Jury finds Cristhian Bahena Rivera guilty of first-degree murder in Mollie Tibbetts killing
By Celine Castronuovo - 05/28/21 03:45 PM EDT
A jury on Friday found 26-year-old Cristhian Bahena Rivera guilty of first-degree murder in the 2018 killing of University of Iowa student Mollie Tibbetts.
Following more than seven hours of deliberations stretching from Thursday afternoon into Friday morning, the jury announced the verdict in the case, the Des Moines Register reported, ending the two-week trial that had been postponed several times since it was initially scheduled to take place in April 2019.
Bahena Rivera, an undocumented immigrant from Mexico, had pleaded not guilty in September 2018, with his defense team throughout the trial pointing to several other possible suspects.
The Register reported that Bahena Rivera himself took the stand this week and while he admitted to leaving 20-year-old Tibbetts’s body in a cornfield, he denied killing her, instead claiming that two armed men ordered him to bring her body there.
The search for Tibbetts drew national attention when she disappeared after going out for a run in July 2018.
more
https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/556007-jury-finds-cristhian-bahena-rivera-guilty-of-first-degree-murder-in
