Crimeatorium - The Murder of Mollie Tibbetts: Court Trial Part 4 of 8

Episode Date: June 28, 2026

Mollie Cecelia Tibbetts was born on May 8, 1998, in San Francisco, California, and raised in both San Francisco and Brooklyn, Iowa. She graduated from BGM High School in 2017 and was pursuing a degree in psychology at the University of Iowa, driven by her dream of becoming a child psychologist to help children struggling with mental health issues.Mollie loved life, and it showed in everything she did. She excelled in writing and speech, sharing her thoughts on complex topics like mental health and self-esteem. She made friends everywhere she went, and children adored her. She worked at a summer camp where her laughter and warmth left a lasting impression. She was a runner, a dancer, an actor, and a singer. But above all, Mollie was a young woman filled with kindness, ambition, and an undeniable joy for life.In July 2018, Mollie disappeared while on an evening jog near her hometown of Brooklyn, Iowa, sparking a massive search effort that united the community and drew nationwide attention.This episode covers the court trial, edited for length and clarity. Look for part 5 tomorrow.Music:CO.AG Music https://www.youtube.com/@co.agmusic1823

Welcome to True Crime Stories with Crime-O-Trorio. Ms. Johnson, I want to take you back to the area in the cornfield that you examined. and let's go ahead and look at those photos we just admitted. 86 is on the screen. Do you see that? Yes, I do. Okay. Whenever we had you testify this morning, we had States Exhibit 27, which is now on the screen. That's a view into the corn near where Molly Tibbetts was found. Is that right? Yes, it is. States Exhibit 86, which has just been admitted, is what view? This is the view facing back towards the gravel road facing north. Opposite direction of the photo we just viewed, is that correct?

Correct. All right, and that distance, again, from this location back to the road is how far? Is it a little over 400 feet? 430, I believe it was. You did measure it with a wheel, is that right? Yes. From where you stood at this location, could you see vehicles on the road? No.

Could you see any persons on the road? No. The state's Exhibit 87 is what? This is the striped fabric that we feel was her underpants, or a pair of underpants in the cornfield. And 87 is a photo of those underpants, correct? Correct. Did you collect the underpants, the headband, and the shorts as evidence?

Yes, I did. And were those transported back to the crime lab for any further analysis if that would have been needed? Yes they were. State's exhibit 44 there is an area here on the trunk liner that appears to be a blood stain would you agree? Yes I do. Okay this area that appeared to be blood you actually overlooked that at the sally port on that day is that right? Correct. We were able to collect that stain though two days later when the car was brought to the DCI lab? Yes. It's a reddish stain. I don't have a pointer on this view, but it's a reddish stain that we can see here on the

rubber seal. Yes. That stain was collected when? On the 22nd of August. Whenever the car was brought back to the crime lab, were the other items that we see here in the trunk, were those still there? Yes. Were they in, for the most part, the same position as you see them here in the photo? Yes. Nothing else was added or taken away that you know of? No. We've talked to you a bit about how long you took to examine the Malibu on two different occasions. Whenever you were called out to the area where Molly Tibbetts was located, how long did you spend searching that area for any evidence or clues? We were there until at least lunch, so four or five hours.

Okay, and Jonna Berry was the person who assisted you at the field, is that right? Yes, she did. Okay, and was she with you on the time whenever you examined the Malibu at the Sally Porter, at the garage, at the sheriff's office in Montezuma? Yes, she was. And did she also assist you in the search of the Malibu on August 22nd of 2018? Yes, she did. At any time during your examination of the Malibu or the location where Molly Tibbetts was located, did you ever have access to any blood or bodily fluid of Molly Tibbetts? no at this time i have no further questions of miss johnson thank you defense may cross-examine

miss johnson a couple questions first of all what what does cross-contamination mean cross-contamination could occur if something got dirty or someone else's dna got mixed with a sample possibly i would assume that the lab has pretty strict procedures when making sure that there's no cross-contamination? I'm not sure what you're asking. With your office, are there any safeguards that you have when you're processing a scene? When we are processing at the scene, we are wearing usually a nitrile glove and we use swabs that are in a sealed condition prior to opening them to collect a sample. And then the samples are placed in a box and placed in an envelope and sealed prior to submission. I know, and I'll ask you about the

specific pictures in a bit, but I know that there's some pictures that have people that have shoes, their shoes are covered with kind of a blue plastic suit, and it seems to be covering their entire body also? There were some people from the medical examiner's office that were more clothed, had more PPE, personal protective equipment, than what I would typically wear at a crime scene. All right. And when you arrived or when you responded to the crime scene, and so specifically the place where Molly Tibbetts' body was, what personal protective equipment did you have on? I had on our regular uniform and nitrile gloves. Why do you wear gloves when you're dealing with evidence? Depending on what the evidence is, I especially don't want to leave my fingerprints on

items or also in the case of DNA, you can leave epithelial cells that would leave your DNA on an item. Have you heard of cases where police officers' DNA has been found with the item submitted? Yes, I believe that happens. Now, the car, this Malibu that you looked at, you were called at approximately 3.30 on August 20th, 2018. Is that right? Yes. And how is it your office is involved in something? We typically get involved when our agents request our assistance because they may not have the capabilities or the equipment to process the scenes properly. Do they call you directly on your cell phone or what is it that, how do they get you involved? Yes, each of us within the

criminalistics laboratory carries a cell phone now as our way of communicating with other people. Who contacted you directly to become involved in this case? Special agent in charge Rick Rohn. And that was at 3 30 p.m. Is that correct? Approximately. What did he tell you about the reason he wanted you to become involved? He said that there were some vehicles that needed to be processed. Was it your understanding that there was an interview going on at the same time? Yes. You were aware that there was a suspect being interviewed simultaneously with your work. Is that right? I believe it was a person of interest that was being interviewed at that time. And so what they wanted you to do is to search for any clues or

any information that could be useful to them. Is that correct? I'm not exactly sure of their intentions, but I suppose that could be helpful to them. Yes. While you're searching, are you giving any updates to Rick Ron or another law enforcement officer? Yes, I did give an update of our processing. And what was the update? What did you say? The one update that I gave was about the brown hairs that we found in the trunk. Okay. What did you say that you found in the trunk? I said that we found long brown hairs in the trunk. Now, what I'm wondering is there were no hairs that were actually looked at or examined at the DCI. Is that correct? I'm not sure what happened with the hairs. That's beyond my expertise. Have you reviewed Tara Scott's?

Have you reviewed her report? No. So you're not aware that she never tested those hairs? I do not know what was done with the hairs. Did you convey any more information that could be of assistance to law enforcement? I asked them at the end of our processing, I requested that the vehicle be submitted to the laboratory because my equipment was not working properly. One of the things that I note is there were several different kids items that were found in the Chevy Malibu. Is that right? Yes. And specifically, there was a SpongeBob plastic bag, is that right? Yes, that was in the trunk. There was a pink child's toy? Yes. Where was that found? In the trunk. There was a car seat that was found? Yes, it was in the back seat of

the car. And there were other items associated with the child, is that right? Possibly. Now you noted in your report that there was a latex glove described as a gray glove from the trunk interior of the Black Malibu. Is that right? Yes. I'm going to publish State's Exhibit 43. It's already in evidence. That's the exhibit showing the Malibu trunk. Is that correct? Yes. I don't see a gray glove there. Could you explain that, ma'am? Sure. It's located behind the football. Were there any pictures documenting where that gray glove was found? Yes. Okay. Thank you. ma'am in front of you is there another picture that is marked as defendants exhibit z yes i do this is another photograph of the trunk is that right yes it is and that was another photo that

you took on august 20th 2018 is that right correct i'd offer defendants exhibit z this is another photo of the back of the trunk is that correct yes and can you point out to the jury where that glove is? You can't see it in this photo because it's obscured by the seatbelt. So you're saying that it's somewhere there, but that it's covered. Is that right? There's another photo that I took that shows where the glove is. I'm sorry. Ma'am, are you often called to investigate or to process crime scenes and possible missing person's case? Yes. And so if someone's missing, you may be asked to look at their home or a suspect's home to check for evidence. Is that right? Yes. Have you ever heard of the process

