IA - Mollie Tibbetts, 20, Poweshiek County, 19 Jul 2018 *Arrest* #40

[glamourkitty1922]

Yes, but isn't that only when there is a possibility of being put to death, since they are firmly against the death penalty, and would push for a life sentence instead?

The embassy in the link I gave stated they helped with counsel on any serious crime. Mexico needs the money their citizens send back from America so they will protect them through legal means.

 

[tigertales]

Mexico will help their citizens when they are arrested in America
Protection for Mexican Nationals

This appears to cover only New York, New Jersey and Connecticut.

 

[MistyWaters]

My own opionion but I wonder if there are other parts to the interview or a full transcription that did not make it on the to arrest warrant for a variety of reasons. Things that would come out in discovery. Maybe what is there on the arrest document was enough for the DA to agree to Murder 1 as documented and the intention was to hold the rest for the preliminary hearing. When preliminary hearings are waved, it is often because there is a great deal of evidence against the accused. MOO

This is exactly what I think as well.

This case was highly unusual because it went from the possibility of a kidnapping/an alive Mollie —- to 1st degree murder charges based the accused admitting to his involvement and leading LE to her body all within one day.

I think LE had every right to choose to exercise a degree of restraint in how much detail was contained within the information they released at the onset, particularly with respect to consideration toward Mollie’s family and community.

 

[Kapua]

I don't know what a Defense team would hope to gain by introducing such a ridiculous SODDI theory.

Defense counsel is obligated by law to present a defense and attempt to introduce "reasonable doubt" in the minds of the jurors. I guarantee you they will introduce an alternative theory. And you will think it's ridiculous and you will be infuriated. The first case I ever sleuthed was Laci and Scott Peterson's. It was obvious to *almost* everyone that Scott was guilty. Scott had a slick defense attorney (Mark Geragos) who suggested that Laci was abducted by a satanic cult in a white van. (!) Right. But if defense counsel fails to adequately defend their client, the defendant can file a motion for a mistrial due to inadequate defense. So it's very important that the defense team challenges everything, and mounts a strong defense for their client.

 

[Jaclin]

Legally he is not guilty of anything until the trial is done or he pleads guilty.

And he didn't confess to killing her. In his confession he said he "blocked out" and then went to get her from his trunk.

I'm not saying I believe him. But he did not confess to killing her.

He's plenty guilty of the things he did confess to, which in my opinion should be enough to never see daylight, unless he's lying about that, and then he's guilty of lying.

 

[MistyWaters]

So now that we know the unfortunate end result of Mollie does this answer why the FBI was brought in? Because CR was an illegal immigrant?

LE couldn’t have known who the accused was or where he was from in advance.

During an investigation the FBI provide professional support to local police departments and in this case at a minimum it involved IT (Fitbit, cellphone).

 

[bizzle2]

Legally he's guilty of:
residing illegally in a country
identity theft
insurance fraud
tax fraud
driving a vehicle without a valid license
falsifying information to an employer.
The murder charges are yet to be proven, but at the very least he's confessed to abuse of a corpse, desecration of a corpse and tampering with evidence.

Where can I find the legal record that he is guilty of these crimes?

 

[Al Hoffman]

The defense will argue for a change of venue, IMHO. They will want to seat 12 jurors who are not connected to the victim or any of her family members in any way, which will eliminate most of the Brooklyn residents, again IMHO. Aside from that, I am certain that there are 12 fair-minded people in Poweshiek county. MOO.

Yeah, your're right, but 12 Hispanic jurors selected from immigrants from around the Caribbean, Central and South America, Mexico, Cuba and even Spain with a trial held in New York City would find CR guilty. They have children and sisters, and the State has a strong case. 18 months, won and done by the State of Iowa!

 

[wary]

So now that we know the unfortunate end result of Mollie does this answer why the FBI was brought in? Because CR was an illegal immigrant?

No, based on everything that we've heard, the FBI was brought in long before LE had any idea that an illegal alien was a possible suspect.

