20-year-old Iowa student Mollie Tibbetts went missing weeks ago after disappearing while out jogging, but tragically, it appears the remains of her body have been located in a cornfield near her hometown of Brooklyn, Iowa.
According to ABC News police have filed a first-degree murder charge against 24-year-old man, Cristhian Rivera, an undocumented immigrant who lives in the “rural area where the college student vanished one month ago.”
Police were alerted to Rivera as a possible murder suspect after finding security cameras at a house close to where Tibbetts was last seen, reports Time. The owner gave them access to the tapes, which provided enough evidence for the police to track down Rivera.
During a press conference, Iowa Division of Criminal Investigations special agent Rick Rahn said, “The video was critical. Through that we were able to identify a vehicle that we believed belonged to Mr Rivera. From that we were able to track his pattern and routes he took. We were also able to find Mollie running on this video and we were able to determine that he was one of the last to have seen Mollie running.”
The BBC reports Rahn said Rivera was “very compliant and willing to talk, and he led police to her body.” The body hasn’t been formally identified yet, but after examining the clothes at the scene, police were able to file murder charges against Rivera.
As for the motive, during the press conference CNN reports Rahn said, “I can’t really speak to you about the motive. I can just tell you it seems that he followed her and seemed to be drawn to her on that particular day and for whatever reason he chose to abduct her.”
According to court documents filed about the case, Rivera said in an interview with police that he approached Tibbetts and she pulled out her cell phone telling him she would “call the police.” Which made him angry and then he says “he blacked out and woke up at an intersection in rural Poweshiek County.”
Rahn said Rivera told investigators “he realised he had put the woman in the trunk of his car,” and when he took her out there was blood on her head. So he “left the body in a cornfield and covered it with corn leaves.”
An autopsy of the body is scheduled for Wednesday US time, to formally confirm the identity of the body, time of death and cause of death.
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