of working inside out? We typically work outside in. Okay. And what I mean is in an investigation that you look at the people closest to a missing person or a victim and then work your way out from that okay i'm not an investigator okay so you've never heard of that process before no one of the things that your office does is you process buckle swabs is that right yes the dna section processes buckle swabs and what is a buckle swab ma'am a buckle swab is a known dna sample taken from someone by using clean swabs on the inside of the cheek area. So with reference to my client in this investigation, a buccal swab would be presumably taken from him. Is that right? I don't know that they took a buccal swab from him. And in reference, the best practices would be to have a

buccal swab from anybody that's involved in the case. Is that right? It depends on what kind of evidence you're looking at. And the comparison for that would be specifically for DNA evidence, is that correct? Yes, DNA. When you are looking for fingerprint evidence, what is your procedures? It depends on what kind of evidence we're looking at. We could either search using like a black powder and a feather brush, or we could use magnetic powder and a magnetic applicator, or we could use a super glue fuming to try to enhance the latent prints. It depends on the situation. From the Chevy Malibu, did you collect any fingerprint evidence? No, I collected evidence to be analyzed for fingerprints. Can you discuss what specific

items were submitted for fingerprint analysis in this case. The SpongeBob plastic bag, the window scraper, the wrapping paper, plastic bag containing the fish stringer, plastic container with fishing hooks, plastic bag with bobbers, plastic bag for egg sinkers, pink child's toy, volleyball, black plastic tube, Pepsi can, a red and white coupon, and the plastic guard liner. All right. Now, I'd ask you to take a look at it. Actually, it's not Tara Scott's report. It's Anna Young's report. There were additional items that were submitted from the Malibu for print testing. Is that right? I'm not sure what you're referring to. There were additional items that were submitted from the Malibu for fingerprint testing. Is that

correct? I'm not sure what you're referring to. And what you're saying is that the items that you listed were submitted. Is that right? Yes. Okay. Ma'am, I'm showing you State's Exhibit 87. That's the photo that you believe is underwear. Is that right? Yes. Now, with regards to the the victim's body, it's pretty obvious that the running shoes that are placed right next to her would be associated with her. Is that right? I would assume so. And same with the socks that were on her body. Is that right? Yes. Same with the pink sports bra that was on her body. Is that correct? Correct. How far was States Exhibit 87 from this body? Approximately 34 feet. And it was found, I guess, kind of lodged in some dirt. Is that correct? I don't know if I would say lodged

in. It was on the surface of the field. It was on the surface of the field. Is that right? Yes. Is there additional testing that was requested for DNA or seminal fluid? We don't specify what kind of testing. We just ask for DNA. So what you would do is just ask for DNA testing on this particular item. Is that correct? Yes. And then the analyst that is assigned to the case could test the item for DNA. Is that right? Yes. That what would happen is they would develop a profile. Is that correct?

I'm not a DNA expert. I don't want to answer those questions beyond my expertise. They test for DNA, is that right? Correct. They'd also test for any sort of seminal fluid or any sort of sperm, is that correct? If it's requested of them. And that was requested in this case? I do not know.

And the same thing with the shorts, is that correct? I do not know what was requested of them. So you just collected it, is that correct? Yes. No further questions. Thank you. Any redirect? Yes. I did forget to ask you one thing. Did you, anybody that was associated with you on the crime scene team,

search a residence, a trailer that was believed to have belonged to Christian Bahena Rivera? I did. All right. And when would you have searched the trailer? That was immediately after the scene at the cornfield. Okay. And were there two knives that were collected at that scene that were submitted for further analysis? We collected one knife that day and then I believe someone went back and did a further search and decided that they wanted the other one also submitted. And these knives are folding knives? The one that I collected was a folding knife. Okay. And that would have been

submitted to the lab for DNA analysis. Is that right? Yes. I believe that was submitted for DNA and latent prints okay and there was also a napkin that appeared to have blood on it it was located at that trailer is that right yes there was all right was that also seized yes i collected that all right so do you have that address the location where it was at it was a rural brooklyn that's fine i have the report in front of me yeah that's fine if you want to refresh your memory to the address, please do that. 4123 200th Street. This is a rural area near Brooklyn, Iowa? Yes. How long did you spend searching the trailer that belonged to Christian Bahena-Rivera? Approximately three hours. In your search of the trailer, did you notice any other bloodstains,

bloody areas, anything of that nature? There were a couple areas that we screened for blood, but they were negative, presumptive. Did you find anything in the trailer that belonged to Molly Tibbetts? Not that I'm aware of. And was that the only time that you would have searched the trailer that you described? Yes. Ms. Freeze asked you about the search of the Malibu, correct? Yes. And she asked you about cross-contamination, is that right? Yes. Would you have had any item in your possession that would have either purposely or inadvertently been placed in the Malibu that would have had Molly Tibbetts' blood on it? No. All of the doors and the trunk were sealed at the Powishee County Sally Park before we left. You did that sealing,

is that correct? Yes, I did. All right. And when the car arrived at the lab, were those seals still in place? Yes, they were. And it was documented by the person who received the car. There was no evidence that you found of any kind of tampering with the vehicle. Is that correct? Correct. All right. That's all I have at this time. Thank you. Any recross? Does your office have a specific section that deals with weapons? Our firearms section deals with guns. I'm not sure beyond that what you're referring to. No further questions. Anything else for this witness, Mr. Brown? No, Your Honor. Our final witness of the day is Tara Scott. Ms. Scott, good afternoon. Good afternoon.

Please state your name for the record. Tara, T-A-R-A, Scott, S-C-O-T-T. And how are you employed? I am a criminalist in the DNA and crime scene sections at the Iowa State Crime Lab in Ankeny, Iowa. How long have you been employed at the crime lab? I have been a criminalist since October of 2007. Were you called to the area in Brooklyn, Iowa on July 20th of 2018? Yes.

And what was the purpose that you were called to Brooklyn, Iowa on that date? We were to look for any body fluids or signs of a struggle inside of a house and garage. Where was that house located in Brooklyn? May I refer to my notes to refresh my recollection? Yeah. I can help you with the address, actually. Ms. Scott, was the address that you were called to analyze or search 622 West Des Moines Street in Brooklyn? Yes.

Do you know who that house belonged to? It was friends of the missing person. Friends of Molly Tibbetts? Yes. Is the name Blake Jack or Dalton Jack? Does that refresh your memory? Yes. Did you examine the house at 622 West Des Moines? Yes.

Did you look for signs of a struggle? Yes. Did you find any? No. Did you examine the doors and the windows of 622 West Des Moines? Yes. And did you find anything unusual? Who was with you, by the way, on the crime scene team at 622 West Des Moines?

Kelsey Rusbarski. Were other agents from DCI present as well? I believe there was one present with us. Okay. And how would you generally describe the interior of the home as far as how it was kept? It was lived in. Okay. And did you see, were there two dogs that also were at the house?

They were removed before we arrived. Were you told that they had been in the basement prior to your arrival? Yes. Now, whenever I ask you, did you see any signs of a struggle? What does that mean to you? Looking for overturned furniture, if there's body fluids, if there's hairs, you know, clumps of hair or something like that, anything to indicate that there was a struggle that had occurred.

um did you know who the missing person was at the time that you searched the house at 622 west des moines yes who was that molly tibbets all right did you find any items in the house that readily were indicated to you that they belonged to molly tibbets yes can you just describe those for us please we found her wallet that had some cards with her name in it and her driver's license and a water bottle in the bedroom we were told she was staying in that had her initials on it, M.T. Did you seize or take any of those items at that time? Yes.

All the ones that you just listed, did you take those? We took the water bottle, but I don't believe the crime scene team collected the wallet. So the water bottle that was taken was the water bottle that had the initials M.T.? Yes. Why would you have taken a water bottle such as you described? We were looking for anything that might contain her DNA. So I know you're a DNA analysis, but how would that work? What would you do in order to try to obtain Molly Tibbetts' DNA from that water bottle?

