GUILTY IA - Mollie Tibbetts, 20, found deceased, Poweshiek County, 19 Jul 2018 *Arrest* #51

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We now know where Mollies body was found (the actual location), an extensive search was carried out, we know corn stalks / leaves were placed over the body. Do we think that her body should of been found during the extensive search (was it that well concealed)?
 
rebel123 said:
We now know where Mollies body was found (the actual location), an extensive search was carried out, we know corn stalks / leaves were placed over the body. Do we think that her body should of been found during the extensive search (was it that well concealed)?
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Corn fields can hide anything. Stuff disappears, even when you are right there. Ever done a corn maze? You can be lost for a long time. I believe that even CBR had a tough time, he checked his phone, when leading the police to the body.

The police did a good job. If CBR had not lead them to the body, I am not sure that this case would have been as tight as it was...and CBR would be free to drive around Iowa, looking for young women.
 
TL4S said:
I have to backtrack on something I had wrong, which is that I do think, after studying the map more, that the cornfield is just barely inside the 17 sq. mile search area that Horan presented. Sorry for my confusion.

My question is that if cell data proved CBR went straight to the cornfield, why would his defense team even chose to bring this argument forward? The ONLY way I see this being viable is if they could prove CBR abducted her during her jog and brought her to the trap house, which was also within that 17 sq. mile search area, and the body was disposed within the same area. It would be an extremely unlikely argument, so why pursue any of it? I'm sure there have been other confessions... there always are.
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But there trap house was said to be in New Sharon. And that was a 35 minute drive.
 
katydid23 said:
But there trap house was said to be in New Sharon. And that was a 35 minute drive.
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At least one of the inmate's supposed stories said they stayed at a trap house with a 50 year old, but they went to a second trap house where they saw Mollie. The location was never revealed. The defense then suggested this 50 year old man might be JL based on his supposed New Sharon trap house.
 
I wish we had more info on the woman who told LE about the New Sharon trap house. She claimed to be there from May to August in 2018 but I think I read that LE didn't talk to her until 2019. That's when they issued the search warrant but JL was already gone.

We know from court records that 2 search warrants were issued for JL and other people. One was issued on 4/12/2019 naming JL and AM, which leads to New Sharon. The other was issued on 8/21/2019 to JL and JP in Poweshiek Co. The Iowa court system is not overly transparent so the search warrants are assumed by me to be on properties.

If anyone wants to look up property addresses, go here and put in Iowa Beacon You can search by address or by name.
 
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TL4S said:
At least one of the inmate's supposed stories said they stayed at a trap house with a 50 year old, but they went to a second trap house where they saw Mollie. The location was never revealed. The defense then suggested this 50 year old man might be JL based on his supposed New Sharon trap house.
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However, we can't lose sight of the story the inmates told. They gave a solid timeline. And it is the opposite of the timeline we ,ourselves, witnessed in the trial evidence.

The witnesses both said they first saw Mollie, bound and gagged, and she had been there while the search for her was ramping up. As the search came closer to the trap house, that is when they decided to kill her, and dump her body 'near' a Hispanic man, whom they can blame.

THAT^^^ is the opposite of what happened to Molly. She was in touch with people before her jog, was seen by people as she began her jog---so she was not in a trap house at that time.

Then she was stalked by CBR, abducted by him and thrown into his trunk. He hit her hard and stabbed her in the head as he threw her in his trunk. So there was no way she was going to be taken to a trap house at that point. She may not have been conscious after that point?

But her cell phone showed that he took off at high rate of speed and drove to the remote cornfields where he ultimately buried her under branches. And his cell phone/ GPS showed his route, as he used it to guide him back to the dump site.

The actual search for her did not begin until the night after she was abducted. So again, that does not match up with their story at all.

THERE WAS NO TRAP HOUSE for Molly. The trial evidence disproves that bogus story.
 
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katydid23 said:
However, we can't lose sight of the story the inmates told. They gave a solid timeline. And it is the opposite of the timeline we ,ourselves, witnessed in the trial evidence.

The witnesses both said they first saw Mollie, bound and gagged, and she had been there while the search for her was ramping up. As the search came closer to the trap house, that is when they decided to kill her, and dump her body 'near' a Hispanic man, whom they can blame.

THAT^^^ is the opposite of what happened to Molly. She was in touch with people before her jog, was seen by people as she began her jog---so she was not in a trap house at that time.

Then she was stalked by CBR, abducted by him and thrown into his trunk. He hit her hard and stabbed her in the head as he threw her in his trunk. So there was no way she was going to be taken to a trap house at that point. She may not have been conscious after that point?

