IA - Mollie Tibbetts,20, Poweshiek County - MEDIA, MAPS & TIMELINES - NO DISCUSSION

[PommyMommy]

DEC 19, 2018
Mollie Tibbetts persons of interest: Documents show who they were, and why four were cleared
Before investigators arrested a farmhand in the death of Iowa runner Mollie Tibbetts, they scrutinized a neighbor seen washing his car hours after she vanished, an acquaintance who erased his cellphone data, a Nebraska man who ditched his vehicle nearby and a farmer with a history of stalking women.

Newly unsealed search warrants reviewed by the Associated Press reveal that four men were the subject of police interest at times during the five-week search for the missing 20-year-old University of Iowa student. The documents provide new details about how Tibbetts' July 18 disappearance in the town of Brooklyn stumped agents as the mystery became the focus of national media coverage and one of the largest investigations in state history.

Before then, investigators had focused attention on four others in the suspected kidnapping based on circumstances and seemingly suspicious behavior. They faced police interviews, searches of their vehicles and property and scrutiny of their cellphone data before agents determined they had nothing to do with Tibbetts' disappearance.

The investigation was driven by technology from the beginning. Tibbetts' phone records indicated that her rate of movement on a rural road near Brooklyn sped rapidly, as if she went from running to traveling in a car. Investigators then obtained a warrant requiring Google to provide data showing which users could be tracked to that vicinity.

 

[PommyMommy]

DEC 20, 2018
Unsealed documents reveal new details about Mollie Tibbetts investigation
Tometich drew attention after agents obtained surveillance footage from a Brooklyn car wash showing him washing a dark-colored SUV at 10:30 p.m. on July 18, hours after Tibbetts vanished. But he told investigators that he wasn't at the car wash until three days later and that his credit card information would show that. A state agent seeking a warrant to obtain Tometich's phone data alleged that claim was "untruthful" based on video and business records. Tometich declined comment on that.

Mortvedt said the farmer was of interest longer than others, in part because he gave multiple attention-grabbing media interviews in which he denied involvement but acknowledged his criminal history. He allowed agents to question him and search his home and property outside of Brooklyn, about 200 yards from where investigators determined that Tibbetts' cellphone dropped off the network.

The investigation was driven by technology from the beginning. Tibbetts' phone records indicated her rate of movement on a rural road near Brooklyn sped rapidly, as if she went from running to traveling in a car. Investigators then obtained a warrant requiring Google to provide data showing which users could be tracked to that vicinity.

One of four such Google customers was a 17-year-old who was Facebook friends with Tibbetts. The teen's brother was on the same construction crew as Tibbetts' boyfriend, who was out of town when she vanished, so investigators assumed he may have known Tibbetts was home alone. The teen told agents he was at home July 18, but later said he may have been mowing a cemetery. He raised suspicion when he told agents that he had recently "wiped" his smartphone of all stored data and didn't have it on him.

The focus of intense interest early on was a 58-year-old Stanton, Nebraska, man, who arrived at a car dealership 30 miles east of Brooklyn on July 20. The man told a salesman that he was driving to visit a foreign girlfriend while she was in Indiana but that his 1989 Chevy Grand Marquis was having transmission trouble, according to search warrant materials. He bought a used car for $3,500 and left the Chevy there, taking its license plates and a small bag with him. He said he would be back for the Chevy — which a witness said resembled a suspicious vehicle she saw near Tibbetts' home on July 18 — but didn't leave contact information.

