Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - MEDICAL EXAMINER'S NIGHTMARE: Girl in the Cornfield

Episode Date: May 21, 2021

College student Mollie Tibbetts disappeared from the small Iowa town of Brooklyn. The 20-year-old woman former high school track star went out for an evening jog and never came home. After a month-long search, Tibbets' body is found in a cornfield, covered by stalks. The man who put Tibbetts there, led police to the body. The medical examiner concluded she died from "multiple sharp force injuries." Forensics expert Joe Scott Morgan explains the injuries. 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. It's been nearly three years since Molly Tibbetts, a 20-year-old student, went missing out of her home county in Iowa. The trial of the suspect accused in her murder is now underway. Twenty-six-year-old Tristan Bahena-Rivera is charged. As the jury selection process began, Assistant Attorney General Scott Brown warned potential jurors that they would be exposed to graphic and unsettling details of the case. Let's listen to a little bit of the opening statement from prosecuting attorney Bart Flavor.

One of the things they were able to do was collect the security camera footage and surveillance video from around the time frame and date and area Molly was last seen and as the agents meticulously went over this video on one of those videos that was taken from Logan Collins residents who lived down the street from Dalton and Blake Jack on East Des Moines Street they saw a specter a silhouette of what appeared to be a jogger in the time in the area Molly was last seen as they scoured that video for any other clue as to Molly's disappearance they noticed a certain vehicle appearing again and again and again on that video it's was a black Chevy Malibu. Now that's a common make and model but this one was unique. This vehicle had non-standard rims, it had chrome

door handles and it had chrome mirrors. Shortly after this vehicle was identified as a vehicle of interest in the case, Poweshiek County Deputy and Investigator Steve Kibbe was driving home on Interstate 80 when he saw a black Chevy Malibu with the chrome side mirrors. So he followed that vehicle and he approached the driver when it stopped. Driver didn't speak much English and so he had the help of a neighbor to speak to the driver. Driver identified himself with the birth certificate as Christian Bahena Rivera. With me here to talk about that case and the forensic evidence is Joe Scott Morgan, Professor of Forensics at Jacksonville State University. Joe Scott is also featured in the Pipes and Massacre

Return to Pike County podcast. Joe Scott, let's just start off with what the attorney said at the beginning, the district attorney. He warned the jurors that what they were going to hear and see in this trial is going to be very disturbing. So that tells us right off the bat that this was a very violent death. Yeah, it does, Jackie. And what he is hinting at here, at least, and what's going to be the big reveal in this trial is the fact that this poor, poor girl, Molly, was literally ripped to shreds. And she was ripped to shreds in forensic parlance, what we refer to as sharp force injuries.

And what this means is that the perpetrator utilized an edged weapon. Now, we don't know a lot about this edged weapon at this moment, Tom. It could be any number of things. We don't know if it was a pocket knife that he was carrying or maybe a hunting knife or something else, maybe even a butcher knife for all we know. But we do know that she has been, the injuries have been identified specifically as stab wounds. And Jackie, there's multiple of them, but there's another layer to this. And what makes this so very insidious is that we have to remember her body was not found immediately. You mentioned the phrase edged weapon.

I've heard that in several cases recently that we've covered. What exactly does that mean? It could be any number of things, Jackie. But specifically, you know, when we think of an edged weapon, most of the time we're thinking of a knife, but we have to think of all of those items out there that do have an edge. And this ranges from everything from a machete to an ax to even, I've handled cases involving butter knives. Can you believe that? Or, you know, as old folks used to call them, the case knife, you know, give me a case knife.

I've actually worked cases involving that. And, of course, hunting knives. What you're looking for is something that has a milled edge, and that means it's something that has been processed in a factory and created and can be sharpened to a fine edge that's used specifically for cutting. Now, they specifically, though, and this is very, very important to remember, they didn't mention chopping injuries. They didn't mention slicing injuries.

