Crimeatorium
Verdict: The State of Iowa vs Cristhian Bahena Rivera | The Murder of Mollie Tibbetts
Tue, 14 Jan 2025
Defense closing statement, prosecution rebuttal closing, and verdict. Before we begin, I want to take a moment to reflect on the life of Mollie Tibbetts, a young woman whose light touched everyone she met. Mollie Cecelia Tibbetts was born on May 8, 1998, in San Francisco, California, and raised in both San Francisco and Brooklyn, Iowa. She graduated from BGM High School in 2017 and was pursuing a degree in psychology at the University of Iowa, driven by her dream of becoming a child psychologist to help children struggling with mental health issues.Mollie loved life, and it showed in everything she did. She excelled in writing and speech, sharing her thoughts on complex topics like mental health and self-esteem. She made friends everywhere she went, and children adored her. She worked at a summer camp where her laughter and warmth left a lasting impression. She was a runner, a dancer, an actor, and a singer. But above all, Mollie was a young woman filled with kindness, ambition, and an undeniable joy for life.In July 2018, Mollie disappeared while on an evening jog near her hometown of Brooklyn, Iowa, sparking a massive search effort that united the community and drew nationwide attention. Sadly, her body was discovered weeks later.This episode covers the court trial in full, edited for length and clarity.Contact:[email protected] Blog for updates and insights:https://crimeatorium.com/blogSupport:Donations are appreciated, if you would like to help support the show, use the link below and buy me a burrito and a Diet Pepsi:http://Ko-fi.com/crimeatoriumFor $3 a month, you can support this show on Patreon, in return you will receive ad free, early, and bonus episodeshttps://www.patreon.com/crimeatoriumIf you like the podcast, please share it on social media and with friends, and take a minute to leave a review for Crimeatorium on Spotify, Podchaser or Apple Podcasts.https://www.crimeatorium.com/rate/Music:im Kulig (timkulig.com)Titles: Crimeatorium IntroLicensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0997280/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1Thank you for listening!Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/crimeatorium9009/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
Mr. Fries, at this time, you may give your closing on behalf of Mr. Behina.
Thank you, Your Honor. May it please the court. Counsel. Mr. Brown, Mr. Klaver. Molly Tibbetts is truly an innocent victim. She was absolutely an innocent victim here. No doubt about it. This young woman was a spectacular young woman. She was destined to do great things. She was destined to become the change that she wanted to see in the world. She was just about to spread her wings and fly.
We acknowledge that. We sympathize with her family. We offer empathy to them. This young lady was on her way to being someone special. No doubt about it. Absolutely no doubt about it. The loss of Molly Tibbetts is tragic. Absolutely tragic. And the reason I mentioned that. It's because the loss of someone like that can evoke a lot of emotion. And it has evoked emotion.
And that can be a problem when you are sitting as a juror. Because when you're sitting as a juror, emotions have no place in that deliberation room. You don't decide this case based upon emotions. You don't decide this case with emotions tugging at your heartstrings. It's not your job to right a wrong. It's not your job to impart vengeance. It's not your job to bring justice for Molly.
She deserves justice, absolutely. It's not your job. Your job is to do justice. Period. Full stop. Your job is to provide a logical, analytical, almost surgical and mechanical application of what you heard here and the instructions, and that's it. The analysis is simple. The analysis is not whether you go back in that room and decide, I think he did it.
The analysis is much, much different than that. The analysis is whether this table and the people from this table, the government of this state of Iowa, and the people hired by the government of this state of Iowa, and the resources they've produced have brought forth enough evidence to prove this case and each and every element of the charge beyond a reasonable doubt.
That is a huge standard, folks. That is a high standard and you cannot forget that and you must keep that in the forefront of your mind. It must be right here all the time. You can't be swayed by emotion. You can't let pictures And emotions of those pictures get to you. You must be logical and you must do your job. Judge Yates has told you that. I'm reminding you of that.
I'm not talking at you about it. I'm just cautioning you because that's what justice is. Justice is have they done their job and proven Christian Bahena guilty. beyond a reasonable doubt. Have they proven that man, that young man there, is he a murderer? Have all the elements of murder in the first degree of that young man in the middle been proven?
Like I said, Maui Tibbets deserves justice, but so does Christian Bahena. He deserves justice, and your job is to find the truth, judge the facts, and do justice. Now let's set the stage. It's important that you know all the facts, okay? It's important that you understand where we were in July 2018. A lot of time has passed since July 2018. We've lived through a pandemic.
Some of us have lived through tornadoes, derechoes, just a lot of time has passed. But this case is much, much different than any case I would submit that you have ever heard. Within a couple days of Molly's disappearance, the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation is on scene. Agent Trent Villita is there. and the investigation begins.
Shortly thereafter, the Federal Bureau of Investigation is on scene. A number of local law enforcement agencies are on scene. In Brooklyn, Iowa, a town of 1,400 people, Homeland Security shows up in Brooklyn, Iowa, for a missing 20-year-old girl. Use your common sense. Use your experience. When's the last time something like that has happened? It was a circus in Brooklyn, Iowa.
Media was everywhere. You heard Agent Villa talk about the media that was there. You heard him talk about this reward that was just skyrocketing. That doesn't happen here in Iowa. Your experience tells you that. Your common sense tells you that. For a missing 20-year-old jogger, we didn't even know that she was dead yet. We didn't know she was picked up off Interstate 80 and abducted.
We didn't know anything about that. But like Agent Villita said, within five to seven days, he had the, quote, unlimited resources of the federal government with the FBI. Think about that. Think about that. That is unprecedented. Unprecedented. Now, why do I tell you that? I tell you that because I want to harken back to Mr. Claver's opening statement.
In his opening statement, he said that the DCI comes in town and they kick off an extensive investigation. He tells you the DCI is in town, the FBI is in town, Homeland Security is in town, and every lead came up empty after what he called exhaustive and intensive investigations. Four weeks, you heard they were canvassing, they were searching everywhere. You saw the map with all the red dots.
and they had nothing, okay? Imagine the pressure to close this case. Imagine the pressure to put this case to bed, because that's the context in which this arrest and this charge happened. Every lead, Mr. Claver said in his opening, came up empty. Absolutely right. Some of the investigation was sloppy, but it really got sloppy when Christian Bahena-Rivera got targeted because folks
What happened here was they closed a case. They didn't solve a case. To coin a phrase from Agent Villita, in his mind, Christian Bahena cleared Rod and Pexa. I would expand on that. In his mind, Christian Bahena closed the case. Good enough for them. Let's close the case, shut the book, get everybody out of here, and we're done. But they didn't solve the case.
They didn't get enough evidence to prove this case beyond a reasonable doubt. Mr. Claver, in his opening statement, also told you that they found a video of the Malibu. That was good police work. That was good police work. We're not going to suggest to you that Christian Bahena-Rivera's Malibu was on that video. That was him. He testified to that. You saw him on the stand.
Or that was him driving that car. We'll give you that. Absolutely was him. He said...
that miss tibbett's blood was in christian's malibu in the trunk that's true too we aren't going to dispute that at all he didn't mention to you that there was a mixture of blood in the trunk and they talked about christian's quote-unquote admissions or what mr brown called a confession which we wholeheartedly disagree with what is missing In this case, that's really what you got to look at.
What is missing? Because there's a lot missing in this case. We don't have a murder weapon. No murder weapon ever was discovered in this case. And it wasn't for lack of looking, at least as it pertains to Christian Bahena-Rivera. They found a folding knife at his trailer. They sent it into the DCI lab, tested it. No blood. No blood. They found another knife, black knife. Sent that in. No blood.
Nothing. However... Think way back to when Tara Scott talked about her initial crime scene analysis. Remember, she went to 622 West Des Moines Street. A couple days after Molly went missing, they sent the DCI crime scene team up, and they looked at the home at 622 West Des Moines Street. And they looked at it very, very closely. And what did she note?