 

[PommyMommy]

DEC 24, 2018
Mollie Tibbetts Was 'Engaged' To Marry Boyfriend Before Murder, Cops Confirm
Months after RadarOnline.com first reported Mollie Tibbetts was engaged to be married before her horrific murder, newly uncovered police documents prove the tragic Iowa college student was planning a wedding. with boyfriend Dalton Jack.

https://radaronline.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/mollie-tibbets-police-report-signed.pdf
“Poweshiek County Sheriff’s Office received a report of a missing person in Brooklyn, Iowa,” an unsealed warrant obtained by Radar reads. “Deputy Simpson made initial contact with Blake Jack, who identified himself as the brother of Dalton Jack, who is currently engaged to Mollie Tibbetts.”

https://i0.heartyhosting.com/radaro...iend-before-murder-illegal-alien-04.jpg?ssl=1
On her Instagram account, Tibbetts shared a snap of a diamond band on the fourth finger of her left hand last May with the message: “This weekend this boy gave me a bit of a late birthday present, but it was well worth the wait.”

 

[PommyMommy]

DEC 28, 2018
Trump used her slain daughter to rail against illegal immigration. She chose a different path.
“How are you?” one gray-haired woman now asked Laura as she came out of the library bathroom. “I hope you’re doing better.”

Laura smiled uncomfortably, trying to be kind, but privately hoping to end yet another conversation with someone well-meaning. What did they want from her? The truth? Did they want to know that she still sat on Mollie’s bed every day, looking at the books messily shelved, the walls covered with photos? Did they want to know that she still hadn’t removed Mollie’s death certificate from her car, because where would she even put such a thing?

Laura said, “I am,” thanked the woman and left the library.

Laura puts things back on the bed in Mollie’s bedroom, where everything has been kept as it was. She still sits there, looking at the walls covered with photos. After Mollie died, Laura faced a decision of whether to take in an immigrant teenager whose parents fled the dairy farm where her alleged killer worked. Laura asked herself what Mollie would do. (Rachel Mummey/For The Washington Post)

“He was a pretty funny dude . . . always messing around,” Ulises casually said of Bahena Rivera one night, and Laura just listened, looking down as she cooked.

And another:

“My mom took care of him for a while, and she fed him every day,” he said one evening. “He was so busy sending money back to his parents, trying to help them build a house.”

“Oh, wow, I didn’t know that,” Laura said quietly. “Did he come here by himself, Uli?”

“The only family I know that he had here was his uncle and aunt.”

Ulises Felix is pictured in an undated family photo. After Mollie was killed and his parents moved to Illinois, he went to live with her family. (Family photo)

Laura prepares dinner in her kitchen, where a childhood photo of Mollie hangs on the refrigerator. Everywhere in the house are reminders of Mollie, but Laura feels her memories of her daughter slipping away. (Rachel Mummey/For The Washington Post)

Laura quietly closed the door as she left, and it was still closed the next morning, when she woke early. She made breakfast for everyone and then checked in with Ulises’s doctors — the X-rays showed that it was only an avulsion fracture, offering hope that he’d be back on the court that season — and made a follow-up appointment for him. She put down the phone and looked around the kitchen. It was still covered with all of those letters, telling the familiar story of a fracturing country. There had been enough of that, she had come to think, beginning to gather them up.

There were two boys inside the house now. She had to think of both. They didn’t need to see all of this every day.

She put the letters into a box, took them into her study and closed the door behind her.

 

[PommyMommy]

DEC 28, 2018
Mollie Tibbetts' mom has taken in illegal immigrant teen | Daily Mail Online

• Laura Calderwood, 55, opened her home to Ulises Felix, 17, an undocumented immigrant who used to live and work with Mollie Tibbetts' alleged killer
• Felix had nowhere to go after her parents fled to Illinois following the arrest of Cristhian Bahena Rivera, 24, for Tibbetts' stabbing death in August
• Mollie's younger brother goes to the same school as Felix and is friends with him
• Felix is also a distant relative of Rivera's: the teen's female cousin is the mother of Rivera's young daughter
• Tibbetts, 20, went missing while out for a jog in July; her body was found in a cornfield a month later
• Right-wing politicians, led by Donald Trump, have been using Tibbett's name to advance an anti-immigration agenda

Following Rivera's arrest on murder charges in August, Felix's parents fled to Illinois to escape the outpouring of anti-immigrant vitriol, leaving their teenage son behind so he could finish high school.