From something like that, we would swab the mouth area and use that swab to run to see if I could develop a DNA profile from it. Did you seize any other items that you could have done, like testing? Yes. What items were those? A Arnold Palmer half-and-half iced tea lemonade can, a Dr. Pepper can, and a Reach brand toothbrush from the upstairs bathroom were what I collected for possible DNA from Molly. All right. Ultimately, which of those items was used to gain a presumptive DNA profile of Molly Tibbetts?

The bubble water bottle. And I use the term presumptive DNA profile, correct? Yes. What does that mean? That means we presume that's her profile, but it's not taken directly from her, so we can't say with 100% certainty that's her profile. And do you make other efforts to confirm that profile as Molly Tibbetts? Yes.

How is it that you would go about doing that? We requested known samples from her biological mother and biological father and did a comparison to see if she could be could or could not be eliminated as a child of them. Okay and what were the results of that particular testing? That like she could not be the profile could not be eliminated as a child of her biological parents. So does that mean that the DNA profile that you developed off of the water bottle is the presumptive DNA profile of Molly Tibbetts? Yes. Was there anything else of significance that you took from the house for purposes of

further analysis? I don't believe there's anything else tested that we took. How long did you spend at the house searching for items? We were there at 4 45 p.m and left at 9 0 2 p.m. So it's safe to say that you keep fairly extensive notes as to what your activities are on any particular examination? Yes. Ms. Scott, the rest of your involvement in this case has to do with DNA analysis. Would you agree? Yes. All right. And you did DNA analysis in this case on really two separate occasions. Would that be true? Yes. All right. Now, before we get into the items that you tested, were you provided any known DNA samples in this particular case? Yes. Okay. And what were those known samples? Those were the family, the mother, two brothers, and father of Molly Tibbetts.

Were you able then to confidently say that you had the known profile of Molly Tibbetts? Yes. All right. And would you have used that for comparison to other items in the case that would have been collected that have possible DNA? Yes. All right. Were you also provided the known DNA profile of the defendant, Christian Bahena-Rivera? Yes. Did you have any other known profiles that you would have utilized in this case to make comparisons to any of the items that you examined? No, I don't believe I did have any additional. All right, let's talk about the items that you performed DNA analysis on, okay? Okay. There were a pair of black shorts, a pink fabric band, and a striped fabric that appear to be underwear that were located in the cornfield near Molly Tivitt's body. Is that

correct? Yes. Did you perform DNA analysis on those three items? Yes. Specifically, what were you looking for on those items? I was looking for any DNA that might be on there, either Molly's or somebody else's. Okay. Did you also look for the presence of sperm? Yes. All right. What was the result with regard to the analysis for the presence of sperm? On the black shorts, I tested 15 areas, and a screening test did not indicate the presence of seminal fluid on those 15 areas. So you first screened for what was it? Seminal fluid. Okay, and if it's screened negative, you don't perform any other analysis. Is that right? With regard to that? With regard to someone else would know okay but you would have performed screening tests for blood is that right

yes okay any other screening tests that you performed that that you just described any other screening tests at all on the shorts or the pink fabric brand or the fabric that was the believed to be the underwear so i also screened the black shorts for the presence of blood the results were inconclusive on those two areas I did not note any stains on the pink fabric so no DNA testing or screening was done on those on the striped fabric screening tests indicated the presence of blood but did not indicate the presence of seminal fluid on one area of the striped fabric and no sperm were microscopic microscopically identified in that sample okay you there did

it screen positive for blood yes okay and what were the results of that analysis the DNA factors that I detected and the epithelial fact fraction of that same striped fabric sample were too weak for conclusive interpretation okay so I want to ask you question couple questions about weak samples. That's what you commonly call it. Is that correct? Yes. Is it common in your field of work and expertise to get weak samples? Depending on the situation, yes. All right. I think in popular media, people have the notion that if you touch anything, rub up against anything, cough on anything, anything of that nature, your DNA is going to be left behind that can be identified. Is that true? No. Were there items submitted to you, a folding knife and a napkin with red

stains that came from the residence of Christian Bahena Rivera? Yes. And with regard to the folding knife, can you please describe to the jury what the results are of that particular testing and analysis? Screening tests did not indicate the presence of blood on three areas of the folding knife. No DNA testing was attempted on that item. And with regard to the napkin with red stains that came from that same location, what were the results of that DNA analysis? Screening tests indicated the presence of blood on the one stain that was screened on the napkin. The DNA profile developed to match the known DNA profile of Christian Rivera and the probability of finding this profile in a

population of unrelated individuals chosen at random would be less than one out of 26 octillion. Just prior to the break, Ms. Scott, you had given us some information concerning a statistical comparison that you have to make in DNA analysis. Is that correct? Yes. In terms of the blood that was on the napkin that was taken from the home of Christian Bahena Rivera, in plain terms, that high of a statistical number means what? It matched. So it's his DNA profile that's on the napkin, correct? Yes. His profile matched that profile. All right. And were there other items in this particular case that matched the known profile of Molly Tibbetts? Yes. All right. Let's talk about one of those. Okay. Okay. We've had testimony that a swab was collected from this

area states Exhibit 46 by Amy Johnson. Are you aware of that? Yes. And Amy Johnson is a co-worker of yours? Yes. Okay. Have you worked crime scenes with her on occasion? Yes. The swab of this area that is right here is on the trunk seal. Would you agree with me? Yes. All right. And that swab that she collected, was that submitted to you for DNA analysis? Yes. This swab was taken from the Chevy Malibu belonging to Christian Rivera, would you agree? Yes. Were you able to obtain a DNA profile from the swab on the trunk seal that we see here in States Exhibit 46? Yes. And were you able to compare that DNA profile with the known profile of Molly Tibbetts? Yes. What were the results of that analysis?

The screening tests indicated the presence of blood on those swabs and the DNA profile that I developed matched the known DNA profile of Molly Tibbetts. And is there a statistical number also associated with that you were able to utilize? Yes. And what is that? The probability of finding this profile in a population of unrelated individuals chosen at random would be less than one out of 8.2 non-million. Before we move on, you had mentioned to me at break that you also had utilized another item that was taken in this case in order to develop the known DNA profile of Molly Tibbetts. Is that correct? Yes. And what was that? Those toenails taken at autopsy. And those were provided to you? Yes. And you were able to develop a

profile off of those toenails? Yes. And those were the known profile of Molly Tibbetts? Yes. All right. Before we move on to further testing that was done on a trunk liner, were there other items that were taken from the Black Malibu that you attempted a DNA analysis on, specifically two stains off of the visor? Yes. And what were the results of that analysis? screening tests did not indicate the presence of blood on two stains on the visor a screening test did not indicate the presence of seminal fluid in one additional stain on the visor or in three stains on the fabric from the ceiling that was submitted so essentially all the screening tests were

negative yes and then there were two areas on a football that was taken from the car yes and what were the results of that DNA analysis screening indicated the presence of blood on those two areas the DNA factors that were detected were too weak for conclusive interpretation so you can't and then there were two stains on the fishing pole that were taken from the trunk of the Malibu yes and before we move on States Exhibit 43 there's a fishing pole in this vehicle is that correct where my cursor is that's what that looks like to you yes and the results of your testing and analysis with regard to the stains that would have been on the fishing pole

screening indicated the presence of blood on two stains on the fishing pole the dna factors detected and a sample taken from the handle of the fishing pole were too weak for conclusive interpretation and then lastly there was a metal pipe that was found in the trunk is that correct I believe so. All right. And did you attempt any DNA analysis on the metal pipe that was located in the trunk of the black Chevy Malibu? No. And why not?

I did not see any stains on that metal pipe. Were there several items that were sent back to you after your initial testing for DNA in this case? Were there several items that were sent back to you for analysis? Yes. What was sent to you? The pieces of the fabric-covered liner from this trunk in the Malibu. Okay, and we're looking here at States Exhibit 43. Do you see that? Yes.

