IA - Mollie Tibbetts, 20, Poweshiek County, 19 Jul 2018 *Arrest* #41

[MsBetsy]

That isn't what LE said after CR's arrest. I think it is obvious she knew enough about CR that she could identify him to LE which is why she was murdered.

Rahn said Rivera admitted to seeing Tibbetts before but said that "beyond that, I can't say anymore about his interactions with Ms. Tibbetts."

How Police Tracked Down Mollie Tibbetts' Alleged Murderer

I think she would have easily been able to identify even if she never met him.

 

[zecats]

I think he took her phone when he put her in his car and probably turned it off. Maybe he turned it on and looked at it and it pinged one of the towers. He must have had his turned off too or wouldn't it have pinged at the same time?

That's my point though..if he took her phone there would be no Fitbit info as to the potential time of death a 8:28. No location and no heart rate info. Whether in the cornfield, in his car or by the side of the road on 385th Ave, the phone was a necessary component for any timing of heart rate slowing.

 

[AnnaGrace]

Yes, the State has an obligation to provide an education to all children, regardless of immigration status. Latinos have among their numbers some remarkable mathematicians, and a mind is a terrible thing to waste. Also, by Federal law any hospital that receives Federal reimbursement of any kind MUST accept and stabilize and treat any critically ill patient or woman in active labor, irregardless of their ability to pay (or their immigration status). In the bad old days (prior to 1986) , people were turned away from ER's when critically ill with an insufficiently green wallet biopsy, and died.

For these reasons, among others, we currently live, and have lived, in a great country.

Thank you! That's very helpful and I didn't know all that. It's things I had never had reason to research and hadn't really thought about. I appreciate your explanations!

 

[TL4S]

I’m wondering if he was maybe pretending to have a flat or car trouble and he lured her over to his car asking for help or he hit her with his car, just enough to knock her over or out.

The thought of his version is ridiculous, him parking his car and jogging beside or behind her, that puts too much distance between him and the car and having to carry her back to it.

If he did in fact pretend to have car troubles, I'd be even more inclined to link him to that string of SAs in 2017.

 

[kpm]

Although I'm not a runner it seems to me after watching the video she had already run quite a ways. Seems to me I read where she was going to her mom's house to pick up a car to go to work the next day. How far away from her mom's house was the abduction point?

Looking at the map here is what I think her route would have been to her Mom’s house

Keep in mind her mom had bought ingredients for Mollie to make a dessert to the school field trip the next day, so she would have needed to pick those up, so I think she was jogging there for dinner and to get the ingredients.

At the intersection of Boundary and 385th she would have kept jogging north on Boundary to Spring Street

Spring street to either Center Street or Mills Street to North Street

North Street to 398

398 to Bear Drive

That is 2.2 miles

I’m thinking Boundary and 385th was her halfway point between the house she left and her Moms

I don’t think she was intending on heading out of town

 

[Peaches96]

That's my point though..if he took her phone there would be no Fitbit info as to the potential time of death a 8:28. No location and no heart rate info. Whether in the cornfield, in his car or by the side of the road on 385th Ave, the phone was a necessary component for any timing of heart rate slowing.

Is a phone necessary for the ping info of a Fitbit or will the data continue to collect and then load if you put it in your computer? For example, my older model Garmin doesn’t require my phone. I go on my run, it tracks my info, and then when I get home I can plug it into my computer and see all of my info. So, if the police found her Fitbit would they be able to retrieve the data without her phone? I’m not too familiar with how the Fitbits work.

 

[Peaches96]

My Fitbit requires recharging. “ Charge 2 battery level is low”. Fitbit battery life and charge cycles vary with use, settings, apps and many other factors. Fitbit can work transmitting and recording data without the possession of a cell phone. My kids use their laptops to get their Fitbit data. I am not an expert on the different models of Fitbit. My kids don’t have their Fitbit charge 2 (s) linked to a phone or wireless plan. The data that we get is accurate.

Delete- my reply posted twice

 

[AnnaGrace]

That's my point though..if he took her phone there would be no Fitbit info as to the potential time of death a 8:28. No location and no heart rate info. Whether in the cornfield, in his car or by the side of the road on 385th Ave, the phone was a necessary component for any timing of heart rate slowing.

I know. There's always something that doesn't exactly work. I guess I find it hard to believe he would stab her to death and then put her in his car. That would be a lot of bleeding.
It's all so horrible to think about and my heart and everything in me feels so bad for Mollie. I just say over and over,why and how do people do this.

 

[zecats]

Is a phone necessary for the ping info of a Fitbit or will the data continue to collect and then load if you put it in your computer? For example, my older model Garmin doesn’t require my phone. I go on my run, it tracks my info, and then when I get home I can plug it into my computer and see all of my info. So, if the police found her Fitbit would they be able to retrieve the data without her phone? I’m not too familiar with how the Fitbits work.