They said that Molly died as a result of multiple stabbing injuries. And when we talk about stabbing, these injuries are not shallow and long. They are more accurately described as being narrow and deep. And there's multiple of them. We know that they are on multiple surfaces of her body, neck. Can you believe that she's even got a stab wound to the head? And we can get into that a little bit, but that goes to who may have been the perpetrator,

what their kind of mindset was at that time. So you're leading me to a very specific point. Let's start at the beginning of where the physical evidence is going to start. It was with the video where we have seen the Haina Rivera is seen circling Molly Tibbetts, and he admitted that he turned around because he thought she was close hot. I've seen the Haina Rivera is seen circling Molly Tibbetts, and he admitted that he turned around because he thought she was close hot. And then he got into a struggle with her, and she ended up in his trunk. So we start there where he had to be able to get her in a trunk. So we're looking at a physical struggle there.

So we have evidence on the body of the struggle. And then she is in his trunk. So at that point, do we think that she was unconscious? I think that that's an excellent question. And, you know, the police at this point haven't necessarily revealed a lot of that information. I think that's going to come up at trial because this is key, Jackie. What they're saying is that Molly's DNA was actually found in a trunk. Now, the question we have to ask as forensic scientists

and certainly as trial viewers as well, we have to ask, well, what type of DNA are we talking about? And when I say that, I mean, we're talking about something like the touch DNA that's essentially partial DNA that comes as a result of, say, sloughing skin cells, where you only get a partial strand from dead skin cells. Or what she stabbed, and so many times prior to being placed into the trunk, and there has literally been blood that has either splashed about or leaked out of her body, maybe in the throes of death, as he's placed her into the trunk and they're traveling some distance. The thing about the blood evidence, if there is blood in there, and I think that there probably is, blood evidence presents us with a very evidence-rich environment as far as DNA goes.

When you go in to kind of harvest the DNA and collect it, those strands that are provided by blood are complete strands. And so it's very easy to generate a profile, a genetic profile off of her that would be a specific type back because look, logically you have to ask this question as an investigator, how in the world would this young girl's DNA wind up in a total stranger's trunk? And you know, how does that even happen? These people have never met before assuming this. They never crossed paths. And of course, as we know, it's just it's not standard to give somebody a lift in your car in the trunk.

It's just it's it's it's atypical. So you have to ask that question as an investigator. And I guarantee you that's what the authorities in Iowa have done. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. So the one thing that we know is that Bahena Rivera allegedly admitted that he took her, quote, bloody body out of the trunk. So at that point, if that is the case, then we can assume, if I can use that term, we can assume that some of the stabbing took place before she was put in the trunk. Is there any way, I mean, how do we tell that? Or can we? Or do we just go by the fact that there's blood in the trunk? This is an excellent question because this poses these two dynamics in a death investigation.

When you're looking at injuries, we have to consider antemortem injuries, which are those things that occur prior to death. Let's say, for instance, an individual, say, for instance, in Molly's case, is stabbed in life. Well, what do we know happens when you sustain an injury? Well, like this, a stab wound, you bleed. Or if there's blunt force attached to it, say the hilt of the knife is buried into her, it's going to leave behind a little contusion or, in common phraseology, a bruise. And the only way that happens is that blood still has to be pumping in the body, so you hemorrhage into that area.

And, you know, you can actually hemorrhage out of the wound and you splash blood about as you're in the throes of death. And then we'd look at things. We assess the body based upon post-mortem injuries. And let's just say we have an individual that has been stabbed in life. They're placed in the trunk, and they're traveled, they're transported some distance, and they die in the midst of this transportation that is taking place.

And then when, prior to the body being removed, they're stabbed once again in death, well, those insults, those injuries, those defects are not going to have any injuries associated with them. So I've worked in many cases over the course of my career where there is a distinct delineation, a distinct line, a marker where you can say, okay, this happened before death and this happened after death. And why is that important?

Well, it's important because it establishes a time lot. How are these two connected? How long did it take? And one of the things that the ME would look for at autopsy is how much blood did Molly actually lose as a result of these stab wounds? How long could she have sustained life after being insulted? And a lot of that is going to go to were there any major vessels that were clipped, say like the carotids in the neck? Or did she throw up her arm and maybe he sliced her brachial artery? Did he stab her in the leg?

