on a $5 million bond.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here.
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