Well LE was referring to her Fitbit data long before they found her.I don't even know if they have her Fitbit at this time. Haven't seen that posted anywhere. I'm not a Fitbit user, so maybe I'm mistaken. But many posters here have said the phone needed to be within a given (relatively close) distance to enable the Fitbit data to be working.

 

[Al Hoffman]

My Fitbit requires recharging. “ Charge 2 battery level is low”. Fitbit battery life and charge cycles vary with use, settings, apps and many other factors. Fitbit can work transmitting and recording data without the possession of a cell phone. My kids use their laptops to get their Fitbit data. I am not an expert on the different models of Fitbit. My kids don’t have their Fitbit charge 2 (s) linked to a phone or wireless plan. The data that we get is accurate.

A FitBit does not link to the internet or the cloud on it's own, so no need for a data plan of it's own. It talks via bluetooth to the phone at distances of less than 30 ft and the app on the phone does that for the FitBit. Most lower price FitBits can't track GPS on their own, and depend on the phone's GPS for things like run tracking. Without a synced phone in range, the lowly FitBit will record whatever data it can, awaiting upload to a device with the FitBit app, that can interpret, store and display the data. The FitBit data available to LE before MT's body was found came from the cloud, transmitted there by her phone, unless she was running with her laptop plugged into the FitBit dongle, plugged into the FitBit; even then her laptop would have had to have internet connectivity to transmit her run and other data to the cloud.

 

[MistyWaters]

True. Good point. So he probably abducted and killed her there by 8:28pm and then drove to cornfield to dump her. Her body’s location was not known until CR led LE there. That location would not have been included in the time stated.

By reading the affidavit/ arrest warrant for 1st degree murder, it was prepared after the recovery of her body at the cornfield. I think we just have to accept we just don’t know for sure why LE indicated the time of offence occurred on July 18th between 7:45 and 8:28, and then indicated “no” to “Is the time and date known”. But it’s possible LE did already have evidence to indicate the actual time of alleged murder falls within that range otherwise they had the option to indicate the time on that date was unknown.

How about a rural land owner with CCTV had already handed it over, revealing a black Malibu coming and again leaving at about 8:28pm via a road within the proximity of the cornfield? If so, it might have not been significant at the time until LE was also able to determine the very same vehicle was also found circling Mollie’s running path in Brooklyn?

ETA. For me, another reason why a black Malibu driving up and down a country road and gone by 8:28 might’ve not been overly suspicious to LE early on is because it appeared LE was open to the possibility Mollie had finished her run before she went missing, especially if there was cause to wonder if she could’ve been using her computer at 9:45. Another example of a much broader timeframe was the ask involving the 5 locations, between 5 and 10pm.

http://www.dps.state.ia.us/commis/p...-2018_DCI_ArrestWarrantComplaintAffidavit.pdf

 

[MsBetsy]

This is the article with google map that LE used to specify the video footage they watched to piece together where at 1900 block 385 Ave right around that curve the map indicates suspect came closer to MT Mollie Tibbetts case mystified police until a security camera offered a key clue - CNN

According to this article, Rivera carried her " body" over his shoulders 20 meters into the cornfield. Maybe the murder took place on that secluded dirt road leading to the cornfield, and when he was finished he hid her body. Also, when he used his phone to show LE the route he took from Brooklyn to the cornfield, Maybe they were trying to figure out how long it would have taken him to get to that point in order to firm up the 45 minute timeline.

 

[zecats]

I know. There's always something that doesn't exactly work. I guess I find it hard to believe he would stab her to death and then put her in his car. That would be a lot of bleeding.
It's all so horrible to think about and my heart and everything in me feels so bad for Mollie. I just say over and over,why and how do people do this.

I know, it is hard to comprehend that someone can be so evil and heartless. Mollie was a vividly beautiful young woman with the potential of a great future ahead of her. Imagine that he didn't kill her in the area he abducted her and took her to the cornfield where he killed her. Still with her Fitbit on, recording heart rate slowing at 8:28pm. The blood would not be in the car except for the possible head injury.

 

[AnnaGrace]

I know, it is hard to comprehend that someone can be so evil and heartless. Mollie was a vividly beautiful young woman with the potential of a great future ahead of her. Imagine that he didn't kill her in the area he abducted her and took her to the cornfield where he killed her. Still with her Fitbit on, recording heart rate slowing at 8:28pm. The blood would not be in the car except for the possible head injury.

This is true. I guess he wouldn't leave her there in case somebody saw something. I really believe he thought he had gotten away with this.