She noted in the hallway there was a gun safe with a number of guns in it. But of particular note was a... loaded pistol, loaded pistol in a little cabinet hanging on the wall with several knives, hunting style knives. Some of them were folding knives. Bet you if they went and looked, they may have found them with a camouflage handle, but they didn't bother to look. Why?
Because they'd already made up their mind. We'll get to more of that later. What else don't they have? They don't have a primary crime scene. They don't have a primary crime scene. Where was Molly Tibbetts killed? Was she killed on 385th Street? Did someone stab her nine to 12 times?
Along the blacktop where she was jogging, someone stabbed her in the throat or do the slashing motion of the throat and stab her several times in the rib and then penetrate her skull on 385th Street where you heard about where all these houses are and the cars that were traveling out there and they talked to darn near, I would submit, everyone on 385th Street and they didn't find her.
One piece of evidence, not any blood. They had it narrowed down. We saw the map of the cell phone technology. They had a pretty small window as to where they'd find something. They send any type of canines out there to find blood. Oh, the weather was bad. I forgot. It was humid. It was hot. It had rained. I mean, they have an excuse for every piece of evidence they don't have.
But they don't have a primary crime scene. Or was she killed on the 460th Avenue address? Did someone take her 430 feet back in this location and kill her there? We don't know. What investigation did they do to find a primary crime scene next to the cornfield? Or was she killed right there in the cornfield? I highly doubt that. I highly doubt someone killed her right in the rows of corn
and there wasn't some other evidence there to establish that. We don't have a primary crime scene. Well, they'll pass it off and explain it away by, oh, it's been five weeks, the weather was bad, the corn was tall. You know, they'll find an excuse for everything. That's not Mr. Bahena's problem. That's their problem. They have to prove it, not him. Okay?
They had the unlimited resources of the federal government. They had drones up in the air. They brought a guy in from Dayton, Ohio for the sole purpose of analyzing the data from one cell phone. And that's the evidence they put on here. They had unlimited resources. Unlimited resources. Mr. Claver told you in the opening statement his sheriff was up flying around in a helicopter.
And they can't even tell you where she was killed. No evidence come off that stand as to where she was killed. None. No forensic evidence at all. They don't have an eyewitness. They have no witnesses. Zero. None. They talk about a confession. We're going to get to that in a little bit. But we dispute greatly that what they attribute to Christian Bahena as a statement...
can be characterized as a confession. Absolutely cannot be. Absolutely cannot be. Motive. Now motive, Mr. Brown talked about, but you really have to use your common sense here, folks. You really gotta think about this one. This man, this man, right here, five foot seven inch, 125 pound illegal immigrant, undocumented immigrant,
He gets angry at Molly Tibbetts, who he had never met before, who he was trying to get to know, if you believe that story, and resorts to killing her, stabbing her nine times, or maybe 12, three more times, because he's angry. The only evidence they have of his anger... is the story he gave Pamela Romero.
The evidence we do have about Christian Bahena is that he's not an angry man, that he's not violent, that he's a family man, he's hardworking. He came to this country for a reason, and you can bet he wanted to stay in this country. And the concept that he got angry and killed a woman who he had just met defies any logic. Folks, we've all been rejected in our lives. We've all...
perhaps have walked up to someone, had the courage to ask them on a date, or had the courage to try to get to know someone, and been told no. May have been told no in an epic way. Been embarrassed by that person. Common sense tells you that you aren't gonna just stab that person, let alone a person like Molly Tibbetts. It makes no sense. They have no motive as to why this man
would commit that act. And then they have no scientific evidence that connects him to the killing. They want to talk about the trunk. They want to talk about the cornfield. Both of which, we admit, having her in the trunk and putting her in the cornfield does not mean he killed her. Think about that. The burden of proof is on the state. to prove all that.
And that, folks, when you look at what's missing, is a reasonable doubt. What is a reasonable doubt? A reasonable doubt, long and short of it is, the judge will tell you that if after a fair and full consideration of all the evidence, or lack, lack of evidence, okay, if they don't produce the evidence, that's just like evidence you can consider. Lack of evidence. Produced by the state.
Mr. Bahena doesn't have to produce anything. He doesn't have to tell the state anything when he has the opportunity. He doesn't have to, when he's questioned, tell the state about these two masked men. It's not his obligation. It's their obligation to prove it. Don't let them shift anything. Don't let them oversimplify and make it sound like he has to do anything. Their burden.
You have to be firmly convinced of his guilt as to each and every element, all four, in order to convict him. If not, you must find him not guilty. Now what does firmly convinced mean? Good question. You're not going to find anywhere in those instructions where it's defined what firmly convinced means. You have to determine for yourself what that means.
I would suggest to you that in your deliberations, To be firmly convinced, you're going to need to know that Christian Bahena did this. You can't just think he did this. You must know that based upon the evidence that they have produced, that he killed Molly Tibbetts, that he committed this crime, and that the state has proven these elements. You best know. You best not think.
That's the difference between whether or not you're firmly convinced. Instruction 14 defines murder in the first degree. Element number two is that Molly Tibbets died as a result of being stabbed. We admit that. There's no doubt about that. Somebody stabbed her, and as a result of those stab wounds, she's dead. No problem. But the state has monumental issues with one, three, and four.
Monumental issues. We'll go through those. Element 1. What evidence has the state produced to prove Element 1? They have a drop of blood on the trunk seal. And look at that photo. The drop of blood is a centimeter. I mean, it's small. Okay? They have her DNA in the trunk and her body in the cornfield that Christian took them to. Okay? All facts that we don't dispute. He testified to that.
But what must you believe to establish element number one? You must believe the testimony of Pamela Romero. Okay? Now, Mr. Bahena told them enough to get them to the body. Okay? This was an 11-hour interrogation. 11 hours. Okay? After he had worked... a full day at the dairy. He works at the dairy. That's hard work.
And if you think it's a coincidence that they waited until the end of the work day to get this guy and bring him back and question him, you got another thing coming. So he worked since 4.30 in the morning. They get him. He voluntarily agrees to go speak. He's compliant. He's a yes man. He talks to Pamela Romero and other officers for 11 hours.
after working in a dairy, where he works, mind you, 12 hours a day plus, 12 out of every 14 days. He tells them enough to take him to the body. Why'd he do that? Very simple. He was protecting his own. He was protecting his daughter Iris, He was protecting the mother of Iris, or protecting his daughter, Paulina, and the mother, Iris. I'm sorry, I misspoke.
Now, this 11-hour interrogation was recorded. And you can see from the photographs, those are snapshots from the interview, that there were times where English speakers were in there, okay? Agent Valletta speaks English. You heard Kristen testify the guy standing up was yelling at him in English. Agent Valeta was calling him a liar at the point he's sitting here.
Yet, you didn't get the benefit of seeing any of the interview and judging for yourself the credibility Christian Bahena's statement or the authenticity of that interview. Think about that. This case had the unlimited resources of the federal government there. FBI right there. DCI right there. These guys are the best of the best that we have. These guys know how to interview.
They've handled homicide case after homicide case after homicide case. They've interviewed people over and over and over again. And they send in Pamela Romero, a cop who had a total of about two and a half years experience, whose law enforcement training was only the academy, and 16 hours. 16 hours. of interrogation and interviewing training. Folks, you spent 12 in jury selection.
Christian Bahena spent 12 hours working that day. They sent the most inexperienced officer they could into a marathon interrogation with a suspect in a homicide case that had more attention than they've ever known because she was a quote unquote native speaker. Now, why on earth would they not send in one of those agents who really knew how to interview and interrogate, and let Ms.
Romero do the translation. She was fluent, which by the way, her saying she's fluent in Spanish is like one of us saying we're from Iowa, therefore we're fluent in English. There's a lot of people who speak English that aren't fluent, folks. That's just the way it is. Just because you grow up here doesn't mean you're fluent.
We can speak the language, but I would submit you wouldn't be the best at translating. You wouldn't be the best at interpreting. Agent Valletta wanted to sit behind the curtain and control the interview. But the problem is, when they come here to the courtroom and want to produce evidence, they can't because now it's all in Spanish. So now the state can sit at the table
and sit behind the curtain and produce the evidence by having Ms. Romero testify. And you folks can't judge the evidence. If that evidence in that interview had been with someone who was an English speaker, that evidence would have been played. No doubt about it. No doubt about it. But since it's in Spanish, we only get to hear bits and pieces from what Ms. Romero said.