LE hasn't spelled out to us exactly why the FBI was brought in. My guess would be--that they could supply skills and knowledge that the county LE didn't have--and specially skills in requesting and tracking down cell, Fitbit, etc. data.

 

[Rossymom]

I have a curious question regarding narcissism. When you have a suspect who believes his own lies like this, how in the world do you provide the truth?

 

[MsBetsy]

bbm



I did not touch on that subject, as my focus was strictly on the capability of the camera hardware. But since you mentioned it, I'll expound as best I can on what LE can and can not do regarding enhancement.

Various filtering techniques may be applied to both still and moving images. By filtering, I'm including sharpness enhancement, blurring, brightness, contrast, gamma, plus a multitude of techniques that involve overlaying an image over itself and applying additive, multiplicative, subtractive, dodging, burning (plus others) of luminance, color, edge enhancement, interpolation, etc.

Note that no technique may *add* missing information to an image, that 'fills in the blanks', other than for approximation or assumption of 'what should be there based on what surrounds it': this smooths the image rather than enhances clarity but can be useful.

Applying sharpness algorithms is the best technique and most common used to enhance clarity, but this has limits. Increasing sharpness detects pixel transitions and attempts to clarify the edge relative to surrounding pixels.

Thank you

 

[SteveP]

I have a curious question regarding narcissism. I have a brother who suffers from this. I have seen him bully my mother until he got his way over stupid stuff. All of my life (he is 57). He did this up until she passed. I have seen him look her straight eyes and tell the biggest lies. What is worse, he believes his lies. No quiet discussion, arguing, or even trying to recreate his theory would convince him that he was telling a lie. He is frustrating, yet sad. Anyway, my question to my WS friends is this: When you have a suspect who believes his own lies like this, how in the world do you provide the truth?

Hopefully, the evidence will provide the truth. It may fail on rare occasions, but it usually works. We have to believe that, because there are very few guilty people in prison. Just ask them. JMO

 

[Sanz]

Actually they do pay, here is one article on it. They are very protective of their citizens. It used to only be death penalty cases. Embassies are there to help their citizens.
How Mexico Saves Its Citizens from U.S. Executions - The Atlantic

Mexico will help their citizens when they are arrested in America
Protection for Mexican Nationals

They cannot supply a lawyer other than a private lawyer because the lawyer must be able to work in the state. Mexico does pay for it, I don't know
if they get the state to reimburse them or not.
How Mexico Saves Its Citizens from the Death Penalty in the U.S.
Here is where Time states Mexico is funding a defense of one of their citizens in US
Mexico Presses U.S to Stay Execution of One of Its Citizens

RBBM
IMO as far as the Mexican Consulates ability to help Mexican Nationals charged in criminal court he’s pretty limited on funding. And what they pay won’t touch even the out of Court prep work.

“...the annual budget of around $4 million to track as many as 135 cases at a time, according to the program’s filings with the Department of Justice. That comes out to roughly $29,000 per case, per year.”

By contrast, the Equal Justice Initiative, which represents numerous inmates on Alabama’s death row, has reported that many of them were sentenced to death after their attorneys’ fees were capped at $1,000 for out-of-court trial preparation.

How Mexico Saves Its Citizens from U.S. Executions - The Atlantic

And as far as I understand what is written. Mexico may have a strong policy on the Death Penalty (which does not apply to this case) and a 2 hour window to have attorneys meet with Mexican Nationals. I don’t think it’s going to cut it in this case.

“...the country’s government

• opposes the death penalty as a matter of principle and has a strong policy of protecting its nationals abroad including in the United States.”

• Consultations with attorneys of civil, family, criminal and immigration matters are held from 10 am to 12 pm, according to a monthly calendar (check current dates in calendar); they take place in the 2nd floor of the Consulate, no appointment is necessary.