 

[Al Hoffman]

The age through which children have to attend school varies by state. In Iowa the age a student can leave school is 16 so assuming he came straight here after arriving in this country he wouldn't have been required to attend school even if his documentation matched his real age.

Iowa is a traditional farm state, and teenagers were farm labors. My mom was adopted by a Latino farm family in the 1920's, in Colorado, along with 3 of her siblings for this reason. Her other 4 brothers and sisters were adopted by another farm family for the same reason. Back in the day you had to work to eat, and EVERYONE picked crops, including the children. Even when the farm was finished for the year, and her adopted family would follow the migrants from the four corners area, through the southwest, and into California to earn extra money picking crops, paid by the amount harvested and not by the hour. Think of the movies East of Eden and Grapes of Wrath. Both of which fascinated her as a narrative of her early life. It was not necessarily a cruel system, just one that gave everyone a chance to feed themselves and others, and to prosper.

Today, the Iowa farm kids go to college and low wage migrants do the work that allows us to enjoy high quality meat, produce and milk in this country.

 

[MsBetsy]

That's my point though..if he took her phone there would be no Fitbit info as to the potential time of death a 8:28. No location and no heart rate info. Whether in the cornfield, in his car or by the side of the road on 385th Ave, the phone was a necessary component for any timing of heart rate slowing.

Correct. I have always wondered if the phone was turned off at this time, after he had chased her and there was a struggle and maybe even after he had transported her in the trunk. When police indicate on the affidavit that the incident took place within this time period, I wonder how they can be sure whether she was dead at this time or that he had just abruptly turned off the phone.

 

[SteveP]

Why would Mollie, a university student, know an illegal immigrant who worked on a dairy farm?

Mollie had only been a university student for one year, and we know that CR had been living in the area for at least four years. Pretty sure he ventured off the farm occasionally. No one is saying she knew him to the extent that they were great friends, or even friends at all. I will go so far as to say that perhaps she really didn't know very much about him, but I believe, in an area the size of Brooklyn, and with the closeness of their ages, and the fact that his baby's mama, IM, who he has apparently been involved with at least off and on for likely some four years, graduated in the same very small class as Mollie's boyfriend, in the tiny high school where it is likely that everyone at least knew everyone else by face, and probably name, there is no way that she had never encountered him, and at a minimum, knew OF him. Also, we know IM was at court when CR made his first appearance. It doesn't help CR's case at all to suddenly admit that he knew Mollie, and I don't necessarily believe that IM would offer that information. Beyond that, I don't know who might have been close enough to Mollie to know. And lastly, because LE says something publicly, it doesn't mean they may not know or suspect something else privately, and even with that, they only specified there was no KNOWN connection beyond him seeing her jog before the night of her murder. JMO MOO and all that.

 

[Ragnarok]

Although I'm not a runner it seems to me after watching the video she had already run quite a ways. Seems to me I read where she was going to her mom's house to pick up a car to go to work the next day. How far away from her mom's house was the abduction point?

I've read this a couple of times on WS and don't know where it comes from that MT was going to mom's?

Everything I've read states that it wasn't till the following morning when MT didn't show up for work that staff contacted her boy friend who then called her family. It was after family going to the house where she was staying and not finding MT that police were called.

If mom was expecting MT the previous night and didn't arrive wouldn't mom have tried to determine why she hadn't?

 

[kpm]

I've read this a couple of times on WS and don't know where it comes from that MT was going to mom's?

Everything I've read states that it wasn't till the following morning when MT didn't show up for work that staff contacted her boy friend who then called her family. It was after family going to the house where she was staying and not finding MT that police were called.

If mom was expecting MT the previous night and didn't arrive wouldn't mom have tried to determine why she hadn't?

I have gone over that a million times

Not placing any blame just an observation as a Mom of three

If any of my kids had me pick up ingredients to make a dessert for the next day and I thought they were coming for dinner I would have called or texted them asking they were.

It’s happened many times when my kids asked for a specific thing for dinner and then ended up staying at their friends house, but I always got in touch with them to find out what was going on.

We all get busy in our lives but this is a reminder to watch for red flags, not matter how insignificant and check up on loved ones when things are out of place.

 

[Mica]

Any scenario imaginable is too terrifying to imagine. I only hope that she was unconscious during most of the ordeal. Also, if you're thinking that she died in the cornfield where her body was located, and that info was likely obtained by a slowing of her Fitbit heart rate, then my question is why did the Fitbit not lead LE to her body? Was the Pig Farm close enough to where she was found that LE had the timing info early on?

I wonder if CR took Mollie to a location on or very near the pig farm where she passed based on FitBit info. There had to be a reason the pig farm was of importance. IMO