And you're told to rely upon that as a confession. Folks, that's a problem. That's sloppy. And note, when the supposed confed came. Remember, he was in that room for several hours. I think they took him in three, four o'clock, maybe five, doesn't really matter. But what were they insistent on saying? What were they insistent on saying? We're not from immigration. We're not from immigration.
We're not from immigration, right? Because they know that that's the one thing that a Mexican national, an undocumented worker, fears most. And they wanted to put him at ease, and hopefully he would open up, and he didn't. He kept denying, denying, denying, because he knew that there were problems if he came forward. Iris was in danger, Paulina was in danger. So what did they do?
At 11, 11.30 p.m., they called immigration. When he didn't give them what they wanted, they called immigration. And they put that detainer on him so he couldn't go anywhere. They didn't get what they wanted, so they put the hold on him. So they weren't there for immigration until they were, until he didn't get what they wanted, until he didn't tell them what they wanted.
That's 11, 1130 at night, so now he can't go anywhere. And yet they continue. They continue at him. And you saw pictures. He falls asleep. They wear him down. They wear him down. You heard Christian say that they said things to him. Pamela Romero said things to him. Help yourself. Help yourself. She was the good cop. She was the nice lady. Help yourself, Christian. Help yourself, Christian.
Maybe there was something wrong with you, suggesting the blackout. This all makes perfect sense. He wanted them out of their hair. And when finally she says, Christian, think about the family. Think about if you were the parent of that little girl. That's when he relents and tells them just enough to take him to the body and gives them this blackout story. Gives them the story about being angry.
That's been spoon-fed to him. Now the bad cops are in the room too. Classic good cop, bad cop. I mean, this is straight off TV. Angel Valetta, right in this space. What is he, a foot and a half? You're a liar. You're a liar. You're a liar. The tall skinny guy in the back is yelling at him using words that Christian can't understand. You can assume what those words are.
I'm sure they're curse words. But, again, they had the full resources of the federal government and they couldn't give you any basis to know what's been said there because it was in Spanish. You have to believe Pamela Romero. And you saw her up here. Her answers were evasive. She was non-responsive in many of her answers. She was obviously biased in her answers.
She couldn't just say yes or no to an answer. She had to try to explain herself and take it in a different direction. She wants to get back into law enforcement, even though she's out of law enforcement. She had never done a homicide interview in her career, ever. What a colossal blunder. What a colossal blunder. They had the ability to videotape it.
They had the ability to let you hear it if they chose to use someone who spoke English and translated it, and they didn't do it. They didn't do it. Element three and element four you'll find in instructions 17 and 18. And those are malice, forethought and malice, and premeditation.
Now, I'm going to just kind of veer off just for a second, but let's assume for a minute that you do buy into what Mr. Brown's selling. If you take Mr. Bahena's story, the first one he told police, that version of the events, that he got angry and just started stabbing Mr. Tibbetts, There's absolutely no evidence of premeditation. Did he think or ponder upon a matter before acting? Absolutely not.
Absolutely not. Not a speck of evidence of premeditation which is required for murder in the first degree. Did he deliberate? Did he weigh in one's mind? Did he consider? Did he contemplate or reflect? Absolutely not. That's even if you buy the state's theory. Malice aforethought, a fixed purpose or design to do some physical harm to another, which exists before the act is committed.
Again, even if you buy what they're selling, they can't prove malice and they can't prove premeditation. That would take you to murder second degree. and maybe voluntary manslaughter. You folks are smart, you folks are bright. I'm not going to take you through those. Instruction number six is you are to decide the facts from the evidence. And again, this goes back to jury selection.
And Mr. Brown asked many of you if you would hold it against him if he didn't have video evidence, if he didn't have video of the crime. And of course there's not video of the crime. Very few places in the country have video surveillance all over the place.
But you should hold against him and hold against the state those times where they had the ability to video things, record things, and not produce it. Absolutely should. Because that's the true way for you to judge the facts. Mr. Brown talked earlier about the unbiased digital evidence of Kevin Horn.
What about the ability to have video evidence that is unbiased and able for you to analyze yourself? And again, I have to come back to Agent Villada and his statement. We had the unlimited resources of the federal government, the FBI, who investigate major federal crimes. Homeland Security, they investigate terrorists. They had drones up in the air.
They had guys from Dayton, Ohio doing these fancy calculations on cell phone towers. Which, by the way, they did one cell phone tower. They provided you evidence of one cell phone tower, Molly Tibbetts. What about his cell phone tower? Most importantly, what about Dalton Jack? Victimology. Victimology. Remember that statement? Let's get to know people who are closest to Molly Tibbetts.
Let's learn her patterns, her habits, what we're doing, what she does, who she associates with, victimology. Where are Dalton Jack's phone records? If he was in Dubuque, he had a cell phone. Where are the tower records? No, let's bring in his boss, who's going to come in and testify for him. Where's the unbiased, non-biased records?
You saw some records with Dalton Jack because I was trying to cross-examine them with him. You saw how that went. You saw the fight with those. We tried to talk about his text messages between him and Jordan Lamb, between him and Molly Tibbetts. We talked about his affairs.
Why on earth would you not just put up Dalton Jack's phone records if he truly was in Dubuque, if he truly worked until 7 p.m.? Why not? Unbiased communication. Digital evidence that we couldn't refute if it truly was there. Unlimited resources of the federal government. You don't think this Kevin Horan couldn't have done that? Why didn't they not produce that for you?
You can infer from their lack of producing that evidence that it was damaging to them. And you should. Why not? You heard the testimony of that man, and we'll get to it in a little bit. But they could have, and they chose not to. They could have, and they chose not to. These things are everywhere. These things are the television of the 21st century. Your cell phone, your smart phone.
It's unbelievable. You all know it. You sit around your house and you talk about recipes. You talk about buying a new boat. You talk about buying a gift for someone and next thing you know you're on your smartphone looking up the internet and there's something pops up that you talked about. It's scary. You can order something off Amazon. You can go to Hy-Vee.com.
You can go to Walmart.com and you can know that the item you purchased is off the shelf or the item's been shipped and you can track it in real time. You can know where it is, anywhere in this country, like that, okay? But the state cannot produce for you a video of Christian Bahena from the sheriff's office to Molly Tibbetts' body.
You would think that this man says, I'll take you there, I'll take you there, right? That good policing, that all these years of experience, the best that the state of Iowa has with special agents, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Division of Homeland Security are here. They're all carrying these at least and he gets out of the car supposedly.
I'm sure it's a patrol car that has at least a, you know, a recording camera on it for when someone gets pulled over or something that they don't at least take a moment to record him going to the edge of the corn and pointing out the body so you can view for yourself what he's doing? They don't have that. Why not? Let me tell you why not.
Because they had nothing for four weeks and they were excited and they cut corners and they rushed to judgment. That's exactly why. They wanted to close this case and they wanted to close this case now. Just like when out at the scene they had Christian in a car,
And again, if you want to believe his confession, which is now at, what is it, 6 o'clock the next morning after he was taken from his workplace, and he said, supposedly, according to Pamela Romero, I brought you here, didn't I? Question mark. That must mean I did it. Question mark.
Mr. Brown can say, can fight me on the punctuation, can fight me on whether or not it was one of those things where he's throwing his hands up saying, I brought you here, didn't I? or whether he said, I brought you here, didn't I? You know, sarcasm, vocal inflection, context, all that stuff matters when you are talking to someone.
You can't just say that, well, Pamela Romero said, he said, I brought you here, didn't I? After 24 hours of being awake, they didn't have a recording to show you, didn't have, after they have the body now, okay, they have the body, they have Molly's body, At that point, at least, you'd think there's time out.