Were the liners that we see here in the trunk of the Black Malibu in States Exhibit 43, were those the liners that were sent back to you for analysis? Yes. And that was done at my request. Is that true? Yes. All right. Were those liners removed from the trunk prior to your analysis? Yes. I'm going to show you what's previously been admitted as States Exhibit 49.

Is this the trunk liner from the black Chevy Malibu? Yes. And then States Exhibit 50, what is this a photo of? This would be from, like, the back seat looking out. So this area would be where the trunk would close at the rear of the vehicle. Is that right? Yes. All right.

Now, I see in these two photos, 49 again on the screen, 50 on the screen, there are white stickers that we see on the trunk liner. Do you see those? Yes. What do those represent? Those are the areas that I sampled for DNA analysis. And how many different locations are there of this trunk liner that you tested? I think it was nine.

And did you screen each of these areas for the presence of human blood? For blood, yes. Okay, and how many different locations screen positive for human blood? There was four areas on the trunk floor liner. There was three areas on what I called the second trunk side liner. One area on the top of the trunk liner. And one area on the trunk door liner. Okay.

Now, of all of those locations, we see some of them here in States Exhibit 50, correct? Yes. And was there one particular area where you were able to develop enough of a profile in order to make a comparison? Yes. Were the rest of the stains that you observed on the trunk liner too weak for comparison? Yes. This is States Exhibit 51, and does this picture show the area where you were able to develop a profile suitable for comparison? Yes.

And where is it located? It's about in the middle of this picture. Is it near where the taillight would be? Yes. Do you sign it a number at the laboratory? Yes. And what is that? This one I called sample 59.3.

And again, that's the location that we see here on the photo, correct? How do you mark this area? What do you do? These are stickers that are called tough tags, and that's what I wrote. The case number, the sample number, and then the date and initials that I examined it on. So when you have to go back and testify about something, you know exactly what you did and what area you tested? Yes. Just above this sticker, it appears that there's a hole in the trunk liner. who did that? I did. Okay. Is that the cutting that you took? Yes. And were you able to develop

a profile from this particular area of the trunk that you were able to match to a known profile in this case? Yes. Okay. And can you describe that analysis, please? The profile that I developed indicated a mixture of three individuals. I was able to determine a partial profile at 20 out of the 21 locations that I tested of the major contributor, and that was consistent with the known DNA profile of Molly Tibbetts. Is there a statistical probability that's associated with that? Yes. And what is that? That would be less than one out of 2.1 nonillion. Okay, so another very large number, correct? Yes. In very basic terms, what does that mean with regard to the cutting that you took that we see here in States Exhibit 51? At the 20 locations,

I was able to determine a major profile that matched Molly Tibbetts at those 20 locations. So Molly Tibbetts' blood is in the trunk of the Malibu. Is that a safe conclusion? The screening tests at that area indicated the presence of blood, yes. All right. At this time, I don't have any further questions. Thank you. Defense, make a cross-examination. Thank you. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Now, could you give me just a little bit more of your educational background in the area of DNA? Beyond the degree?

Your degree again. What is it? It's a Bachelor of Science in Forensic Science from the University of New Haven in West Haven, Connecticut. And what is a forensic science degree? So the forensic science, you can choose at that school, you can choose your emphasis in either biology or chemistry. And I chose my emphasis in biology. Okay. And what other training or education do you have in the area of DNA testing? So I've attended multiple trainings over the years, like I said, at least one per year

in areas like screening tests and mixture interpretation. Have you written any papers, authored any treatises, anything like that? No. And all your training and experience has been in the area of law enforcement? I'm not sure what you mean by that. All your training has come from law enforcement? It's come from people that work in labs, so not all law enforcement, no. But has it been provided by law enforcement?

It's been paid for by law enforcement. And all your testimony you've given has been by and for law enforcement? Yes. Have you ever worked privately? No. Okay. Ma'am, I want to kind of walk you through this chronologically, because you were pretty involved in the investigation of the death of Molly Tibbetts, correct?

You could say that. Okay. You were first called, you were called out on July 20th by Trent Villada. Is that your understanding? Yes. And feel free to follow along in your reports, okay? Now, when you were called out on July 20th, you were called for a missing persons investigation. Am I right on that?

Yes. And your assignment initially was to go to the home at 622 West Des Moines Street in Brooklyn, Iowa, correct? Correct. And, again, you went there and just kind of looked for evidence of foul play, perhaps? right? Yes. And as you went through there, you noted and seized a number of items. One thing I noticed from your report is that you noted a gun safe in the home. Do you recall that? Yes. Did you look through the gun safe? Yes. Did you see guns in that safe? Yes. How many guns did you see in that safe? In the gun safe, there were 13 long guns. Any handguns? There was

a hanging wooden shelf case that contained a 357 revolver. But in the gun safe itself, there were no handguns? I do not believe so, no. There were also other items in that safe that caught your attention, right? In the hanging wood shelf case, yes. Okay, so there were a number of knives that you saw, right? Correct. And where were they? They were in the hanging wooden shelf case. Okay, so to the side of the gun case was a hanging wood shelf case kind of on the wall in the hallway, right? Yes. And hanging from that hanging wood shelf case was a loaded .357 revolver.

It was in that thing, not hanging from it, yes. Inside the hanging shelf case is a loaded pistol, right? Correct. Is it secured and locked? I don't believe so, no. And inside that case with the loaded .357 revolver are a number of knives, right? Yes. How many knives did you see?

I'll have to look and see if I noted. Go right ahead. We did not note the number of knives. Okay. Your report says several knives. Can you give me an estimate? I'd have to look at a picture to give you an estimate. I don't recall.

Do you recall if it was more than five? I don't. What kind of knives were these? Do you recall? No. Were they hunting knives, kitchen knives, pocket knives? They would have been of like a kitchen or hunting variety, not kitchen, but hunting or folding. Okay, so knives that perhaps like sporting knives or hunting knives.

Is that a fair statement? Yes. And why did you take note of the firearms and the knives? Because we didn't know what had happened at that point. We had no clue, so we don't know what will be important later. Okay. Now, you also went ahead and collected a number of cans and bottles and some buckle swabs, right? Correct.

One of the cans and bottles you talked about were the purple and teal water bottle we talked about, right? Yes. There was also a Dr. Pepper can that was taken from the bedroom, right? Yes. You also got buckle swabs from Molly Tibbetts' mother and her two brothers. What was the purpose of that? Didn't know if we would be able to get the father at the time, so we got those to make comparisons to what we thought was probably Molly's DNA

to see if it she could be eliminated or included as a relative of them did you ever get the DNA of anyone else that lived at 622 West Des Moines Street no why not no one sent it in and I don't we didn't request it why did you not request it I'm not in charge of the investigation and I didn't know if there's any relevance to it I'm the only closest I come to requesting stuff like that usually is putting it in the report that if there is additional known submitted, I can make comparisons. Is it fair to say that you were never asked to make any comparisons to anyone connected to Molly Tibbetts other than someone in her immediate family?

No, I did not receive anything else to make comparisons to, correct. So you never were asked to compare or make a sample from Blake Jack, Allie Houghton, or Dalton Jack, the other three members of that home right? Correct. You eventually went ahead and did some testing on those items that you ended up seizing from the home at 622 West Des Moines Street correct? Yes. You documented those in another report that I think is dated 8-21-18 right? Yes. Item number three was the water bottle we now know as Molly Tibbetts bottle right? Yes. Item number four that's the Dr. Pepper can and you tested that for DNA right? Yes. And tell us what we learned from the DNA testing on the Dr. Pepper can? The DNA profile that I developed from a swabbing of the

mouth of the Dr. Pepper can indicated a mixture of two individuals. The profile of a major male contributor was determined. I call that profile male A. Okay. What steps were taken, if any, to determine who that person we call male A was? I did not receive any other knowns to determine who that was okay explain this to me you're there looking at a crime scene she's a missing person at this point when you're testing this stuff do we know if she's deceased or not not at this point no so at this point she's still missing right yes and the possibility of her being abducted from that home is a very real possibility correct yes and we have unknown dna on a item of evidence from her home and you weren't asked to test that i didn't receive anything that anybody

else is known to compare to it no did you tell anybody that you had unknown male dna in molly tibbett's bedroom essentially on an item taken from that bedroom on the day she disappeared that's in this report that is i think that's as far as i did for notifying who'd you give this report to? This is put on a website and is available to the county attorneys and the law enforcement agency. And then item number five is the Arizona can. That's the Arnold Palmer, right? Yes. And again, you had a mixture of Motley Tibbetts partial profile, right? Yes. And then Male A shows up again, right? Yes. And no one asked you to test any further, right? Correct.