Mollie's younger brother, Scott, who attended the same school as Felix and was friends with the teen, immediately said he could stay in his mother's spare bedroom.

After briefly grappling with the decision, Calderwood, 55, concluded that her late daughter, who in life was welcoming to all and supportive of the rights of immigrants, would have wanted her to help Felix.

 

[PommyMommy]

DEC 28, 2018 - 25 minute podcast
After Mollie Tibbetts’s politicized death, an unlikely kindness
She chose a different path
Mollie Tibbetts, 20, was stabbed multiple times and left in an Iowa cornfield; an undocumented immigrant was charged with her slaying. The brutal death became a talking point on immigration and border security for President Trump.

But Tibbetts’s mother, Laura Calderwood, chose a different path after her daughter’s death. She welcomed into her home a teenager whose ties to the accused killer seemed endless.

Post reporter Terrence McCoy tells the unlikely story of forgiveness and need in the aftermath of a tragedy. “Two people who were, each in their own way, mourning the loss of family members…Two people now trying to translate this unspoken need into something familial, an effort increasingly complicated by their separate connections to an alleged killer.”

 

[PommyMommy]

JAN 2, 2019
https://www.desmoinesregister.com/s...ale-ia-mollie-tibbetts-des-moines/2260073002/
It was a busy 2018 for the handlers, Hansen said, likely because more and more police personnel have learned of them through word of mouth. Recently, some assisted in searches for a kayaker among two overturned on a Cedar Rapids creek and Mollie Tibbetts, the University of Iowa student whose disappearance and killing drew national attention.

During the Tibbetts search, one of the largest in state history, the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation said the number of missing juveniles was in line with historical trends, despite concerns spurred when the Brooklyn woman vanished.

 

[JerseyGirl]

Mollie’s Movement: Finding Others brings light to other missing person cases

 

[PommyMommy]

JAN 16, 2019
Man accused of killing Mollie Tibbetts asks for trial delay
A judge set a trial date for April 16, with a pretrial conference on April 4.

Rivera’s attorneys argued that much of the state’s evidence in the case had not been shared with the defense until the last 30-45 days, meaning the defense needs more time to review the material before trial.

The judge has not yet made a decision on the request.

Defense Requests New Trial Date in Murder of Mollie Tibbetts
Attorneys for the man accused of killing Mollie Tibbetts are asking for a new trial date to be set.

The request was made as part of an application filed Tuesday for an extension to complete discovery, file pretrial motions, and designate notices of defense.

In the filing, Rivera’s attorneys say many of the discovery documents have only been disclosed in the last 30-45 days including the most recent version of the DCI investigative file, which was only received last week.

Because of the large amount of material the defense still needs to review they’ve asked that the deadline, which had been set for Tuesday, January 15, be extended. The filing says the state is offering no objection to the request.

The judge in the case has not yet responded to the application.

Rivera’s trial date is currently set for April 16, 2019.

 

[PommyMommy]

JAN 16, 2019
Attorneys for Mollie Tibbetts murder suspect ask for trial delay after disclosure of investigative file
Since Bahena Rivera was arraigned in September, his attorneys have received volumes of information from the prosecution, they said.

Much of the information has been disclosed to them in the last month to 45 days, the two wrote. The most recent report, identified as "Version III" of the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation file, was produced within the last week, they said.

The attorneys said they have not yet fully reviewed the information in the disclosure, which they have been told included "results of testing and a myriad of interviews."

Now with all the material from prosecutors, Bahena Rivera's defense team said it can "formulate a more complete defense," saying they would consult with their own experts.

 

[PommyMommy]

JAN 17, 2019
Attorneys for suspect in Tibbetts trial request delay
Rivera's attorneys asked a judge to extend a deadline for them to complete a review of the evidence against Rivera. Attorneys said they have not had enough time to go through all of it.