Let's get somebody on this case now who really knows what they're doing and do a proper interview. And let's translate it. Let's get the case agent, Valletta, on this and do a proper interview because we want to wrap this up tight. But yet, they didn't do it. They wanted to just close the book. The state seems to want you to just take their word for it. Take Pamela Romero's word for it.
Therefore, he's guilty. You've got to believe everything she said. You've got to believe that statement he made was absolutely credible without any corroboration whatsoever to what she said. This is a murder case. A murder case of Molly Tibbetts. Put it in context. What was going on there? Who was all there? Why did they cut the corners that they cut? Remember this instruction.
We start talking about what witnesses you can believe. inconsistent statements, their appearance, their conduct, what interest they have in the trial, what's their memory. That tells you who you can believe and who you can't believe. You saw Christian Bahena's testimony. He sat there yesterday and he gave you his version of the events. Mr. Brown suggests that those versions of the events were
as a result of knowing what the evidence was and having time to rehearse them. And he says it makes no sense. It makes every bit as much sense as the state's theory that an undocumented immigrant runs up alongside Molly Tibbetts on a highway in broad daylight, gets angry, and decides to stab her. Absolutely does. Let's talk about the video evidence, and here there's a mistake here.
The jogger was not seen at 8.07. She was seen at 7.45, okay? So 7.45, she's running north. I think it's on Boundary Street in the intersection of East Des Moines Street. The Malibu went by heading east out of town or east by Logan Collins' house at 8.07 p.m. Agent Reeson said it was three minutes off on his cell phone, so it's about 8, 10 p.m. Horan's testimony is that Ms.
Tibbetts would have been traveling south and east at 8, 20 p.m. So... I'm going to object. That's not the evidence.
Well, Mr. Freeze has pointed out that there is something inaccurate on there. Talking about... Well, can we approach?
I'm sorry.
Yeah. Go ahead and continue, Mr. Freeze.
The video evidence, you have to put together a time frame, and you have to ask yourself if this crime could have been committed by 5'7", 125-pound Christian Bahena. In that short time frame, could he have overpowered this woman? Could he have stabbed her nine times, tossed her in the trunk, and then headed south? That makes no sense. Let's look at the facts and apply your common sense.
Christian Bahena works 12 hours a day. 12 out of every 14 days. He averages 75 hours a week. 75 hours a week. The other days, the other two days out of every two weeks, he sees his kid. He has a date the next day. You heard his aunt talk about that. You really want to believe that Christian Bahena, the man you saw on the stand,
Yesterday, the undocumented immigrant who has spent years working in this country, working hard to remain undetected, going to town only when necessary, working under an Anglo name, John Budd, having no history of law enforcement contact, no history of violence, is brazen enough to pick up a woman, abduct her and maybe kill her, in a span of 10 to 20 minutes. Folks, this was planned.
Not by him, by someone else. Let's talk about the DNA evidence. DNA evidence is not helpful to the state. Absolutely not. Now understand the DNA evidence is we expect Mr. Bahena's DNA to be in his trunk, right? We would expect that, especially if he was involved with killing Molly Tibbetts. Have they presented you any of Mr. Bahena's DNA from that trunk? No. Not one speck. We expect... Ms.
Tibbetts' DNA to be an honored person. Only Ms. Tibbetts and Christian's DNA was submitted to the lab. Now, what the problem is with the DNA is exactly what the reports tell us and then as explained by Dr. Spence. And that is, first of all, remember the testimony was that the investigators and the lab didn't test the trunk liners until a year later at Mr. Brown's request.
So investigators didn't deem it even relevant to try to find someone else's blood, Molly's blood, inside the trunk. They had it on the trunk liner, on the gasket, that little piece of blood you saw, but not to see if she was actually, her DNA was in the trunk. We're glad that Mr. Brown asked for that because it gave us some very compelling findings. Okay?
Now, the DNA that was found on the trunk liner, okay, there's Item 59-3, and that's a really small, less than a dime-sized cutting that Tara Scott took, okay, small. It had 10 accounted-for alleles, those little identifying markers that Dr. Spence talked about, that were not from Christian Bahena or Ms. Tibbetts. They came from an unknown male beyond the major presence of Ms.
Tibbetts, so an unknown male was there, and we know that from Ms. Scott herself, it was a mixture of three people. Three people. And what's important is Ms. Tibbetts' DNA is on that very small spot mixed in with three people, okay? Right there in that very small spot. Item 60.1, there were 14 unaccounted for alleles, not Ms. Tibbetts and not Christian. 61.1, five unaccounted for alleles.
Can't tell if it's male or female. Basically what it tells us is there's other people's DNA in that trunk mixed with Molly Tibbetts in those very small portions. Not somewhere else in the trunk, but right where Molly Tibbetts' body was, in the exact spot. Why is that important? Because we have no other DNA to exclude anyone, folks. Again, victimology.
Why on earth would you not take Dalton Jack's DNA? Remember that? Crime scene team come into 622 West Des Moines Street, they take a Dr. Pepper can, they take an Arizona tea can, and they swab everybody in Molly's family for DNA. Of course Molly's DNA is gonna be on that can. Why were they even in that bedroom? They were thinking that maybe she was in that bedroom with someone else.
They wanted to get her DNA. Of course her DNA was going to be on that can. Why would they need to know that? Was she going to abduct herself? They were in that room to see if someone else was in that room, yet they did nothing to get DNA to exclude people. That's the funny thing about DNA. It doesn't need to point the finger at anyone, but it can exclude people.
Would that DNA have excluded Dalton Jack maybe? Maybe, but we don't know. Because we cut that corner. We just wrote him off right away. July 25th, the testimony was that he was cleared. But then on July 27th, they interviewed him again, and he admitted that he lied. He had withheld information. And he told you here on the stand, he didn't deem that him having an affair on Molly was pertinent.
He didn't think it was relevant to the case. Well, the agent sure did. That's why he was called back to talk about it. But they didn't test anybody's DNA other than Christian and the Tibbetts family and all the Hispanics at Yarrabee Farms. They did a canvass of the entire town and didn't test anyone else's DNA. No one else's. Why would you not do that? So you can at least exclude people.
They had the resources of the federal government there, folks. DNA is an exclusion tool. It acts like a funnel. It helps us figure out who couldn't do it as well. Also recall that there were no fingerprints in that trunk. Christian Bahena's fingerprints were excluded from being in that trunk. Someone else's fingerprints were in that trunk.
And in fact, the fingerprint cards that they were sent in were done so sloppily that they couldn't compare the other fingerprints against it. And they didn't ask to do any more. Remember, Tara Scott's report and a Young's report were uploaded and made available to Agent Vilda. He had him right there at his disposal. He could have done more investigation anytime he wanted. He didn't. He didn't.
They didn't get you any more digital evidence. They didn't get you any video. They didn't get you any DNA, any more fingerprints. They just say, believe us. I mean, and the testimony yesterday. You know, the DCI agents on there after the FBI says, hey, go get some of this blood from 2384 460th Avenue, a mile from where Molly is found. And they get it, and they don't test that either.
Even though the FBI says do it, Agent Villida doesn't do that. And that was days and days and weeks before Molly was found. Don't do that either. That brings us to Dalton Jack. Ask yourself this question. Why did the state even call Dalton Jack as a witness? Think about that. What do you have to add? He wasn't in town during the abduction. He didn't know who committed any of the elements.
He wasn't here. That's what they're saying. He was in Dubuque. He had nothing to add. He wasn't a witness. Why? What did he know, really? They knew he was a problem. They knew from the jump that this guy was a problem. That's why they investigated him and questioned him after they cleared him. That's why they called his boss today, because they heard his testimony. Remember that jury instruction.
Whether a witness has made inconsistent statements. Remember Mr. Jack didn't even want to be here. Didn't want to be here for the love of his life to make sure she had justice. What kind of person is that? Well, it's the same kind of person that would have an affair on the love of his life while he was planning on getting engaged to her.
It's the same kind of person that would portray their relationship as rosy to the public while it's rocky and private. It's the same kind of person who was losing control of Molly. She was going to fly. She was outgrowing this man. He was angry. He has a history of being a fighter, and they knew he was a problem. All Dalton Jack had to add was his testimony that he did not do this.