Now, on your report, report number two, there's items that go from 11 through, oh, I'm going to go 21. A number of hairs and then a container containing a possible fingernail. You see those? Yes. Who seized those hairs and the fingernail? I don't know who seized them. They were submitted by the Powashie County Sheriff's Office. Okay.

You don't know where they come from? I believe those were from a Nissan Altima. Now, none of those items in 11 through 20 indicated any presence of Maui Tibbitt's DNA, right? So there was only one that I was able to do our testing on, and that one was not her. The rest of them were not suitable for nuclear DNA testing. Okay. And then we move on farther to the items that are listed at 32, 33, 34, and 35. I'm going to work backwards there. 35 is a sealed envelope containing rubber gloves.

Where did those come from? The only thing I have noted, it was they were in an envelope that was addressed to Powashie County Sheriff's Office. So I don't know where they came from. Okay. No DNA on those? The DNA was too weak. Item 33 are the black shorts. Now, that's where you first tested for seminal fluid, right? Yes, I screened those for seminal fluid.

And who asked you to screen those for seminal fluid? I looked at them, and I was asked to look at them for DNA analysis, and I looked at, so depending on what the stains looked like, that's how I determined which screening test to do. And those were submitted on July 26, 2018, So those were located before Molly Tibbetts was located, right? Yes. So those, we don't know if they have any connection to this case at all, right?

Correct. The true involvement you really had in this case was after Molly Tibbetts was located. Is that a fair assessment? For the DNA, yes. Yes. Your involvement then became the DNA testing of the items submitted to you, right? Yes. Now, let's talk about DNA a little bit with the jury, because DNA always kind of blows your mind when you use these words like nonillion and megazillion or whatever, okay?

Right? Right. To be fair, it takes very little substance to get these really big numbers, right? I'm not sure how to answer that. DNA is very small. Yes. And each person's DNA, unless you have a twin, of course, is unique to that person. More unique than fingerprints, right?

As unique, yes. Okay. Now, these 21 locations you have, those are broken down into further parts, are they not? Yes. And those are called fractions? At each location of those 21 locations, you have two alleles. Okay. Those alleles, there's one called an epithelial?

You're talking about a differential extraction now. Okay. Okay. So each allele, you have two alleles, you have 42 alleles in each DNA cell, right? That's the 42 locations I'm testing. Okay. There are 21 locations that have 42 alleles, yes. I'm sorry. Sorry. The 21 locations that have 42 alleles.

So let's look at your report now, report number five, dated November 9th of 2018. You first received some left-hand fingernails at item 37, that's the lab number, and the agency number is 01MT, and it goes through item number 40, which includes left-hand fingernails, right-hand fingernails, left-foot toenails, and right-foot toenails, am I correct? Yes. Now, your report says that no examinations were performed on the fingernails, toenails, or the pulled scalp hair at item 41. Do you see that? Yes. But did I hear you say on direct examination that you tested the toenails? The left toenails, item 39.

It was 39, okay. What was the purpose, to your understanding, of the fingernails being submitted to you? They were being submitted as a possible known profile of the Jane Doe at the time. Okay. Is there any way to look at those fingernails and be able to tell if there's any DNA from someone else there? You could swab them to see if there was DNA from someone else, yes. Was that ever done? No.

And DNA, we're sloughing DNA off all the time, aren't we? Yes, skin cells, yes. I mean, it's kind of scary. We slough off millions of DNA cells every day, right? The skin cells that you shed have some DNA in them. They're not always a full brony DNA profile in every dead skin cell that comes off. Sure. But even if you don't have a full DNA profile, a partial DNA profile can tell you something, right?

Yes. I mean, if someone comes by here and swabs a table, they may not be able to say Chad Freeze was sitting here, but they could possibly say a man was sitting here, right? Possibly. Okay. Item 42, there were boxes containing two swabs, left and right proximal inner thigh. That's agency number M6MT. Now, tell us what those are.

Those were swabs from the inner thighs of what became molly tibbets later. All right. So someone, and I see here it's probably the medical examiner, took swabs of the body of the inner thigh of molly tibbets, right? Yes. And what was the purpose of doing so? We're looking for any foreign DNA. And are you telling me that it's still possible after being deceased for a period of time that foreign DNA would still possibly show up on Molly Tibbetts' thighs?

It's possible. Okay. And the results of your testing, what did it indicate? That no profiles were developed from those swabs. Did any DNA at all foreign to Molly Tibbetts show up on her body? From those swabs, I was not even able to get her profile. I had no DNA from those swabs at all. At item 49, it's described as tape lifts from trunk interior on the Black Malibu.

What are tape lifts from trunk interior of Black Malibu? They would have taken tape and pressed it against the fabric in the trunk and then submitted that. For DNA analysis? Looking, usually when they submit tape lifts for DNA, they're looking for hairs. Were there any hairs located? I did not examine that item. Why not? I had other items that I looked at, and then I was not requested to go back and test that.

Item 52 is a pair of black shorts from the cornfield located southeast of the body. You see that? Yes. Now, you tested that, correct? Yes. And what did you test that for, first of all? I did a screening test for the presence of seminal fluid, which did not indicate the presence of seminal fluid on 15 areas on those black shorts. I did DNA testing on one area from the front right leg.

And what was the conclusion? And then I also did screening tests that were inconclusive for the presence of blood on two additional areas on the black shorts. and I attempted DNA on both of those areas, and no profiles were developed from the three samples I took from the black shorts. So these shorts had neither Christian Bahena-Rivera's blood nor his seminal fluid on them. Is that a fair statement? They had no DNA profile that I was able to develop. And who asked you to test those shorts for seminal fluid?

That was based on the information I had in the case and what the stains looked like. So there were stains on those shorts that looked like seminal fluid could be there? The stains that could possibly be, that's why I screened them. Then also someone in the case file asked to have those tested for seminal fluid? I don't recall anybody specifically requesting that. I could check the correspondence log. I don't remember anybody specifically requesting seminal fluid. That's fine. Let's move on.

Item 53 talks about a pink fabric band located in the cornfield southeast of the body. Do you see that? Yes. Was that tested? I did not see any stains on that fabric, so I did not perform any testing. So nothing that looked like blood? No. And item 54, you note it to be a piece of striped fabric located in the cornfield southwest of the body.

First of all, I want you to describe this piece of striped fabric for me. So my description that I wrote in my notes was it was wadded up when I received it. I unraveled it, and it has one end in a triangular shape with an attached band piece, and I noted it was possibly underwear or half of a bra. Okay. You can't conclusively say if it was underwear? I cannot. Or a bra?

Correct. And when testing those, I'm assuming you tested those, was there the presence of blood on those? Yes. It indicated the presence of blood. If, for sake of argument, if these were a pair of women's underpants, would you necessarily be surprised to find the presence of blood? Depending on the situation, no. Okay.