Right now, the trial is scheduled for April.

 

[PommyMommy]

JAN 17, 2019
Prosecutors propose July trial date for man accused of murdering Mollie Tibbetts
Prosecutors have requested a July trial date for the man accused of killing 20-year-old Mollie Tibbetts, according to court records.

"The State does not resist Defendant’s request to continue the trial," Assistant Attorney General Scott Brown wrote in a Thursday morning court filing. "If the Court continues the trial, the State requests the Court schedule trial for Monday, July 29, 2019."

The filing also notes that prosecutors anticipate a trial length of six to eight days.

*****

Article includes the document - State's Response to Defendant's Motion to Continue:

Prosecutors propose July trial date for man accused of murdering Mollie Tibbetts

 

[PommyMommy]

JAN 17, 2019
Prosecutors request July trial for man accused of killing Mollie Tibbetts
Assistant Attorney General Scott D. Brown proposed Thursday morning that the trial begin July 29, according to court records. The request comes two days after attorneys for Cristhian Bahena Rivera, the man charged with first-degree murder, asked the court to push back the previously scheduled April trial date.

The original deadline to complete discovery was Tuesday, but such delays in trial proceedings are not uncommon.

Since Bahena Rivera was arraigned in September, his attorneys said they have received a plethora of information from the prosecution. Much of it came in the last 45 days. Brown's request Thursday agreed there is an abundance of information for both sides to parse through, calling the amount of material provided in discovery "voluminous."

Brown's request said the state estimates the trial will take six to eight days. A judge will decide whether to grant the extension and then set a new trial date.

 

[PommyMommy]

JAN 24, 2019
Centerville man now missing for one year
Tuesday, Jan. 22 marked the one year anniversary of the day that Ty went missing after going to work in Lineville, Missouri. Now his family is working with Mollie’s Movement: Finding Others to keep his story in the public eye.

Mollie’s Movement was created when Mollie Tibbetts from Brooklyn, Iowa disappeared last year. The volunteers who worked to help bring her home wanted to continue helping other families looking for missing persons. With the blessing of Mollie’s family, they have begun to branch out and one of the first cases they chose to work on was Ty’s.

“They’ve been great,” said Iesha Husted, Ty’s sister. “The lady who runs it and the people that work for her are super nice and you can tell that they care about what they’re doing.”

 

[PommyMommy]

FEB 1, 2019
Man accused of killing Mollie Tibbetts gets new trial date
The trial has been set for 9 a.m. Sept. 3 at the Poweshiek County Courthouse in Montezuma. Rivera's attorneys said they needed more time to review material before trial, which had initially been scheduled for April.

 

[PommyMommy]

FEB 7, 2019
Man falsely connected to Mollie Tibbetts disappearance injured when explosion levels home

The Poweshiek County farmer whose name gained notoriety during the search for Mollie Tibbetts was injured Thursday morning when a suspected gas explosion leveled his home.

Firefighters responded to the explosion at 9:45 a.m. on the 70-acre farm of Wayne Cheney, who was interviewed by the FBI and said he took a polygraph exam during the weekslong search for Tibbetts.

Social media chatter gave prominence to the FBI's search of Cheney's property and his repeated interactions with authorities, but investigators never named him as a suspect or a person of interest in the case. Cheney's farm sits about 13 miles to the southeast of Brooklyn, Tibbetts' hometown.

Cheney repeatedly denied ever meeting Tibbetts or her family.

 

[PommyMommy]

FEB 7, 2019
Explosion levels home of man wrongly linked to Tibbetts case

A farmer was taken to a hospital Thursday after a suspected gas explosion leveled his home in rural Poweshiek County, authorities said.

Cheney was falsely linked to University of Iowa student Mollie Tibbetts' disappearance and murder. Investigators performed searches around Poweshiek County, including Cheney's farm, but they found nothing related to the case.