And his alibi that the state gave you was his inconsistent statements. No video cameras from the hotel. Not a single receipt that shows that he was at Walmart or got gas or went to the gas station. They got any beer. Nothing, no time cards, cell phone towers, we talked about those. We know where Ms. Tibbetts was, but we don't know where Dalton was, easily found.
Ulysses Felix, you heard that name come up a number of times. Ulysses Felix knew both Mr. Bahena and he knew Dalton Jack, Iris Gamboa's cousin. He knew Miss Tibbetts. He knew the defendant and bid to his house over at night. That's the connection. Ulysses Felix is the same one who moved in with the Tibbetts family after his parents took off. That's how people knew where to find this guy.
We don't dispute Kevin Horn's testimony, not at all. We just want to know why it wasn't done for Dalton Jack. This, we think, is a big point. Dalton Jack texts Ms. Tibbus at 8.18 p.m., says, my dad, a straight-up won't work. We think at 8.28 p.m., within 10 minutes, Ms. Tibbus is in the trunk and driving at a high speed away from Brooklyn.
Within 10 minutes, within 10 minutes of her being abducted, with her being killed. He mysteriously sends a text that says, my data straight up won't work. It won't work. And 10 minutes later, she's in a trunk going at a high rate of speed away from Brooklyn, Iowa. Where was that text sent from? Where's the tower information on that? That's a suspicious text if I've ever seen one, folks.
It sounds like someone trying to cover his tracks. But believe his boss. Don't believe unbiased evidence. Remember his testimony that Jack still can't figure out what he was doing that night. We asked him, do you recall telling the agents that you showered that night and washed brush hour one in your room? He said, I'm sorry, Jack. I'm going to object. This transcript is not evidence.
Sustained, Mr. Freese. Well, we asked him, did you have anger problems? He answered, I did in high school. Do you like to fight? He said, yes. We asked him, do you recall telling agents on July 18th you were in your room showering and watching Rush Hour One? He said, is that the night of the 18th? He said, question, yes. He said, yes, I do.
But then he come to court and said your testimony today is you were outside drinking beers with the boys. Answer, yes. Question I asked him, so you told the officers on the 27th of July a different story, right? I suppose so. This guy gave different story after different story. I asked him, who's that woman you had an affair with? Her name was Jordan Lamb.
What'd you tell the officers the reason you withheld that information? I didn't deem it necessary. I didn't think it was pertinent to the case. I went on to ask him, you didn't want Molly moving in with friends. You wanted her moving in with you. I was upset that she went back on the plan that I had been going with for the last year and a half after that. You were angry, I asked.
He said, correct. Finally, when I asked him about his temper, I said, it was short-fused, wasn't it, Mr. Jack? And he said, yes. Liked the fight? Yes. Ron Pexa. What do we do with Ron Pexa? Ron Pexa's address is 2410 460th Avenue, less than a half a mile where the body was found. His property is adjacent to the property where Molly was discovered. Jamie Slife came in.
and told her truth about who this man was. You needed to hear what she had to say because law enforcement would not. She called in the tip line, called the sheriff directly, no one would listen to her. Now did Ron Pexa have anything to do with the demise of Molly Tibbetts? We don't know. But what we do know is that no one investigated him. There were separate tips.
Someone called in, called him a maniac. Someone said he had a torture room. That didn't come from Jamie's life. But what Trent Villa to do with that? You know, we would walk around and we talked to him a little bit. Didn't document it in a report. Didn't document it in video or audio recording. It's because he was taking care of his own. Ron Pexa is a cop.
Christian Bahena, in his statement, was taking care of his own. He was protecting his daughter and his daughter's mother. But let's talk about 460th Avenue. 460th Avenue, I would submit to you, was not just some random place. Ron Peck's house is on there. Now whether or not he had anything to do with it, we don't know.
What we do know is that people were calling him with tips that he was some sort of sexual deviant. It was known. What we also know is that officers met with Darien Davis, who was mowing that cemetery on 460th Street. We know that Darien Davis associates with Jackson Eichhorn.
The testimony was that Jackson Eichhorn was in the cemetery in Brooklyn, and one of his stories was he was helping Darien Davis mow at the time Molly Tibbets was jogging that night. Ironic. that this guy happens to be mowing two different cemeteries, both where Molly Tibbets is associated? I don't think so.
I'm not saying Mr. Davis has anything to do with it, but people knew those two cemeteries were connected. 460th Avenue is not a coincidence. The 2384, again, less than a mile from where Molly was found, four buckle swabs just on the other side. of Ron Peck's house were taken by Agent Bublitz at the FBI direction and never tested.
The route taken by Christian Bahena after Molly was abducted was straight down 200th Street, hard left, and then down through this 430-foot driveway and through long grass to this cornfield. This man had no idea where he was going. That route was direct. Five or six miles south, two and a half miles east, then 110 yards in. That is not coincidence. He would have no idea where this was.
He was directed to go there. We think Kristen's confession, or his statement, wasn't accurate. It was false. You see here, he fell asleep three different times. Once more, he's getting pressed. False sleep again. getting pressed after hours and hours. It was an 11-hour interrogation. He was isolated from his family. He was driven to the sheriff's office and not allowed to bring his own vehicle.
Police indicated that confessing might lead to a more lenient sentence. Help yourself, Christian. Police firmly stated... I didn't object.
That's not the evidence. I don't believe there's been anybody testifying to that. The client did, Your Honor. Overruled. Go ahead. Proceed, Mr. Chris.
Our client said very clearly... that they said, help yourself. Police firmly stated that the evidence against Christian was overwhelming, therefore resistance was futile. He was deliberately picked up at the end of the day and deliberately interrogated during the time where he would have been sleeping. They lied to him. They employed trickery or dishonesty.
They said, we're not here from immigration, and they called immigration. They suggested psychological excuses for the offense. That's where the blackout comes. They took steps to enhance their authority while interrogating the suspect. That's where Trent Valetta gets right in his face. They put three people in his space.
They made Christian think that one or more interrogators were Christian's friends and were trying to help him or her. Or him in this case. Character evidence. You heard a lot of people talking about Christian Bahena. His cousin, Wadi Makar, he paid it on time. First of the month. People said he was not a violent person. This would not be like him. He didn't want to be detected.
He just wanted to take care of his family, take care of his daughter, work hard. This makes no sense. Every one of those people who testified were credible, they were believable, and buttressed everything this man said in his credible testimony. If the evidence of such good character as the non-violence is good enough,
together with all the other evidence to raise a reasonable doubt as to his guilt, he must be acquitted. If these people's testimony is that believable, and I submit it is, you must acquit him when you couple that with their lack of evidence. Folks, that's the verdict form you're going to get. The judge has instructed you on how to deliberate and what your verdict must be.
We submit it should be not guilty. So remember, That man right there is the one you have to judge. That man. The father, the son, the man who come here to make a better life for those around him. He's not a monster. You saw him testify. You saw him credibly testify. This case was closed. This case is police logic 101, okay? Police logic 101 is opposite of the analysis that you have to do
The analysis you have to do is you take all the evidence that you've heard and you boil it down and you determine if that evidence produces guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. That's not what the police did. What the police did is they had four weeks of nothing and then they picked this man.
And who better to pick than an undocumented immigrant who doesn't speak the language, who has nobody here to speak of, to help him out. And then you cherry pick the facts that fit your theory and you close the case. Case closed, but the case is not solved. Folks, there is serious doubt in this case. Serious doubt.
Christian Bahena Rivera has not had the case against him proven beyond a reasonable doubt. And the only verdict that you can come up with under these facts, and what you heard right there is not guilty. Thank you.
Mr. Brown, on behalf of the state of Iowa, you may give your rebuttal. Can we approach, please? Yes. You may proceed.
I know we're into the lunch hour, so I'm not going to try to take a lot of time, but there are a few things I have to touch on that relates to issues that were raised here by Mr. Freeze in his closing. So the first thing I want to do is talk about an investigation. There was an allegation here that there was a pressure to close the case.