Did you also test those for seminal fluid? I did. And were any indications of seminal fluid found? The screening test did not indicate the presence of seminal fluid, and no sperm were microscopically identified in that sample. And no DNA profile was able to be determined from that? So no profile was developed from the sperm fraction, and the DNA factors detected in the epithelial fraction

were too weak for conclusive interpretation. So we do not have Christian Bahena Rivera's DNA on that piece of evidence? I cannot include or exclude anybody from that epithelial DNA. So we cannot include Christian Bahena Rivera? I cannot include or exclude anybody. The napkin Mr. Brown asked you about, the napkin that had one in 26 octillion possibility of being Christian Bahena Rivera's blood, that was found in his trailer right that's my understanding yes you aren't attaching any

significance to that are you it just matched his dna was on it that's all i can say about it on items 58 through 61 now your report was authored 11 9 2018 those are the trunk liners that you talked about that were tested later right correct and that's when mr brown asked for further testing, right? Yes. Why on earth were they not tested back in November of 2018? I tested the swab, which was lab item 68, and I had a profile from that, so I did not do any further testing at that time. Where did that swab come from? That was submitted by the crime scene team. And did they tell you what they swabbed to get that? It was listed as a stain on lower exterior rubber seal of trunk of black Malibu. Okay, so we have the stain on the seal and we

go no further? That's the theory? Once I develop a probative DNA profile, at least to my understanding as a probative profile, I do not continue to test unless requested. And nobody from Agent Valetta anyone else asked you to do any more testing, right? Well, Scott Brown asked me to later, yes. Until Mr. Brown did, no one else wanted to do any more investigation, right? I'm about to ask that cause for speculation

as to what anyone else would want to do. Sustained. No one else asked you to until Mr. Brown did. I don't believe so. Okay. And you tested the football and the fishing pool and those were inconclusive, right? Yeah, the DNA was too weak

to do any inclusions or exclusions on, yes. All right. I finally want to talk about these two knives that were seized. The two knives that were seized, did you physically, with your eyes, examine them for blood, the folding knife and the black utility knife? Yes, I just visually examined those. Any sign of blood? So the Lab Item 70, the Kershaw SpeedSafe brand knife,

I noticed that there were reddish discolorations on the E in Kershaw on the blade and on the side of the handle where the knife folds. Both of those screen negative for the presence of blood. And the tip of the sharp edge of the knife also screened negative for the presence of blood. So no blood in that knife? Not where I screened, anyway, no. Did you take the knife apart? No.

How about the other knife? So the other one I listed is a Stanley brand silver and black utility knife. There were reddish discolorations on both sides of the blade. and they screened negative for the presence of blood. And tell the jury, it does not take very much blood to test positive, does it? No. I mean, a minute amount. Very small.

Okay. So when it tests presumptively negative for blood, that's a pretty good conclusion, isn't it? It's as good as the screening tests are, yes. And your standards within the State Division of Criminal Investigation, your lab, if it's presumptively negative, you go no further? Generally, no, I do not. So let's move on to the final report.

We're a year ahead now. Mr. Brown has asked you to do some more testing. So you test more onto the trunk liner. You take that little piece and you test that, right? Yes. Okay, so we have four areas, items 58, 59, 60, and 61, right? Yes. Okay, let's start with item 58.

There were three areas on that trunk floor liner that had no blood? The screening test did not indicate the presence of blood on three areas, correct. So your report talks about DNA testing was attempted on four areas, 58.1 through 58.4. So the fourth area did have some blood? No. There is two sentences in that first one. So there was three areas that screened negative for blood, and then there was four additional areas that screened positive for blood that I tested.

Okay. And in those four areas, what did you learn? That the profile that I developed from each of them indicated a mixture of two individuals that was too weak and complex for conclusive interpretation. So we have a mixture of two people's DNA? Yes. And likely at least one of them is blood, right? Yes. And you can tell nothing from this mixture?

I cannot include or exclude anybody from those mixtures, no. You can't exclude Christian Bahena-Rivera from that? I cannot include or exclude. Why not? Because the DNA, we have standards to make sure that we are not interpreting stuff that is too weak and making false inclusions or exclusions. So when it's not strong enough to sample, I say it's too weak and complex. And with this being a mixture also, it might be because there's different levels of DNA

that are not clear which one's like a major and minor contributor that I'm able to determine in other cases. So what's the standard? What's the threshold? Tell me that as soon as I can say perhaps any conclusion can be reached. Is it male? Is it female? Is it Christian? Is it not? So to determine, we generally right now use, we have to have at least eight locations and we have two different thresholds and the one that's called a stochastic threshold where if there is two different peaks at that location then you should see that the other peak is there if you're over that stochastic threshold. If you don't have at least eight locations that have two peaks that if you consider like the major in that case or above the stochastic threshold then we say that

is too weak and complex, or too weak that we can't do any interpretation on it. So how many indicators were in this mixture? Can you tell me? So in 58.1, I have at least one allele at every location of the 21 tested. However, most of them are barely above what is our analytical threshold, where we can reliably detect whether or not a peak is present or not and at some of those locations their peak height balance is off which it could indicate that there is either degradation or it might be multiple contributors at that location. There are three locations where I have three alleles to indicate I have at least two people in this mixture and they're both very weak. So you're comfortable though saying there's

at least two individuals there yes is it possible to tell any identifiers of the contributors of the two dna profiles so they're on the four samples that i took from that we do what's called on every sample i do it's called a quant which estimates the amount of dna in the sample it also estimates the amount of male dna in the sample so on those four samples they all had very small indications of male dna okay now can any of that information include or exclude christian bahena rivera it cannot include or exclude anybody still item 59 we know for for a fact i mean if we can accept one out of 2.1 nonillion as a fact which i'm willing to accept that molly tibbett's dna is is in that area of the trunk right yes but we also know they're a mixture of two other people

in addition to that DNA, right? Yes. We just don't know who. Correct. So in one area of the trunk, we have a mixture of two DNA, and now in this area of the trunk, we have a mixture of three persons' DNA, one of which we know is Molly Tibbetts, right? Yes.

We do not know if it's Christian Bahena, right? Correct. Can we exclude him? No, I can neither include or exclude. Okay. And then he tried to test or did test two other areas, items 60 and 61 and what were the conclusions there again those are also two week molly tibbett's dna was not there i was not able to determine i will not be there's two weeks for conclusive

interpretation so i cannot include or exclude anybody very well one final thing the stain the blood stain on the trunk gasket you recall seeing the picture up on the on the television screen right yes it was shown there with a ruler if you will for scale right yes the size of that stain was quite small was it not depends on what you're comparing to i don't know okay was it the the ruler on the on the display was a ruler that showed a couple centimeters right yeah it was three yes okay and this the stain was less than three centimeters correct i don't remember well I'll let the bishop speak for itself. I have nothing further. Mr. Brown, you may redirect. Mr. Freeze asked you about obtaining certain DNA profiles from items that were found

in the cornfield, including the body of Molly Tibbetts. Yes. Can you explain to the jury what causes DNA to degrade? Heat, UV rays, and soil has been shown to be an inhibitor to DNA. Okay. And whenever we say that DNA becomes degraded, what does that mean to you as a DNA analysis? So when I'm trying to do... I'm sorry, as a DNA analyst. Right. So when it is degraded, it starts breaking down. So it starts with the bigger pieces.

And then so eventually you get down to the point where I can't detect the DNA anymore or it's so weak that I can't say, I might say it's too weak. So during the autopsy of Molly Tibbetts, they'd taken swabs from her thighs and between her legs, correct? Yes. Is that the reason why you can't even obtain Molly Tibbetts' DNA from her own body? That could be a contributing factor, yes. And the last thing here, States Exhibit 46. Yes.

You were provided a known DNA profile of Molly Tibbetts, correct? Yes. And you tested this particular area of blood here in States Exhibit 46, correct? Yes, it's screen positive for blood. There were no other contributors to this blood other than a single person? I developed a single source profile, correct, that matched Molly. And this particular bloodstain matched the DNA of Molly Tibbetts? Yes.

All right. That's all. I don't have anything further. Our next witness is Trent Villada. Agent Villeta, can you please state your name for the record? My first name is Trent and my last name is Villeta. It's V as in Victor, I-L-E-T-A. And how are you employed? I am currently employed by the Iowa Department of Public Safety's Division of Criminal Investigation. And how long have you been employed with the DCI? Since 2006.

