Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - BONUS: Evidence support for new claims in Mollie Tibbetts murder?

Episode Date: July 23, 2021

Sentencing for the man convicted of killing University of Iowa student, Mollie Tibbetts, has been delayed amid new information. Judge Joel Yates ordered Cristhian Rivera’s sentencing be delayed after two witnesses told investigators that a different man confessed to the crime. According to Bahena Rivera’s attorneys, an inmate at the county jail said in May that he heard someone identified as “inmate 2” admit that Tibbetts was “bound and gagged in a trap house but that he was directed to kill Tibbetts once the search for her got too close.” Inmate 2 allegedly said he was ordered to stab Tibbetts, who was initially kidnapped for sex trafficking, but killed after the case became too high-profile. Inmate 2 allegedly said he was ordered to hide the body near a Hispanic male in Tibbetts’ area, to pin the blame on someone else. The witness said he came forward after he heard Rivera testify during the trial that two other men killed Tibbetts and put the blame on him. Forensic expert, Joe Scott Morgan, Professor at Jacksonville State University weighs in on whether the evidence can support that claim. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. I'm executive producer Jackie Howard. Christian Bahena Rivera, 27-year-old Mexican national who came to the U.S. illegally, has been convicted of murdering 20-year-old Molly Tibbetts. Since his conviction, Bahena Rivera's attorneys contend that two new witnesses have come forward blaming another man for Tibbetts' murder. They have put forth the theory that Tibbetts was allegedly kidnapped into a sex trafficking ring.

Take a listen to our friends at ABC. He testified that on the day the 20-year-old was killed, he got out of the shower to find two strangers in his living room. Bahena Rivera, who speaks little English, says the men wanted him to drive them in his car. One man armed with a gun, the other with a knife. That I shouldn't do anything stupid and everything was going to be okay. As they drove, Bahena Rivera says they passed Tibbetts running three to four times. He claims the men then asked him to turn the car around and one of the men got out,

heading towards Tibbetts, disappearing for about 12 minutes. Bahena Rivera testified that something was later put inside the trunk of the car. He says he then drove the men to a house next to a cornfield and was told that if he called police, his ex-girlfriend and daughter would be hurt. Because I remember that they said that if I would say something, they were going to do something to my family, my ex-girlfriend, my daughter. Bahena Rivera testified that once the men were gone, he opened the trunk and found Tibbetts dead. He says he put her body in the cornfield and decided not to tell police out of fear.

Joining me today, Joseph Scott Morgan, forensic professor at Jacksonville State University and author of Blood Beneath My Feet. Joe, let's look at this case and go through what these allegations are, because you would think at the time of the investigations, some of these facts would have come up. So let's start at the beginning. Bahena Rivera, the person who has been convicted of killing Molly Tibbetts, says two men entered his home and made him take part in this. What kind of evidence would there have been for police to have found originally if Bahena Rivera was accurate? You know, you got to think about this term.

He's using the term made. All right. That's not coerced. That's not invited. That's not even I'm going to's not invited. That's not even, I'm going to send you an engraved written invitation. That's made. That implies force. That means that you would have had to have had these individuals that he alleges came in and took constructive control over his person and forced him to engage in this kind of lethal act that's going on, this horrible event that obviously ends in the death of Molly,

and not just ends in the death of Molly, but also ends in the seclusion of her body. You know, this idea that she's going to be put away somewhere. So back at the scene where they entered, remember he said they entered his home. Well, it would at least seem that there would be some maybe evidence of forced entry, maybe evidence of struggle at his home. You know, many times when we think about this, we think about people kicking the doors off the hinges. Maybe there was a footprint on the door. Maybe the front doorknob was pried loose and they struggled with him once they got in.

Well, gee, was there any broken furniture there? Were there footprints on the floor? Were there scuff marks on the floor that would indicate, say, for instance, that you had a physical confrontation with these individuals where they're forcing him to leave his house, leave his domicile, the safety of this environment, and go with them to perpetrate this crime. So what would they leave behind? Well, obviously, you know, we're going to be looking at some of the physical evidence that I've just mentioned. But also, was there any evidence at his own home, which he's talking about, where these

two strangers out of nowhere who were engaging in this forced event, did they leave any kind of semblance of DNA? Did they bleed there? Was there a forced struggle where it required or where blood emanated from their body? Or was there evidence that, say, for instance, there's some kind of touch DNA that comes about as a result of sloughed dead skin cells? Hey, were there any foreign fingerprints there? Remember, we talk about in forensics things like latent prints. Latent means unseen. So I would think that the police, if they were given this narrative,

they would have gone back. They would have looked at the home. We have very specific names. Remember, keep in mind, it's not just like he said, three strangers. He actually identified these individuals. Did they go back to his home and dust for Layton prints that match up. All of these people that are involved in this that allegedly forced him to do this, they all have criminal records. Guess what that means? That means that they've got a card on file. They've got a fingerprint card on file.