The officers that worked this case, Agent Valletta, other agents from the DCI that worked it, worked this case, worked every angle, worked every lead. There's pressure to close any case whenever they have somebody, particularly like Molly Tibbetts or any other person who's been the victim of a violent crime. But the pressure to close the case doesn't mean they go out and create their own evidence.
If that were true, why wouldn't they just go ahead and do that right at the beginning? Go point the finger at somebody else. Do something. Create something. Plant something. That's not what they did. They go and chase the leads. They look at Molly's inner circle. They look at Dalton. They look at people who know her. They search 622 West Des Moines.
They're looking for signs of violence, signs of breaking and entering, things of that nature. They don't find it. They're trying to shake this tree as hard as they can to see if there's any leads that fall, and there's not. Until when? Until they get the video. That's the lead that breaks this case. They follow it. They find the defendant. They bring him in. He makes the admissions he makes.
The blood is in the trunk. What are the officers supposed to do? Start looking at Ron Pexa? Start going out and just checking other people to see if maybe, you know, they had something to say about it? I mean, come on.
The officers in this case, the agents in this case, the deputy sheriffs, the FBI agents, all the people who were involved followed the evidence, and that's what we're asking you to do. The defendant was not targeted. That's a word that Mr. Freeze used. The defendant here was not targeted, all right? The evidence led officers to him. The video evidence led officers to Christian Bahena-Rivera.
They didn't target him. He targeted himself. by becoming involved in this. No knife. I think he's mentioning this from 622 West Des Moines in the weapons. It's not a crime scene. And by the way, there's no evidence that Blake Jack or Dalton Jack are involved. Goodness, they ran Dalton Jack to the ground in this case. They interviewed him multiple times. They looked at him, right?
They found out what his history was, that he'd had this brief fling with another girl named Jordan. And by the way, when you're 18 years old, it's not like he's, I've been married 32 years and I got three kids, okay? That'd be a lot different, let me tell you, okay? But he's a kid, right? What do you do if you're not getting along with your girlfriend? You break up with her, right?
You don't take her out in the country and stab her to death. Does that make sense to you? Goodness. The primary crime scene, we don't know. Well, guess who had control of that? This guy. All right, who's got control of the Malibu for almost four-plus weeks? The defendant, right? He's got control of Molly Tibbetts. He controls where she went. He controls where her body got dumped.
He controls what the physical evidence is in his trunk. He does. The reason why we don't have whatever a primary crime scene is, is because of the defendant. You have to factor that in. Motive.
not angry are you serious he told us he was angry the words came from his mouth the defendant is a yes man not yesterday he wasn't he gave you a whole new story mr freeze touched on that about iris gamboa about his daughter about all of those things we'll talk about that here in just a second He's not a yes man yesterday. That's for sure. So tell law enforcement then about these other two men.
Right? So you're in a place where you can be protected. So tell them. I mean, you have multiple officers at the Poweshiek County Sheriff's Office. You're probably one of the most secure places in the county. You know, he's there with law enforcement. He could ask for help. All he has to say is, okay, listen, guys, I know, I think I know what happened.
There's these other two guys, these other masked men that are covered that were in my house, right? I don't really know who they are. I'm scared for my daughter. I'm scared for Iris. Can you please help me? If you help me, if you get them here, I'll tell you what I know. But he didn't do that. You know why? Because it didn't happen. Why use Pamela Romero?
Let me tell you what the flip side of this would be. So let's say officers went in, like the picture that you saw, with Agent Valletta and the FBI agent. Neither speaks Spanish. Or we have somebody else. There was a mention of Jeff Fink, who was an officer from Iowa City who's not a native speaker. So let's say we try, you know, Officer Romero, you're just not experienced enough, okay?
By the way, you saw her testify. She's impressive. young woman, right? I mean, she did a phenomenal job in recounting what the defendant said. The whole interview is in Spanish, but why not take advantage of a native speaker? Why not do that? Then we have a clean conversation. It's not going through an interpreter. You know, there's none of that. You have it.
And she can then come out and say, this is what he said. That's why we didn't show you the video. It's in Spanish. Doesn't that make sense? If we had used Officer Fink or if we had used Agent Valletta, then it would be, oh, hey, wait a second. Didn't they have a native speaker right there? Why not use Officer Romero? We know she's not experienced, but why not use her? The flip would just be true.
But the officers chose to use the native speaker that knew Spanish, that was her first language, so she could understand what the defendant was was telling her and relay that to investigators. You know, he wasn't so worn down that he couldn't lead them to Molly Tibbetts. That's true. Yeah, he does. They give him rest, by the way.
I think Officer Romero talks about nine times that they took breaks during the day. So it's not like an 11-hour interview where he's got somebody in his grill the whole night. I mean, he's sitting there at a table. He does get a chance to take a break. He gets a chance to eat. They're good to him in that sense.
They are asking him hard questions, which I would hope officers would do under these circumstances. Dalton Jack, listen, Dalton Jack was in Dubuque, okay? He was working there actually the day before. I think he was in Iowa County working. That's what his boss said this morning. But Dalton Jack is in Dubuque. You know, phone records, people put in there.
By the way, if he's off at 7, right, how's he going to get back?
to do anything and he's going to have to what take Christian Rivera's car if somebody has no idea and what go and chase down Molly where he doesn't know where she is and what he's going to teleport himself back here in you know less than an hour I mean it's over a two-hour drive from where he was working to here plus he had no reason no reason if the defendant's DNA is in his trunk the response is of course it is
If we would have found Christian Rivera's DNA in the trunk, of course it is. It's his car. It's a push. It's like the fingerprints that they talked about a little bit later. People can touch things and fingerprints can be there. It was on items that were in the trunk. The fingerprint expert doesn't know where they come from, doesn't know how they got there.
They're not associated other than being in the trunk. They could also be Molly Tibbetts', by the way. Remember, hers are so destroyed that because she was decomposed. And then, so it means nothing. All these things that Mr. Freeze brings up have to matter, right?
He's poking holes, punching at our case, telling you these things, but whenever you sit back there, if you evaluate them, they have to matter. Ron Pexa is 6'7". He doesn't describe the men in his house that tall. Totally inconsistent with that. Ulysses Felix, where is he?
There's no evidence that he's associated with Ron Pex or Dalton Jack or anybody else that they're throwing stones at over here with regard to who may be involved. There is no false confession, for goodness sakes. If the defendant falsely confesses, how does he take them to Molly Tibbetts? He knows where she's at.
It's the one piece of evidence in this case, the one circumstance that completely cuts that argument down to the ground. So motive. There was another motive here, a sexual one that we know about, that we can look at. This is the document that shows the crime scene diagram. Molly Tibbetts' body, if you recall, her legs were spread apart and her knees were up.
and her underwear and her shorts were off. They were in a different spot. Her jogging bra is pushed up around her neck, all right? The defendant says, that he left her with her clothes on. That is clearly not true. The defendant says, before we get to that, he also says in his interview that she is hot or attractive.
The way that it was interpreted by Romero was that Molly Tibbetts, that he said that she was hot. That's why he was encountering her because he found her attractive. That's why he chased her down. That's why he stopped on the road, right? He saw a pretty girl and it drew his attention.
Molly is found with no shorts or underwear, her jogging bra like I said is pushed up around her neck and her legs are spread apart. That would all suggest a sexual motive here. Guess who does not have a sexual motive? Dalton Jack or anyone else that's been raised here by the defense. The defendant
wanted to encounter Molly Tibbetts by his own admission because he said that she was hot or attractive. And we have physical evidence at the scene that would suggest that there is also a sexual motive here that corroborates the defendant's involvement. She was found in that condition under the corn stalks and he testified that she was clothed.
He kept, that's what he said, but we know that's not true. Look at the corn stalks. They're not disturbed. Look at it. There they are. The corn stalks don't appear to have been disturbed. The testimony, his testimony cannot be true based upon the evidence near Molly.
