(CN) — A day before Cristhian Bahena Rivera was supposed to be sentenced for murder, defense lawyers secured a delay Wednesday by saying another person has admitted to killing University of Iowa student Mollie Tibbetts.
The 20-year-old Tibbetts was found stabbed to death, her body hidden under corn stalks, nearly five weeks after she disappeared while on an evening jog around her hometown of Brooklyn, Iowa, in July 2018.
Tibbetts’ disappearance set off a massive search effort that attracted nationwide attention, culminating with police being led to the body by Bahena Rivera, a Mexican national who was working on a dairy farm near Brooklyn. After Tibbetts’ DNA was matched with blood stains in the trunk of his car, Bahena Rivera was charged with the murder.
Bahena Rivera was convicted by an Iowa jury in May of first-degree murder and set to be sentenced Thursday by Poweshiek County Judge Joel Yates.
On Wednesday, however, the court made public a motion filed the prior evening by Bahena Rivera’s defense lawyers, Chad and Jennifer Frese of Marshalltown, Iowa, seeking a delay based on evidence that has come to light in the months since trial. Judge Yates granted the continuance Wednesday. A hearing on retrial motion will be held later.
Bahena Rivera’s lawyers allege that an inmate in the Poweshiek County Jail claims to have heard a confession from a fellow inmate. The second inmate purportedly carried out a plan by a 50-year-old male involved in human sex trafficking in Iowa to kill Tibbetts and dispose of her body in a way that would implicate a Hispanic male. The defense lawyers say that the inmate’s story lends credence to a tale told by Bahena Rivera at trial that two men abducted him, killed Tibbetts, and left him to dispose of the body.
Bahena Rivera’s lawyers state in court filings that, while the new story may not fit precisely with Bahena Rivera’s version, it raises enough questions to cast doubt on whether the state could have proved its case to the jury beyond reasonable doubt.
The defense lawyers argue that a new trial is warranted because this new evidence, which came to light shortly after the trial concluded, has since been corroborated by a second report made to local law enforcement authorities from a third source.
The Iowa Attorney General’s office Wednesday filed resistances to Bahena Rivera’s motion for the state to produce additional evidence pointing to other suspects, and to the defendant’s motion for a new trial.
The state’s resistance to the motion for additional discovery filed by Assistant Attorney General Scott Brown said the defense motion “is a confusing assortment of irrelevant and immaterial information and baseless allegations” that the state failed to disclose evidence. The state said in its resistance that “there was never any evidence that Mollie [Tibbetts] had been taken by any person for purposes of being sexually trafficked.”
As for the defendant’s motion for a new trial, Brown said a new trial may be granted based on evidence that could not reasonably have been discovered at or before trial, but he said the evidence cited by Rivera in seeking a new trial was already provided to the defense by the state.
“The overwhelming amount of evidence points to the guilt of the defendant,” Brown wrote. “There should be no doubt that the defendant is the sole perpetrator of Mollie Tibbetts’ murder. There is no other credible evidence that suggests any other conclusion.”
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