Poweshiek County Sheriff Tom Kriegel said Cheney was sent to an Iowa City hospital with burns and was conscious when first responders reached him. He is expected to survive.

Kriegel said Cheney told firefighters he was trying to light a space heater when the home exploded. Investigators believe gas had filled the house.

The incident remains under investigation.

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Cheney was falsely linked to University of Iowa student Mollie Tibbetts' disappearance and murder. Investigators performed searches around Poweshiek County, including Cheney's farm, but they found nothing related to the case.

 

[PommyMommy]

MAR 2, 2019
Man accused in Mollie Tibbetts' slaying wants trial moved to a county with ‘substantial’ Latino representation
The man charged in the killing of University of Iowa student Mollie Tibbetts requested his trial be moved out of Poweshiek County and into a county with more minority representation in its jury pool.

Attorneys for Cristhian Bahena Rivera on Friday filed a motion for change of venue, arguing that existing prejudice in Poweshiek County makes it likely "a fair and impartial trial cannot be preserved with a jury selected from that county," according to court documents.

[...]

Months later, emotions and opinions surrounding Tibbett's death "do not appear to have cooled," Rivera's attorneys wrote.

The motion used as an example a story published Jan. 15 by Des Moines television station KCCI about Rivera seeking a trial delay.

The story, shared on the station's Facebook page, received hundreds of reactions and comments, many of them negative comments about Rivera's Mexican nationality. Others wrote that Rivera should be killed. The motion didn't indicate what county the commenters were from.

 

[PommyMommy]

MAR 3, 2019
Lawyers of man accused of killing Mollie Tibbetts want trial moved out of county
Rivera's legal team cited how Tibbetts' hometown of Brooklyn knows about the case and pointed to a "Remembering Mollie Tibbetts" Facebook page and numerous news stories filed during the month-plus spent looking for her.

The legal team also cited potential witnesses, many of whom have Latino heritage who would "relay a genuine fear and apprehension for offering testimony or cooperating with any investigation."

Rivera's legal team is asking for the venue where the "minority population is substantially represented."

Lawyers of Man Accused of Killing Mollie Tibbetts Want Trial Moved to Another County
The attorneys for Cristhian Rivera say there is existing prejudice in Poweshiek County.

[...]

Rivera’s lawyers say the national attention garnered during the weeks-long search for Tibbetts means he will be unable to find an impartial jury in the county. They also say that because the issue of Rivera’s immigration status has gained polarizing national attention, he should be tried in a county with a larger minority population.

Tibbetts murder suspect wants trial moved to county with minority representation
According to court documents, Rivera's attorneys requested that the trial be moved to a county that has a "representative minority population" due to the polarizing nature of the defendant's undocumented immigration status.

 

[PommyMommy]

MAR 4, 2019
Man accused of killing Mollie Tibbetts says he was not read his rights before police interview
The undocumented immigrant accused of killing University of Iowa student Mollie Tibbetts says he was not advised of his rights before an interview with law enforcement, arguing his constitutional right against self-incrimination was violated.

Lawyers for Cristhian Bahena Rivera say before the 12-hour interview, he was not told about his right to an attorney or his right to decline to cooperate. His attorneys argue in a new 29-page motion that any confession he made was therefore involuntary.

One of Bahena Rivera's attorneys, Chad Frese, told the Des Moines Register his client was "Mirandized" — shorthand in the legal profession for formally explaining a suspect's rights, under the U.S. Supreme Court decision Miranda v. Arizona — nine to 10 hours into the interview at the Poweshiek County Sheriff’s Office in Montezuma.

Having worked a full day at a dairy farm before, Bahena Rivera fell asleep twice at the sheriff's office, he said.

"It's troublesome," Frese said, calling the interview part of the story the public had not yet been heard. "It's involuntary."

A special agent with the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation referred questions about the motion to the Iowa Attorney General's Office. That office's spokesman, Lynn Hicks, said the state planned to resist the motion but that he could not comment further.