Protection for Mexican Nationals

I looked up costs for Attorney Fees in Famous Murder Trials
OJ Simpson - $4,000,000.00
Alex Hernandez - $500,000.00 (State of Massachusetts paid)
Casey Anthony - $347,000.00
(200,000.00 paid by ABC)
(147,000.00 paid by Florida)

Average John Doe - 150,000.00

 

[kpm]

His new lawyers are a husband and wife team. I would like to know who is footing the bill. The taxpayers? Mexico? It could be either.
Cristhian Rivera changes lawyers in his murder case

They said his family hired them and the other attorney

 

[Jaclin]

He says he has no memory of what happened after 'Mollie threatened to call the police'.

that's not accurate. He remembered that part of Mollie's earbud was on his lap jogging his memory that he had placed Mollie in the trunk. Then, he remembers leaving Mollie for dead with a head wound, if she wasn't already, in the cornfield. He remembers enough after the "call police threat" to go away for a long time.

 

[Mica]

So now that we know the unfortunate end result of Mollie does this answer why the FBI was brought in? Because CR was an illegal immigrant?

No.

From an article dated Tuesday, July 24, 2018...

>>snip

State and federal agencies are stepping in to help with the search for Mollie Tibbetts, 20, a soon-to-be University of Iowa sophomore who went missingfrom Brooklyn, Iowa on July 18.

>>snip

Mitch Mortvedt, Assistant Director of Field Operations for the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigations said DCI joined the investigation Friday and the FBI became involved Monday. Both agencies, he said, are able to offer extensive resources to aid in the search for Tibbetts.

“The FBI brings a lot of investigational power with forensic analysis and evidence assistance,” he said. “Additionally, the FBI has a highly-trained search and rescue team … and that is one of the resources they brought in.”

State and federal investigators join in search for Mollie Tibbetts

 

[MsBetsy]

I know this is off the topics we've been discussing, but I just read the affidavit statement again and a few things make me curious. I would love other's thoughts.

1) "The Defendant was able to use his phone to determine the route he traveled from Brooklyn."

• Did he have this information already on his phone from the night in question? Or did he simply look it up that day to show police.
  
• On 7/18, did he look up a route out of town on his phone at 8:28pm? Is that one possibility?

2) "The Defendant further described in the interview that he dragged Tibbetts on foot from his vehicle to a secluded location in a cornfield. Rivera described he put her over his shoulder and took her about 20 meters into the cornfield and he left her covered in some corn leaves and that he left her there, face up."

• So IMO, according to his claims, he dragged her from the car down the edge of the cornfield (as seen in previous pictures), but then had to carry her INTO the corn. That was fuzzy in my mind before.
• Nowhere in his statement does he actually say anything about her being dead. He only says he went to get her out of his trunk and saw blood on her head, so he took her into the cornfield. Maybe that's why he mentioned the "face up", to make it look like he thought she might still be alive?

I had originally thought that he had to use his phone just to look at a map because he may not have been very good at explaining directions. Just my impression. But as for the dragging by foot and then carrying her the rest of the way, that makes total sense. It would be really hard to drag someone through a cornfield. Not sure about the last part.

 

[agilbe]

Legally he's guilty of:
residing illegally in a country
identity theft
insurance fraud
tax fraud
driving a vehicle without a valid license
falsifying information to an employer.
The murder charges are yet to be proven, but at the very least he's confessed to abuse of a corpse, desecration of a corpse and tampering with evidence.

CLANK sound of key being thrown away.

 

[Al Hoffman]

We really don't know why CR led LE to Mollie's body but if he was properly Mirandized there is no way to "invalidate" it.

I have no doubt, with the number of LE agencies involved in this case, that procedure was properly followed and that Barney Fife was nowhere in the room.

My stepdaughter walked away from a death penalty to serve only 12 and 1/3 years of 20 because of an invalid Miranda. Miranda can be invalidated.

Google "Christina Dillard enters guilty plea - Picayune Item"

 

[MsBetsy]

SODDI=Some Other Dude Did It

I thought you were talking about a dude from Saudi Arabia.