Which means the sexual motive is there, that her clothes were off, that he took them off, that he was there by his own admission, and we have physical evidence at the scene of the clothes being off and the corn stalks not being disturbed. It all provides another reason, which excludes other people. So why consider it Again, I've mentioned this already. Why consider a sexual motive here?
That's another circumstance that removes Dalton Jack, who they pointed the finger at repeatedly in this case, or anyone associated with him. It also excludes the two phantom men story. By the defendant's own admission, there was no sexual motive there. There was no evidence of that. So these two phantom men that show up at his apartment that he can't identify, Exclude it, right?
I mean, it supports it. It supports the sexual motive. These guys didn't have that. Dalton Jack didn't have that. It's consistent with the defendant's statement to Pamela Romero that he found her attractive, that he had found her hot. That's why he encountered her on the roadside. All right, the defendant's testimony here is unbelievable.
Mr. Freeze has touched on some of this with regard to Iris Gamboa, to the daughter. Let's look at that. Why would he create a new story? Okay, why would he do that? He had the opportunity, by the way, to sit here in this case, to view the evidence, to think about the evidence. He knows DNA puts him or puts Molly in the trunk of his vehicle. He now knows that.
He did not know that at the time of the interview with Pamela Romero. He now knows multiple videos place him near Molly within seconds of running through the area. whenever she was on boundary. We see his car within about 25 or 30 seconds after that. He knows after setting through all this evidence, he's under a pretty big rock, right? And he's got to come up with something else.
He's got to come up with a story to describe or explain away why he led the officers to the body, right? So what's he come up with? What's the context of this? He's now seen all the evidence against him. His statement with Romero ended with him charged with murder.
right he he tried to give them a story he told them what happened right which is probably is a lot closer to the truth but now he knows that got him charged he finds out later as mr freeze pointed out that the dna didn't come in until later that it is all that molly's blood is in the trunk he has had access to all the evidence in this case he's had had access to the video he knows his car puts him here there
So he knows all that. That's the context here that we're dealing with. The defendant's testimony that two men killed Molly is totally unsupported by any other evidence in the case. Totally. He says that the two men that showed up at his house or his trailer are covered head to toe. He can't ID them, right? He covers them completely. This is the middle of July, right?
And he says they're in sweaters and pants with stocking hats that cover their face. He can't identify them, right? Is that believable? The other thing that might identify these men is the vehicle that they were driving. He never puts them in a car. They just randomly select him out of thin air and they appear out of nowhere to select him as the person And then what?
They hang out at the trailer for a while. He's not real specific about that. And then not only do they appear out of nowhere, then they vanish into thin air once they get out to the field. and he can't identify them. It's simply not believable. These phantom men, think about this, leave the only eyewitness to a murder.
They are attacking Molly Tibbetts on the road, that's what he said to you, whenever he testified, and they stabbed her and they put her in the trunk. Why not kill him? Why not take him out? There's no connection between these two. They leave the only eyewitness with a vehicle, according to him. They leave these phantom men, leave him with a cell phone. That's what he said. Actually, two.
I think he says Molly's cell phone is in the trunk as well. So they just vanish out of thin air, walk away in a cornfield after killing this young woman, and they leave him with transportation and a cell phone. That makes no sense at all. Why would they do that? Why would they even involve him? Why not just take out Christian Bahena Rivera right there with Molly? They've got a gun.
They've got a knife. Take him out. Pile his body into the cornfield. Why not do that? Why do they need him in the first place? It makes no sense. He's not thinking about that. You know why it doesn't make sense? Because it's not true. It's not true. He conveniently threw us in the name Jack. Did you catch that yesterday, whenever he was testifying?
One of the guys, I think, is in the back seat, and one of the guys says, come on, Jack. So the one guy that they're pointing the finger at, the chief one, happens to have that last name, he throws that in. You've got to ask yourself if that makes any sense at all, or is he just trying to point the finger at Dalton Jack to say that's who it was that was there and that took Molly on the roadside.
They have spent parts of two days in this trial trying to identify Dalton Jack as the person with the motive and the opportunity to kill Molly. Dalton Jack is alibied, ladies and gentlemen. He did not do this. He didn't. He's working in Dubuque. So now his boss is going to come in here and make up records and not be truthful with you? For what? Why would he do that? Why?
I mean, Dalton Jack is alibi. He's working. He's working on a bridge. He got off at 7. He went back to the motel. He grew up with his co-workers. Dalton Jack is alibi. Dalton Jack did not do this. If other men...
killed molly which is what the defense has put on here what purpose would it serve then to include the following statements here we've already talked about this in my first close but what would it serve to include the following in these statements to the police that molly had rebuked him that molly had you didn't want anything to do with him that molly had threatened to call the police and that he was angry how does that fit in with the what he claims is the real narrative
that these two unknown men that were masked grabbed her and made him take her to the cornfield. It doesn't fit. There's no reason to offer it. He's trying to offer a reason to the officers. as to why that happened. These statements only fit with nobody else present and with what the evidence was whenever he testified first that there were not two other men in the car and that he acted alone.
There is no evidence here that he told Iris Gamboa anything about a threat. He testified here. The reason why he didn't tell the officers about the two men that came to his trailer that he can't identify is because They had threatened Iris, and they had threatened his daughter. Iris Gamboa testified. Did you hear any testimony from her? They just called by the defense.
Any testimony from her that, oh yeah, he told me? He told me what happened? He was fearful for my safety? He was fearful for our daughter's safety? He didn't say a word about it. There's no evidence in this case that he took any steps to protect his child or Iris. Iris never testified about a threat. So ask yourself, why? My suggestion is it didn't happen. There was no threat.
There were no two men. He's made these men up. He's trying to get out from underneath that very big rock. He had a chance in this case to tell the police about the two men. He chose not to do that, if you're taking any of his statements as true that he testified to yesterday. The sheriff's office is a well-protected place. He had a chance to tell the officers that.
He was even encouraged multiple times by Officer Romero. Is there more? Is there more? She keeps coming back to him. He has plenty of opportunity to do it and he chooses not to do that. Why did he choose not to do that? He claims to protect his daughter and his girlfriend who he had his daughter with. The best place to get that protection would be from the police and he didn't do it.
You know why he didn't do it? Because it did not happen that way.
that's what it proves all right these are the elements of murder in the first degree each of these elements has been proven beyond a reasonable doubt all of the evidence here points to one person and that is the defendant christian bahena rivera no one else had a reason to kill molly tibbets his reason is not a good one like i said before
When would it ever be a good idea or you would ever, ever have a good reason to kill somebody in this way? But that's what happened. And he told us that's what happened. He was angry. He was rejected. And he got angry at her and he killed her. That's what cost Molly Tibbetts her life. The video, the confession, and the physical evidence in this case tell the story. There should be no...
reasonable doubt in your mind. Looking at all this evidence, you must be firmly convinced. I would encourage you to use your common sense. Look at this case. Judge it with your backgrounds. Look at it. Evaluate it. We welcome that. Use your common sense whenever you look at this and at the end of the day, right, at the end of all of that, ask yourself, are you firmly convinced?
Are you firmly convinced that Christian Bahena-Rivera murdered Molly Tibbetts? The evidence in this case, there's a mountain of it. It is overwhelming. And it leads you to the only conclusion. You follow it, follow it down the path. All of the evidence in this case. Christian Bahena-Rivera took this young woman's life. This is Molly. He took her. He committed the murder. Why?
Why would this happen? Because he's angry? Because he wants to have some sort of relationship with her? Because he finds her hot or attractive? Goodness, that's what happened. Molly's no longer on this planet because of the defendant. All of the evidence here points to one verdict. The defendant, Christian Bahena-Rivera, is guilty of murder in the first degree.
That's what your verdict should be after your deliberations in this case. Christian Bahena-Rivera is guilty of the first degree murder of Molly Tibbetts. That is your verdict. Thank you.
At this time, Mr. Bahena, I'm going to ask that you rise along with your attorneys, please. And I would ask that the court attendant read the jury's verdict.