Maybe he got her femoral artery. Or maybe he went so deep into her body, Jackie, that he got her heart or her aorta, or maybe he nicked a lung. And if that's the case, when you open a person's body that has been stabbed, their organs will literally internally be floating in blood. All that blood doesn't necessarily come out of the body, and it's a glaring indication of blood loss at that moment in time. And the more we measure that sort of thing.

So that's the kind of ammunition that the forensic pathologist, the state medical examiner there in Iowa, is going to bring to the court when they're examined. Okay, so I'm not even a JD, as Nancy says. I'm going to ask, I'm going to see if I can make sure I understand what you're saying. You're telling me that the amount, I mean the roundabout and part of the answer is that the amount of blood itself that's in the trunk

plays a part in this investigation. Absolutely. It will. And that gives you an indication as to how much she bled out into the trunk from the wombs and how much blood is still contained within her body that's kind of floating around. And let me give you an assessment of this in one of the ways that is horribly graphic, but this is kind of what we'd look at

at autopsy. Not all of the blood that is issuing from her body goes out the side of her body. People have heard the term internal bleeding. You know, Jackie, there's actually a term that we use in the morgue when people are stabbed in the chest, and it's actually the floating of lungs. We'll say that the lungs were floating in blood. And if you're stabbed in the chest, the pleural spaces, all of those spaces within your lungs, within your chest that are not filled with the lungs themselves, even when they're fully expanded, that's air in there.

Well, that's replaced. Let me step in on you right here because you're talking about something I want to expand on a little bit. You're talking about the blood filling the chest cavity and knowing that she was stabbed between 7 and 12 times. That's a lot of opportunity for blood to spread. Yes, it is. Yes, it is. It's a, when you have that many insults to the body, that many injuries, that many defects, there is an opportunity not just to leak blood out of the body,

but every time that knife is inserted and inserted deeply into the body, you up the chance as the perpetrator that you're going to nick a major organ. And it can be the slightest nick. It can be the upper lobe of the left lung it can be maybe the apex of the heart you might can clip the aorta and even the smallest nick in those areas will cause the individual to here's a fancy term and it's actually it means bleed out but physicians call it exsanguinate. Many people have never heard that. And essentially all that means is that you bleed to death internally. And the person loses so much blood that there is no chance of surviving,

even if she were found laying on the road after sustaining these many wounds. And this is assuming that most of them are lethal, even if there was a trauma team of surgeons standing by that couldn't have saved her life, probably. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Joe, we know that it was a month before Molly Tivett's body was found. So we've got decomposition here. I want to know, would her body, is that enough time, given the time, the weather, the time of year,

and the fact that her body was hidden under corn stalks. That's a multi-edge question here, sorry. How would that affect the decomposition, the breakdown of the body, and the investigation? Well, it's going to escalate decomposition, and let me tell you why. First off, we're in Iowa, and a lot of people think of Iowa during the wintertime. They think that it's very cold, but I've got to tell you, Jackie, Iowa, Missouri, that area in there that kind of leans against the western side of the Mississippi River, it is one of the most hot and humid places, even by southern, deep south standards. It's one of the most hot and humid places in America. And so what we do know, folks that have had a basic science class,

even when they were in grade school, heat speeds things up. And so any time you get this hot, moist environment where you've got maybe 80%, 85% relative humidity in the air, it's going to speed up the process of decomposition. And so the injuries that you have, because they're open wounds, and I so hate to be so graphic, but you have to understand these open wounds, those areas are going to attract insect activity. So you'll have larval deposits in there. You'll have maggot that will be growing in several. By this period of time, as she's laid out there, you're going to have several life cycles of flies that would have lighted on the body.

And they're going to distort these injuries. It's going to make it very, very difficult for the forensic pathologist to assess it. And you talked about these corn stalks. This is, you know, if folks have ever been to Iowa, it's a beautiful place. And particularly when you see these rows and rows of corn, folks remember like the Field of Dreams movie, they're so heavy. You can't see your hand in front of your face when you walk out into one of these fields.