All right, Agent Villada, I want to direct your attention back to July 20th of 2018. Do you happen to remember that day? Yes, I do. Why is that? That was the day I was assigned to go to Brooklyn, Iowa. The Palasheet County Sheriff's Office had a missing persons case, and they requested our assistance with it. Who was the missing person? Molly Tibbetts.

Were you assigned by your supervisor as the case agent? Yes, my supervisor was Rick Ron. He takes the calls and then he assigns the cases. So initially this was a missing person, correct? Correct. Did you go to Brooklyn, Iowa? Yes, I did. Did you make contact with local law enforcement?

Yes, I did. Who would that have been? The Poshy County Sheriff's Office would be the lead agency on this. And their lead investigator is who? Deputy Steve Kivy. Is Steve Kivy someone you had worked with prior to the Molly Tibbetts disappearance? Yes. Somebody you were familiar with?

Yes. So do you remember about what time you arrived in Poweshiek County on July 20th of 2018? Not the exact time. They were organizing searches from the fire department that day. It would have been relatively early in the morning, maybe between 8 and 9 a.m. Where did you and other investigators stage up for your work in looking for Molly Tibbetts? The Brooklyn Fire Department. Whenever you arrived in Brooklyn, were you briefed by other officers as to what the status of the investigation was at that time?

Yes. And initially, what were your duties? So when you have a missing persons case, you don't always necessarily have a homicide or death. So with any investigation, our initial duties is to start collecting information. and it's almost always we collect information on the victim right away or the missing person. And how do you go about doing that? What you do is you start with the people closest to the victim. It's usually a small circle of our closest friends and family.

That's where we start. We call it a victimology. The victimology is just kind of as it sounds. It's who is this person we're looking for, who do they associate with, what's their lifestyle like. And then it's, I guess, the best way to describe basic investigative techniques. All right. And in making that assessment, where would you have put Molly Tibbetts as far as risk? Yeah. So Molly Tibbetts was extremely low risk. And why do you say that? She, well, it's her, the lifestyle that she lived. A lot of our victims,

there's drugs and alcohol there's abusive relationships molly tibbets didn't have any of those molly tibbets probably had the nicest text messages we've ever read we had a hard time finding something negative about molly tibbets so do you start looking at people or gaining information from people that are i'll just characterize it as being in the orbit of molly Tibbetts? Yes. Okay. And just generally speaking, who would that have been? Generally, you look at the spouse or boyfriend or girlfriend first, family members. At the time that you arrived in Brooklyn on July 20th of 2018, did you or anyone else in law enforcement know the whereabouts of Molly Tibbetts? No. You started July 20th of 2018, correct? Correct. And when was the body

found in the cornfield believed to be Molly Tibbetts? August 21st of 2018. So are you familiar with the address of 622 West Des Moines Street in Brooklyn, Iowa? Yes, I am. Have you been in that residence? Yes. When did you first go into 622 West Des Moines? I think then July 20th, 2018 was the first time we went in there. Agent Villada, you utilized the crime scene team at 622 West Des Moines in Brooklyn, correct? Yes, we did. All right. And that would have been Tara Scott?

Yes. And did she have somebody else with her? She did, but I don't remember who that would have been. So whenever a crime scene team arrives on the scene of any area you want searched, do you brief them first? Yes, we do. Did you do that in this case? Yes. And ultimately, would you characterize 622 West Des Moines Street as a crime scene? No, there were three crime scenes in this case and 622 West Des Moines was

now one of them. What did you learn during the investigation as to who was residing there the week that would have included July 18th of 2020? Yeah, so the house belonged to Blake Jack and his fiancee, Ali, I think it's Houghton, that's how you spell her name, and then Blake's brother, Dalton. Jack was living there, and then Molly Tibbetts would stay with Dalton majority of the time. Okay, other than 622 West Des Moines,

where else did you learn that Molly Tibbetts would have resided the summer of 2018? She would stay at her mom's house, too. Her mom lived in Brooklyn, and I don't recall that address. Did Molly Tibbetts have a vehicle? If I remember correctly, I think she was sharing a vehicle with one of her brothers when we were talking to her family. It was complicated because she had to get the car back in time for her brother to use it, that sort of thing. Whenever you began your investigation into the disappearance of Molly Tibbetts,

were you able to develop investigative leads that you were able to assign to other law enforcement agents to follow? Yes. Whenever we use the term lead in an investigation, what does that mean to you as a case agent and lead investigator? Right. So when we develop leads, what we often have to do is we basically call follow the trail, right? So we have to follow the lead, whichever direction it takes us. Some leads will dry up pretty quickly. Some we literally run into the ground. So a lead is just, whether it's a suspect or potential incident site,

we follow the lead and try to develop evidence or information from that lead. And did you do that in this case? Yes. So if you can, for the jury, can you just summarize the resources that you had at your disposal, particularly initially whenever you were called in to investigate molly tibbett's disappearance so initially we were we were kind of thin i think it was about the 23rd or so of july the fbi shows up so our investigative team would have been the poweshee county sheriff's office the iowa department at public safety. And we often refer to the DCI, but the DPS has four divisions. And then,

of course, the FBI. And whenever you say you utilized all of them, it wasn't every agent in the state, correct? No, we did not. And in addition to law enforcement, were there other civilians that were engaged in searching the area in an attempt to find Molly Tibbetts? Yes. I mean, it was a community effort. Day one, the sheriff's office had organized a probably 200 plus person search of the area at the fire department. We had airplanes flying over. We would get calls from hospital helicopters asking, saying, hey, we have some extra fuel. Do you want us to fly over a certain area? Is that type of assistance welcome to you and other law enforcement? Of course. I I mean, the ultimate objective on this whole thing was to locate Molly Tibbetts,

so if we could find her, we didn't necessarily care who found her. During the course of your investigation, did you or other officers have contact with Dalton Jack? Yes. And what had you learned concerning Dalton Jack's relationship to Molly Tibbetts? Dalton Jack was Molly Tibbetts' boyfriend, and they were more or less living together. Was Dalton Jack interviewed on multiple occasions? Yes, he was. Was there a particular agent that was assigned to him to follow any lead that related to Dalton Jack?

I think... During the course of your investigation into Dalton Jack, did you or other officers learn where he was working? Yeah, he was working for Jasper Construction, and they were actually building a bridge in Dubuque, Iowa during that week. What was your understanding concerning his whereabouts the week that would have included July 18th of 2018? He was in Dubuque, Iowa until Thursday evening, which would have been the 19th. And did you take steps to learn Dalton Jack's whereabouts? Yes, we did. Did you or other agents speak with Dalton Jack's supervisor?

Yes, we did. Did you also speak with others that may have had contact with him in Dubuque on July 18th of 2018? Yes, we did. And based upon that information, was Dalton Jack eliminated as a suspect in the disappearance of Molly Tibbetts? Yes, that and in addition to some other information, too. Did you have any person or witness come forward to you or to any other DCI agent indicating that Dalton Jack had been seen in Brooklyn, Iowa or near Brooklyn, Iowa on or about July 18th of 2018?

No, no one said Dalton Jack was in Brooklyn on the 18th of July. In an effort to corroborate that, you or other agents spoke to other witnesses? Yes. People that worked with him? Yes. Did you also examine Dalton Jack's phone? Yes. Was there anything inconsistent that you found that or other agents found that would have been inconsistent with his whereabouts being in Dubuque, Iowa or near Dubuque, Iowa on July 18th of 2018? No, we could not find anything that would place him in Brooklyn, Iowa that day. Did you utilize anybody from the FBI? Yes. The Federal

Bureau of Investigation to assist you in analyzing the phone data of Molly Tibbetts? Yes, we did. And just in general, what was the purpose of that request? Kevin Horan from the FBI special agent there was the first one that came and he was able to utilize her phone data to basically show her location, where her phone's location is. Yes, we're able to use phones to show locations of people. And based upon that information from Agent Horan from the FBI, did you and other agents search an area near Brooklyn, Iowa for any clue concerning Molly Tibbetts' disappearance? Yes, we did. And where would that area have been? Well, we searched from 385th all the way to the like the southeastern quadrant of the county. On the screen is Exhibit 6. Do you see that? Yes.