It wouldn't be too hard in order to validate this if you found that at the scene. And, you know, I would give some credence. I'd give some credence to him. If I thought in fact that we found one or maybe two of their latent prints at the scene. Okay. So we've got two more stories that come out here, Joe. And Bahena Rivera testified, these men forced him to drive and they are in his car and they see Molly and

they take her. So once again, taking what you just said about his home, what would we have expected in the car and they see Molly and they take her. So once again, taking what you just said about his home, what would we have expected in the car? Oh my God. In a case like this, his vehicle is a rolling crime scene. I mean, you start talking about houses, you know, you go into a living room and everybody can identify with this. You go into a living room, it's kind of widespread, right? Even the smallest apartment's got space in it. Let's think about a car. Let's think about a four-door sedan. We're limited in space. I mean, you can't get into a, just think about this, you can't get into a vehicle without some portion of your body touching the interior of that vehicle in multiple spots. Just think about what it takes just to sit down in a car. I go through this exercise with my forensic students.

I tell them, look, let's think about what it takes just to open the door of a car and then seat yourself. And I teach this, you know, relative to like Leighton Prince. You have to open the door handle. You have to move the door handle, you have to move the door, you're putting your palm flat on the door, then you kind of scoot yourself in, you're adjusting the seatbelt, you're touching the dashboard, if you're driving, you're touching the steer wheel, you're touching the gearshift, you're touching the keys. So even if you're a backseat passenger, it's not like you just plop down out of air and you're there and your backside's touching. No, your feet are

touching. All of your clothing is touching. Maybe you lean your head back, you leave hair in there and all these sorts of things. Not to mention if there's a struggle that's ensuing inside of the vehicle. I got to tell you, if I've got a couple of folks that are trying to force me to do something within this vehicle, I'm fighting back. I think a lot of people would fight back. So there you have the opportunity to shed more skin cells. You have an opportunity to leave latent prints. You have more opportunity to perhaps leave some kind of biological sample like blood or saliva, which are specific biological tiebacks to individuals. And that's a term that we use in forensics. It's a beautiful term.

And the reason is that term is called individualization of evidence. That means that it is a specific identifier for particular types of evidence, whether it's fingerprints, you know, that are left behind by those fatty lipids on the tips of our fingers, or if it is a strand of DNA that we can recover from the scene, either through skin or blood or saliva, or in some cases involving sexual trade, we can have a seminal fluid that's left behind. So you've got all these multiple points of contact in there, and it would be what we refer to as an evidence-rich environment.

Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. What we have heard from Bahena Rivera's attorneys is that Molly Tibbetts was kidnapped and taken for sex trade. According to now sealed documents held by the defense, it is alleged that Molly was seen being held captive, bound and gagged at a trap house. First of all, what is a trap house? You begin to think about this term, and it's kind of a newer term in kind of criminal parlance, street parlance, if you will. A trap house is roughly the same thing that the generation before is referred to as a crack house. And these are abandoned homes where individuals will go in to buy, sell, or use drugs. It's also a location where prostitutes have been known to go in and turn tricks. That is, they service johns in there, have sex. It's also locations where the homeless

will kind of go into these locations. And keep in they're abandoned homes and they'll set up little encampments in there. I've actually gone into, you know, crack houses slash trap houses over the course of my career as an ME investigator. And it's really interesting. You'll actually see homeless individuals and drug addicts that will occupy specific areas of the house. They might go into one big room, but one individual has one corner of the room. And it's not like a bed. It might just be like a pile of clothing that's there. You'll see open candy wrappers and open partially eaten foodstuffs that are everywhere,

like canned foods and that sort of thing. And the other thing you're going to see are used needles, broken crack pipes, all those sorts of things. And there'll be a tremendous number of, say, for instance, used condoms that'll be laying about as well. Now, the interesting thing about this is that Rivera stated, if I remember correctly, that it wasn't that there weren't just that there wasn't just a trap house. In this little town, now keep frame this, this is this is pure American Gothic.