They're so thick. And you look down at that dirt and it's so dark and rich. Well, this is what's referred to as an aerobic environment. And it's oxygen rich. You've got a lot of nutrients that are breaking down the soil. And remember, her body was covered with corn stalks. It was pressed down, probably derooted, thrown down. So not only is Molly's body decomposing, it's not decomposing in a vacuum. Her body is laying on top of this very loamy soil, heavily organic,

and she's being covered with decomposing vegetable matter at that point. So you've got all of these little cycles that are taking place on multiple levels. So it's going to just speed this process of decomposition. So by the time you get down the road here, you know, three, four weeks after death, her body would be greatly decomposed. And what does that mean for us as forensic investigators? Well, what it means is there's a high likelihood that you're going to lose evidence. And that's a very slippery slope.

And one more thing that we do know about this area, and I can guarantee you, Jackie, that the authorities looked into this, is that we know that there are strong summertime thunderstorms. They'll come through there. And one of the worst things you can ever hear as a crime scene investigator out on the scene is the rumble of thunder off in the distance because water washes away and it destroys a lot of things so you have to think if she's been out there that long there would have been several probably opportunities for clouds to pass by there may have been several thunderstorms that her body would have had to have endured all along through this you know you couple that with this process of decomposition and it it presents a set of circumstances that are daunting for the investigators at the scene.

Well, let me throw something else at you, Joe Scott. Yeah. Cornstalks actually have sap in them. You can actually, if you wanted to leave the cornstalks up, you could cap them and make syrup. It's not going to be like you're getting out of the tree, of course. It's not going to be like you're getting out of the tree, of course. It's not going to be as much. So when the corn stalks are cut and they're stacked,

so if her body is hidden by these corn stalks, you're going to have some sap residue on her body. How is that going to affect things? Yeah, you will, and there will be residue of that sap that is left behind, this kind of glucose based substances there, the sugars that are there. And it would be interesting to know, did,

did the, did the investigators kind of check for that at the scene? And was her body swapped? I've actually never heard of a body being swapped for this sort of thing, but I do know this. Even along with the normal progression of, say, insect activity that come along relative to decomposing human body, and I'm talking about things like the common blowfly, when you've got decomposing vegetable matter,

that's going to attract an entirely different species or grouping of insects that feast specifically on that, and they're going to be interacting. So you can see how this dynamic would greatly change, and it is a very dynamic environment contained there as her body is covered laying on the ground laying in this dirt this this uh this tilled soil with this decomposing vegetable matter on top of it you know and i think that one of the questions i have that that i've been pondering about this i'm very curious to know what the status of her clothing was because you know automatically when i as an investigator,

when I see someone that has died as a result of sustained short force injuries, remember that's very close and personal, Jack. It's an intimate thing. It's not like standing on a hill with a scoped weapon and shooting, you know, at 100 yards or something. This is up close and personal. You can actually experience the last breath of life leaving an individual as you plunge a knife into their body.

So that implies an intimacy. I've been very curious to know if there is a sexual element that has been involved with this. One of the things we look for at scenes is the status of the clothing. We would want to know, for instance, if she's out jogging, first off, are her shorts present? And if they are present, what was their status? Were they still in what you would consider a normal orientation? You know, people know what their shorts feel like at home that they wear.

You know, are they up in the waist or are they pulled down to the knee or down at the ankles, this sort of thing? And also another thing to think of, you know, are they up in the waist or are they pulled down to the knee or down at the ankles, this sort of thing? And also another thing to think of, you know, what was the status of any kind of covering on the upper body? She's wearing a bra. Is it pushed up where, you know, I hate to say it, but, you know, where her breasts are exposed and in view. And that is going to play into how her body was treated, obviously, in the anti-mortem state prior to death and then certainly after. Relative to this, and it's very interesting that he was so bold, Jackie, to do this in the light of day. And we have no idea of what this guy's criminal history is because of perhaps his status in our country. We have no idea of what this guy's criminal history is because of perhaps his status in our country we have no idea what he's what he has done in the past or what he is

he's perpetrated maybe in some other location um he's so bold to do this to this young woman you know in in view of this this camera you know where you see the car going back and forth what else has he done? For more information on the murder trial in the death of Molly Tibbetts, you can go to crimeonline.com. With me has been Joe Scott Morgan, professor of forensics at Jacksonville State University

and featured forensics expert in the Pikes and Massacre Return to Pike County podcast now available for Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. I'm Jackie Howard. This is an iHeart Podcast.