We, the jury, find the defendant, Christian Bahena Rivera, guilty of the crime of murder in the first degree.
Today is the date and time set for sentencing in this matter. Mr. Brown, do you know of any legal reason why we should not proceed to sentencing here today?
No, Your Honor.
Do either one of the freezes know any reason why we should not proceed to sentencing here today? No, Your Honor. Mr. Bahena-Rivera, let me ask you, do you know of any reason why we should not proceed with your sentencing here today?
No.
We'll begin then with the state regarding the matter of sentence and punishment. Mr. Brown, do you have anything you'd like to say and or victim impact statement?
Judge, it's my understanding that victim impact statement should come after allocution of the defendant. Is that correct? Sure. All right. As far as a recommendation on behalf of the state, I know the court is aware that this has been a very long haul in this case. It's been a little bit over three years since Molly
was found in august of 2018 and a little bit longer than that when her life was taken by the defendant the jury here convicted the defendant of the crime of murder in the first degree as the court is aware there is no discretion in sentencing mr bahana rivera is going to be sentenced to life without the possibility of parole
And I would tell the court that based upon the facts and circumstances of this case, it is very well deserved. The facts and circumstances in this case, as the court knows, you step through the trial, you know what the evidence is in this case, were overwhelming as it relates to the defendant.
And quite honestly, Judge, there's a victim impact statement from the mother of Molly Tibbets, Laura Calderwood. that if the court needs any further justification for why that sentence is warranted in the state of Iowa, should look no further than that victim impact statement that she provided to the court that will be read a little bit later.
So we would ask the court impose that mandatory sentence upon the defendant. We would also ask that you order an amount of $150,000 pursuant to Iowa Code Section 903b since this crime involved the death of Molly Tibbetts. and that the file is quite thick in this case.
I don't know if there's been other pecuniary damage statements that have been filed, but if there are, we would ask that you enter an order at that amount, and also if you can, leave it open an additional 30 days for us to finalize any other amounts that the court may order as it relates to any pecuniary damages that would be warranted pursuant to statute.
So with that, Judge, we would ask that you impose that sentence and, again, indicate to the court that we feel that it is very well justified. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Brown. Mr. Fries, on behalf of Mr. Bahena-Rivera, anything you wish to say at this time?
Your Honor, given the mandatory nature of the sentence, we have nothing to say.
Thank you. Mr. Bahena Rivera, you're not required to say anything to me, but I want to afford you the opportunity. Do you have anything you wish to say to me prior to my announcing what I'm going to do here today? No, thank you. With that then, we may proceed to the victim impact statement.
Judge, we have just one victim impact statement. It's from Laura Calderwood, who is the mother of Molly Tibbetts. It will be read by Sarah Arms, who is the victim witness coordinator in my office.
Mr. Rivera, I come here today not because I feel the need to address you. However, I come here to give a voice to our daughter, granddaughter, sister, girlfriend, niece, cousin, and friend, Molly Cecilia Tibbetts. Molly was a young woman who simply wanted to go for a quiet run on the evening of July 18th, And you chose to violently and statistically end that life.
I want to address the chain of events you set off on the morning of August 18th after you led authorities to Molly's remains in a cornfield. Do you know what it's like, Mr. Rivera, to be woken up by your youngest son, Scott, telling you the sheriff needs to talk to us?
scott and i stood in the entrance of our home where sheriffs tom creagle and matt mushman stood with tears in their eyes it took them a minute to find the words to say we hoped for a different results however we found molly's remains today i thanked them for their service and they left because there was still a lot of work to be done i led scott
whose eyes were brimming with tears to the living room and sat him down on the couch. Scott, I said, I am so sorry. I'm gonna call Aunt Billy over to the house to be with you because mom has a lot of work to do. Next, I needed to tell my son Jake. Jake was in his apartment in Iowa City and I did not want him to hear that his sister was not coming home on the news.
Knowing my sister Kim was headed to Iowa City for work, I called her and said, Kim, they found Molly's remains this morning and I need you to pick Jacob and bring him home. It was a race against the clock to notify all the people who cared so deeply for Molly that she was not coming home. It was very important to notify the people who cared deeply about Molly so they did not hear this on the news.
Imagine what it's like to call Molly's father, Rob, who resides in Fresno, California and say, Rob, I am so sorry to have to tell you this, but they found Molly's remains this morning and I need you to come back to Iowa. Can you imagine Mr. Riviera as a father having Paulina's mother taken away from you and to have to tell your daughter that she will never come home? However,
The most difficult person to tell was Molly's grandmother and my mother, Judy Calderwood. Judy truly believed her granddaughter would be found alive because who could harm such a beautiful, vibrant, young woman so full of life and promise? Who could harm Judy's precious granddaughter, let alone brutally murder her and dump her body in a cornfield?
This was heartbreaking news that needed to be delivered in person. I entered my mother's home and she greeted me with a big smile and asked if I wanted a cup of coffee. There certainly was no easy way to tell her the news. However, it had to be done before her phone started ringing with loved ones sending their condolences. I very quietly and softly said, mom, I have some bad news.
They found Molly's body this morning. But we know where she is now. Judy Calderwood's unwavering faith had been brutally shattered by your senseless act of violence. Can you imagine Mr. Rivera sitting across the table from your Madre and telling her Paulina is never coming home? I am aware that you know Ulysses Felix Sandoval and his family.
Yuli, as I call him, was a classmate and a friend of my son Scott. Do you know Yuli was at the press conference where authorities announced that you, Christian Bahena-Rivera, had been charged with the murder of Molly Tibbetts? Yuli immediately started crying, but knew that he needed to call his madre before she heard it on the news. The Felix-Sandoval family was devastated.
How could this young man they fed and fostered be responsible for such a heinous crime? Do you know, Mr. Rivera, that Yuli's parents had to leave Brooklyn because they were receiving death threats? Do you know Yuli lived in our home for his last year of high school so he could finish his senior year and play sports? However, Yuli's parents did not get to experience his senior year with him.
because of your senseless act. Because of your act, your then employer, Craig Lane, lost all his employees because those workers were afraid of what would happen to them. Because of your act, Dalton Jack will never get to give Molly the engagement ring he had purchased for her. Because of your act, Molly's father, Rob, will never get to walk his only daughter down the aisle.
Because of your act, Mr. Rivera, I will never get to see my daughter become a mother. I do hope one day Paulina has the opportunity to become a mother, but how will she ever explain to her children who their grandfather is? This is the legacy you left behind for your only child, Mr. Rivera. I don't know whose situation is worse.
Based on the The jury's guilty verdict entered on the 28th day of May 2021. It is the finding of this court that the defendant is guilty and has now ordered a judge to decree that the defendant is guilty of the crime of murder in the first degree.
Mr. Bahino-Rivera, I want to inform you that I've considered all the sentencing options provided for in chapters 901 and 907 of the Iowa Code, and my judgment relative to sentence is based on that which provides maximum opportunity for your rehabilitation, at the same time protecting the community from further offenses by you and others. Mr. Bahino-Rivera, you and you alone
forever change the lives of those who love Molly Timmons. And for that, you and you alone will receive the following sentence. It is the order and judgment of this court acting pursuant to the provisions of Section 902 of the Code of Iowa that the defendant B is hereby committed to the custody of for a lifetime sentence with no eligibility for parole.
It is further ordered that the Iowa Medical and Classification Center at Oakdale, Iowa is designated as a reception center to which the defendant is to be delivered by the sheriff of Poweshe County or his designee. The court further orders as follows. The defendant shall pay $150,000 to the heirs at law of Mollie Tibbetts pursuant to Iowa Code Section 81.
You are required to submit a DNA sample pursuant to the request of the state. The state is given 30 days from today's date to file any restitution statements or clarify any that have been filed. And once that is filed, should there be any, the defense will then have 15 days to file any objections. Again, should there be any.
Mr. Bahena Vera, I've selected this particular sentence for you after considering the nature of the offense committed by you, the harm to the victim and the victim's family, your need for rehabilitation, and the necessity for protecting the community from further offenses by you and others.