There can be “no other conclusion” than that a farmhand fatally stabbed a University of Iowa student and dumped her body in a cornfield, a prosecutor told jurors on Wednesday.
It’s been nearly three years since the slaying of 20-year-old Mollie Tibbetts, and Poweshiek County Attorney Bart Klaver said all the evidence points to defendant Cristhian Bahena Rivera as the perpetrator.
“Ladies and gentlemen, when you examine this evidence together, there can be can be no other conclusion that the defendant killed Mollie Tibbetts,” Klaver told jurors in Davenport.
“And I’ll ask you to return a verdict, the only verdict that justice demands, that you find the defendant guilty of murder in the first degree.”
In a brief opening statement, Klaver said sheriff’s investigators linked Rivera to Tibbetts through a security video that allegedly showed his black Chevy Malibu — with chrome door handles and mirrors — driving past the jogging victim in Brooklyn, Iowa, where she was housesitting.
He admitted to spotting Tibbetts, finding her pretty, approaching her and getting into a struggle before taking her body to a corn field, according to the prosecutor. He allegedly led investigators to a corn field near the Poweshiek-Iowa County line where Tibbetts’ decomposed body was found.
“He remembered Mollie being in the trunk, his admission of taking Mollie’s bloody body out of the trunk, putting her on his shoulder, taking her into the field and leaving her there, covering her with corn stalks,” Klaver said.
The case against Rivera, a Mexican national charged with stabbing Tibbetts in July 2018, drew national attention when former President Donald Trump said the tragedy was made possible by lax immigration laws.
The 26-year-old Rivera wore headphones in court on Wednesday to listen to proceedings through a Spanish-speaking interpreter.
His defense lawyer declined to make an opening statement, electing to speak to jurors at the end of state’s case.
Rivera has pleaded not guilty.
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Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
