Iowa Court of Appeals affirms conviction of man sentenced for killing Mollie Tibbetts

The Iowa Court of Appeals affirmed the conviction of the man sentenced to life in prison in the 2018 slaying of Mollie Tibbetts.

Cristhian Bahena Rivera, 29, was convicted of first degree murder and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole in 2021. Tibbetts, 20, was a University of Iowa student from Brooklyn, Iowa when she went for a run on July 18, 2018, and disappeared. The search for her drew national attention and kicked off a monthlong manhunt that ended when Bahena Rivera, a Mexican national, led investigators to the rural cornfield where they found her remains.

Attorneys for Bahena Rivera argued to the Iowa Court of Appeals that statements he made to law enforcement on Aug. 20 and Aug. 21 should have been suppressed because he made the statements while he was in custody, but had not been read his Miranda Rights.

Appeals Court Judge Julie Schumacher wrote that Miranda warnings are only necessary if a subject being questioned is deemed to be in custody. Law enforcement initiated the conversation with Bahena Rivera, but he was offered a chance to terminate the conversation and he declined to do so, Schumacher wrote.

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Bahena Rivera was questioned for six hours on Aug. 20 into Aug. 21, 2018, at the Poweshiek County Sheriff's Office. Officers demonstrated to him that the door was unlocked, not blocked and Bahena Rivera signaled that he understood he was free to leave, Schumacher wrote.

He also had access to his cell phone so he could get a ride home, despite law enforcement searching his vehicle at the same time, Schumacher wrote. Bahena Rivera is an undocumented immigrant in the United States. An immigration detainer was put in place on him around 11:30 p.m. that night.

"Bahena objectively confirmed he understood he was free to leave. And while the questions by the interviewers were sometimes accusatory, they did not rise to the level of undermining Bahena’s freedom of movement similar to that of a formal arrest," Schumacher wrote.

As a result, Bahena Rivera was determined not to be in custody and Miranda warnings were not required. Thus his statements could be admitted.

Bahena Rivera also argued that because of a language barrier between him and officers who found Tibbetts' body, the Miranda warnings they gave him were inadequate and his waiver was not made knowingly.

The officer who read Bahena Rivera his Miranda Rights after Tibbetts' body was found made grammatical errors while informing him of his rights. But the warnings were adequate, Schumacher wrote.

"While there were a few grammatical mistakes—she informed Bahena that he had 'The right to remain silence' and that an attorney 'Will be assign to you without charge'—the grammatical errors do not rob the warnings of their meaning," Schumacher wrote.

After the prosecution and defense rested their cases, but before the jury returned a verdict in the July 2021 trial, Bahena Rivera's attorneys argued that a new trial should be granted because of a theory that Tibbetts was killed by a drug dealer and sex trafficker who framed Bahena Rivera after investigators looking for her came too close to where she was hidden.

That motion was denied at the time. Gavin Jones, an associate of an accused drug dealer and sex trafficker Michael Lowe, claimed to have killed Tibbetts, dismembered her and wrapped her body in a tarp. But her remains were not dismembered or in a tarp when they were found, Schumacher wrote.

During the trial, evidence related to a 2019 investigation into Lowe for alleged trafficking was suppressed. But evidence related to the Lowe investigation did not offer a reasonable probability of a different outcome, Schumacher wrote.

"The only evidence tying Lowe to this case is the statements Jones made about working for a 50-year-old sex trafficker—Lowe was about 50 at the time of Tibbetts’s death," Schumacher wrote. "Outside of that, nothing suggests Lowe was in any way involved with the case."

Philip Joens covers public safety, retail, real estate and RAGBRAI for the Des Moines Register. He can be reached at 515-284-8184, pjoens@registermedia.com or on Twitter @Philip_Joens.

This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Iowa appeals court confirms conviction of Mollie Tibbetts' killer