This is a life out in the cornfields of Iowa. He's saying in a population of well below 5,000 people in this little town, he's saying there's more than one trap house in this location. Like there's several of these places around there where these individuals moved around. And that she was witness to have been inside of that home, per his eyewitness that he's putting forward, inside that home, bound, tied up. So what was she tied up with? Was she gagged?

Did she have tape over her face? I would expect to maybe find tape there that could, in fact, have DNA on it. I would maybe cut pieces of rope that are going to reveal tape marks, I mean cut marks where you can go back and track the rope. And if it's a trap house, guess what else? That means that you're attracting other people to it. It's not just one person. It's not just people that are trafficking in sex trade.

You're going to have other people. If Brooklyn, Iowa, which is where this was, is replete with all of these trap houses, that means that there are a whole lot of drug dealers, a whole lot of prostitutes, a whole lot of drug users that are coming in and out. Somebody else would have seen her there. It's not just like a one and done thing. The reason these places are used, the reason they're used is because they're abandoned homes. Nobody checks in on them. You don't have a regular occupant that at the end of the day, they pull up in the driveway, they go in the front door with their key, and they live their life. No,

that's not the way it works. There's generally some kind of entrance to get into the house that has been jimmied. The door is never secured on these places. Anybody can come and go as freely as they want. You're telling me. What you're trying to tell me is that these individuals are running a sex trafficking ring in this little town, and they're choosing to do this in a location that is literally accessible by the rest of the public. no one else has seen anything. And this poor girl is bound, potentially gagged, laying there on the floor, waiting for the next vehicle to whisk her off to God only knows where to sell her into the sex trade. I'm not buying it. Okay, then according to these allegations, Molly Tibbetts was in this trap house over a period of time. How is that going to match up with the fact that we know Molly Tibbetts' body was put into a cornfield covered with corn stalks and left there for an

extended period of time? How are we going to know which story is held up by the evidence? From a basic biology standpoint, this is a fascinating premise to explore, particularly for anybody that's interested in forensics. And let me kind of break it down for you. What Rivera is saying is that she, Molly, poor, slaughtered Molly, was essentially held captive in this home for a protracted period of time. Well, I'm going to be kind of graphic here. I'm going to tell you something. If she was held captive, they would have had to have kept her alive.

And if they kept her alive, that would mean she would have had to have been fed. She would have had to have been hydrated. Well, what happens with any person that's fed and hydrated? Well, they have to evacuate. They have to have a bowel movement. They have to urinate, essentially. Where is that going to take place? Well, you don't want her to be seen anywhere. It would actually have to take place in that house. There's also going to be evidence of the sustenance that's there, you know, this food and all the stuff they're having to feed her, keep her alive. Remember, she, by his own admission, is a product. They're trying to get her out so that they can

sell her into the sex trade. Well, you want to keep her healthy, at least to the point where she's viable. That means that there would be some kind of biological evidence of her presence in that specific house. To the best of my knowledge, there's not. But when you look at her body, when you look at her body that was literally blanketed in corn stalks, in this lush Iowa cornfield, and many people have seen cornfields, they're very, very green. These corn stalks would have been pushed down on top of her. And this creates, it's already hot in Iowa anyway during the summertime. Now you've got her in turned soil, which is just replete with all kinds of microbial life.

Her body is laying on top of that surface. Then you have decaying vegetable matter on top of her. And it's almost like her poor body is literally just kind of cooking in the sun out there. Her body begins to decompose. And what the ME and what the forensic anthropologist is saying, remember, there's a forensic anthropologist involved in that case. What does this mean? That means that her body was to the point where she had begun to skeletonize. This isn't a fresh dead person. They actually had a forensic anthropologist on the stand talking about this.

That gives you an indication how far down this linear timeline Molly's body was in the process of decomposition. It takes time to do that. And that's how we can mark this out. So by the time we get this trajectory, scientific trajectory out in time, remember when they finally found her body, she's well far gone. And it matches up biologically with the time when she was last seen. And you can kind of bracket that by two or three days. She's not in a house. She's not sequestered somewhere tied up and gagged and bound and being fed. No.

She has been stabbed to the point where it's like a bloody slaughter. And you know what? The stab wounds that she sustained, even the forensic pathologist could not say with any tells me that she was so brutalized and she was so decomposed that this perpetrator actually butchered her and dumped her body and secluded it out there in that cornfield. So what we know right now is the allegations laid out by Bahena Rivera's defense attorneys so far has no cooperation. The men named by the attorneys have denied any involvement. We wait as justice unfolds. This is Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. This is an iHeart Podcast.