But her cell phone showed that he took off at high rate of speed and drove to the remote cornfields where he ultimately buried her under branches. And his cell phone/ GPS showed his route, as he used it to guide him back to the dump site.

The actual search for her did not begin until the night after she was abducted. So again, that does not match up with their story at all.

THERE WAS NO TRAP HOUSE for Molly. The trial evidence disproves that bogus story.
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From my understanding, the inmate's supposed story begins an unknown number of days after the abduction, so that doesn't change the event timeline of her abduction, and the inmate is not claiming to be the abductor. The part that casts major doubt on the inmate's story is how the 50-year-old planned to pin the murder on a Hispanic man, when all the evidence clearly shows CBR already involved as the abductor. That, and the cell phone data showing him driving to and turning the phone off within the 17 sq. mile search area which includes the cornfield. That search area also includes road V21, which is the road CBR drove south on after the abduction at 385th Ave. (if I'm reading the map correctly). The only thing testified to during the trial was that the cell phone data showed the phone traveling in a southerly direction. CBR confessed to driving straight to the cornfield, so we can only assume that's where the phone was turned off, but it could have been turned off/ditched anywhere in that area.

Some of my thoughts have been working on the supposition that the defense will try to fit this new "story" into the physical evidence, which is overwhelmingly damning to CBR. At the very least they'd have to admit him an abductor and perjure, but I guess their goal is to try to show doubt that he is the actual killer. They'll say, "Oh, he drove south on V21 towards New Sharon (or wherever) to turn her over to JL (or whomever the 50-year-old is) and so happened to turn off her phone in that search area. When JL (or the 50-year-old) decided to have her killed, he devised a plan to have it look like CBR, her original abductor, did it. Bwahaha. Coincidentally, dump her near where CBR turned her phone off."

I can't see any other way to fit the supposed story into the evidence, and even then it doesn't work. So yeah, I don't think it's going anywhere, but why in the world would the defense pursue any of this if they didn't think they could fit it around the physical evidence?
 
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TL4S said:
......
...... but why in the world would the defense pursue any of this if they didn't think they could fit it around the physical evidence?
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Snipped your post a bit.


The defense attorneys spent the entire trial trying to insinuate that Mollie’s boyfriend was the killer without any evidence that fit that either. And when they got tired of that they would seemingly picked random folks to try and pin it on.
If they could have convinced the judge to go along with this “new evidence” it would have granted them months and months of free time to think up more fairy tales to get this killer out of jail. If they can do that, they become the darlings of the legal defense world, the go-to team you hire for those high profile cases.
That’s my thoughts on it. Personally, after watching the trial, I think the Freses are despicable.
 
The defense attorneys are in a bad spot, caught between a possible false confession their client is being tried on and a different confession their client told them. Since innocence can't be proven, all they can do is create doubt. All the while, trying not to damage CBR in the process.

It's interesting that there have been/are 2 Daltons of interest: Mollie's bf and GJ's buddy.
 
It is going to be virtually impossible to make the inmate story fit into what CBR already testified to. I don't think there is any reason to believe there was a trap house or Mollie had anything to do with it. I expect the motion for new trial to be denied and sentencing to be set for mid August.
 
PrairieWind said:
It is going to be virtually impossible to make the inmate story fit into what CBR already testified to. I don't think there is any reason to believe there was a trap house or Mollie had anything to do with it. I expect the motion for new trial to be denied and sentencing to be set for mid August.
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Motion to compel in Cristhian Bahena Rivera case denied | wqad.com
The motion to hear new evidence was denied a couple of days ago. The defense has to attempt it. I still see it as a long drawn out ordeal for the family.
 
PrairieWind said:
It is going to be virtually impossible to make the inmate story fit into what CBR already testified to. I don't think there is any reason to believe there was a trap house or Mollie had anything to do with it. I expect the motion for new trial to be denied and sentencing to be set for mid August.
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Being an attorney, are you able to go into Iowa court cases and see if the 2 search warrants naming JL (and others) are for houses or something else?
 
Thanks for the heads-up on the video at the bottom.

I'm really glad to hear in that interview what happened with the woman who claimed she was kept in the trap house and why it took so long to get that first search warrant.
 
Gardenista said:
OMG, the YouTube video embedded further down the page is must see TV
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If you’re talking about the interview with the Freses, the best part is when he says something like “...we put it together on the fly...” and at that moment a fly lands on his nose!
Seriously though, these two need to give up law and go into writing fiction. They seem pretty good at that.
 
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