Cristhian Bahena Rivera Biography, Wiki
Cristhian Bahena Rivera was unanimously convicted by juries on Friday afternoon, First-degree murder carries a mandatory life sentence in the state of Iowa, and Bahena Rivera will be formally sentenced on July 15. The spine-chilling first-degree murder case of Iowa student Mollie Tibbetts who was killed when she was out jogging is coming to a conclusion with Cristhian Bahena Rivera, unanimously convicted by jurors on Friday, May 28.
Age
Cristhian Bahena Rivera is 26-years-old.
Found Guilty In Mollie Tibbetts Murder
The formal sentencing of the convicted 26-year-old illegal Mexican immigrant Rivera will take place on July 15.
Cristhian Bahena Rivera, a farmworker, stayed mostly unphased during the court session wearing headphones where interpreters helped in translating the decision of the jury to him. The verdict was announced nearly three years after the fateful day when the body of Mollie Tibbetts was found. According to earlier reports, Rivera stated ‘blacking out’ during the incident. While Mollie Tibbetts was going for a run, he got angry at her and ‘blacked out. The next thing he remembered is discovering a bleeding Mollie Tibbetts in his vehicle’s trunk and going to bury her in a remote Iowa cornfield.
After Friday’s verdict, Tibbett’s family reportedly expressed being ‘relieved’ and ‘pleased’ with the decision. Prosecutor Scott Brown further stated, “The family, and other people that are that close to it, they live with it forever,” and added, “We hope that in the end… when these cases are over, we can bring a sense of justice to them, even though we would never have the ability to bring Mollie back.” Bahena Rivera’s attorneys will proceed to appeal the verdict which is an automatic formality for anyone who has been convicted of murder in Iowa.
Defense attorney Chad Frese noted that they are going to appeal as he said, “Can we tell you who did this? No,” He added, “We can tell you that getting to know Cristhian Bahena we are very surprised that he would be the kind of person to commit a crime like this. He is nothing but a soft-spoken, respectful, kind person.”
Rivera Claims He Was Kidnapped
Rivera through translator has made a different claim, says a report. He has stated that two masked men kidnapped him and forced him to participate in the murder and threatened his family. Prosecutor Brown has dismissed the stance strictly saying, “There weren’t two other guys. That’s a figment of his imagination.” He asserted, “All of the credible evidence, in this case, points at him.”
While the case comes closer to the sentencing date, the defense attorney claimed that the prosecution neither had an eye-witness or a murder weapon, no crime scene or scientific evidence to back their accusations on Rivera. Rivera’s statements were taken under extreme duress, as Frese claimed, “We think Cristhian’s ‘confession,’ or statement, was inaccurate or false.”
Evidence
The prosecution mainly proceeded with Rivera based on the surveillance video acquired from Rivera’s vehicle near Tibbetts, his statements to investigators back in August 2018, and most importantly, the matching DNA samples of Tibbetts found in Rivera’s trunk. In 2018, Poweshiek County Attorney Bart Klaver had stated, “When you put this evidence together, there can be no other conclusion than that the defendant killed Mollie Tibbetts.”
Rivera’s contradicting claims including he blacked out after getting angry and he was kidnapped by two masked men didn’t help his case as the defense attorney earlier stated, “It’s like trying to prove there’s not a Santa Claus. We don’t know who those persons could be. Remember our client was out in the middle of a very rural location. We tried to link it up as best we could with people who could have some kind of motive, but that’s very difficult to establish.”