And this has been described as 385th Avenue leading east out of Brooklyn. Would you agree with me? Yes. Is this the area generally that you begin searching based upon the information Agent Horan had provided you from the FBI? Yes, it is. All right. You also indicated there was an area south of this location. Would you agree?

Yes. All right. and how far south did you go just in general terms with regard to what area you would have searched for the location of molly tibbets it was a couple miles south of guernsey which i want to say maybe eight or ten miles south of 385th when did it happen what date was that that you would have been looking well we had the initial information from christina stewart that she saw her out there. So I know lots of people were driving that road 385th, but not until Kevin Horan got there did we have more specific locations to look at. So that would have been, like I said,

the Tuesday or Wednesday that he arrived after the FBI got there. All right. Give the jury, if you would, a description of the kind of the lay of the land, the crops that were in the field, what you were up against as far as investigators and searching for any clue as to the disappearance of Molly Tibbetts. Corn at that time was, I would guess, pretty much fully grown. The beans were fully grown, and then the ditches were all overgrown. So, you know, you have almost two-thirds of the summer where grass is growing within the fields.

Most of the roads, 385 South, is all either gravel or dirt. So initially, in the course of your investigation, really through July and into the first part of August, did you ever run across the name of Christian Bahena Rivera? No. Did you ever have any information up until August or mid-August, around the 14th, that there was a black Malibu that was associated potentially with the disappearance of Molly Tibbetts? No. All right, this is Exhibit 10. That's on the screen. Do you see that? Yes, I do. Is this a particular area of Poweshiek County?

That's our search locations near Guernsey, Iowa. And this is not all of the search locations in the southeast part of Poweshiek County. Would that be true? It's not all, no. All right, there are red flags or half circles that are on the map. What do those represent? Those would represent areas or houses that we would have made contact. So were you going farmhouse to farmhouse trying to get any information concerning the whereabouts of Molly Tibbetts? Yes, we were. All right, and this was a map that you had utilized so you didn't duplicate efforts?

Yes. Ultimately, you were at the location where Molly Tibbetts was recovered. Is that true? That's true. How close did your systematic search of the area that you were given by Agent Horan get to where her body was ultimately located? I think relatively close, maybe between a quarter to a half mile away. Were there potentially other persons of interest or potential suspects that DCI developed or talked to over the course of the investigation? Yes. It's been brought up in this case, the name of Wayne Chaney.

Are you familiar with him? Yes, I am. Did he live in the area near where Molly Tibbetts was located? Yes. Was he interviewed? Multiple times, yes. So, a law enforcement paid attention to him? A lot of attention, yes, we did.

Ultimately, was he eliminated as a suspect? Yes, he was. And that was based upon investigation? Yes. And were there others? There were several others that we looked at. which I would say a deep dive was taken into. Was there a person that was talked to that had been near the cemetery near 385th in Brooklyn?

Yes. Who was that? I think his name, the last name was Jackson Eichhorn. And was Jackson Eichhorn interviewed? Yes, he was. Did you make attempts to place him at any certain locations related to Molly Tibbetts? Again, you know, we took a deep dive into Jackson Eichhorn like everybody else and could not find anything that would implicate him in Molly Tibbetts' disappearance.

Of all the people that you talked to in the investigation, up until the time that the Black Malibu was identified, were you able to develop any other leads that were substantial that would have led you to information as to what happened to Molly Tibbetts? No, we didn't. Describe for the jury, if you would, what steps were taken in an effort to collect surveillance video in brooklyn iowa on or about the date that molly tibbets would have disappeared so what we do when we have a case like this we do

what we call canvassing so we go to each house kind of start possible maybe a run route for molly and go to those houses and then we expand out in the course of our canvas one of the things we always look for is locations for cameras on the house on the garages on the businesses and was one of those homes at a 616 east des moines in brooklyn yes it was who lived there logan collins and what had officers noticed about cameras at logan collins's residence yes they They noticed he had cameras, and I think he had four cameras that they could observe. And were agents tasked with making contact with Logan Collins? Yes.

Ultimately, what happened with regard to the footage that his cameras would have captured that would have included July 18th of 2018? Well, the footage on Logan Collins' cameras broke open the case for us. It was the lead that we needed, provided not only the black Malibu, but it also had a very brief glimpse of Molly Tibbetts jogging. You would agree with me that looking at that footage, the runner is more or less a shadow that comes across the screen. Is that right? Right. And what did you know about Molly Tibbetts' running habits that would have further drawn your attention to this particular date and time?

Well, we had Fitbit data that showed previous run routes, and we knew through the Fitbit data that that would be a route that she would often take. We know she was probably abducted. We were able to guess, I guess, a possible route through those cameras. Based upon your review of the video and other agents' review of the video, was there a particular vehicle that you then began to search for? Yes, it was a black Malibu, and it had aftermarket chrome mirrors on it. It also had chrome handles? Yes. And did it have some sort of sporty spoked wheel as well?

It did, yes. And looking at the video, you can't see a license plate, is that right? No, we can't. But you had a fairly good description of the vehicle, would you agree? We did, yes. After this video, did you provide that type of information to other investigators in the case? Yeah, so what we did then is we basically took a still shot from the camera and printed out that picture, and then we assigned several cars to drive around the area to see if they could not locate the vehicle.

Ultimately, was a vehicle fitting that description located by an officer? Yeah, Steve Kivy found the vehicle. Okay, and do you remember what date that was? I'm not exactly sure what day. I think we have previous testimony that was August 16th. Does that make sense? That makes sense, yes. Were you approaching a weekend on August 16th? We were. I think that was a Thursday, and then Friday was everything kind of getting shut down.

So you had this particular lead based upon what Steve Kibbe told you. Were there several days that passed before you made contact with the defendant, Christian Bahena-Rivera, and the Black Malibu? Yes, there was. Why was there a delay in that time frame? Well, at that part of the investigation, a lot of our resources were depleted. I think that was the time when Wisconsin had a missing girl going on, so we lost a lot of our FBI resources, and we didn't have any Spanish speakers. So Deputy Kibbe's contact with Christian Rivera made it clear to us

that we needed a Spanish speaker to talk to him. So you had to plan. Yes. Right. And that helps to do things efficiently. Would you agree? Well, we want to do things correctly. Were you able then to marshal resources and make a plan for August 20th to make contact with the defendant, Christian Bahena-Rivera? Yes, we were. What was the plan on August 20th? Summarize that for us.

Well, we knew we wanted to interview Christian Rivera based on the video. We knew where he worked. We knew he worked at URB Farms. we needed to make sure we had good spanish speakers out there and we also wanted to talk to people that he worked with when i mentioned earlier that we had canvassed most of you know powesha county that was one of the areas we hadn't got to yet so we were essentially wanting to canvass that area too for information bierby farms was in operation the entire time that the investigation was ongoing. Is that correct? That's correct. Until you identified Christian Bahena-Rivera, had you made any effort to canvas Yerby Farms or its workers? We hadn't been out

there. I think we had maybe stopped there just looking for cameras, but we had not done an official canvas yet. And you had learned that the defendant worked at Yerby Farms. That's correct. And that's why you went there? That's correct. So describe for the jury what happened on Monday, August 20th, when you went to Yerby Farms. It was just kind of like every other time we would go out on campus. We got a group of investigators together. We made contact at the farm, and then we tried to split people up so we could talk to them individually.

And just in general, why would you have talked to all the workers at Yerby Farms? Kind of a, if everybody remembers back in 2018, the political environment was pretty hostile towards our immigrant communities. And we were concerned that any contact that our immigrants would have with the police or anybody from the government would cause them fear or maybe cause them to flee or not cooperate. so we were trying to take every effort possible to make them feel comfortable with us but we also wanted to be sure we could identify them. All right and your efforts were to gain information correct? Yeah that was our number one priority. And it was a lead concerning the video and contact with the defendant that led you to Yarrabee Farms where he worked? Correct. Ultimately was the defendant requested to come to the sheriff's office for an interview? Yes, he was. And did you

contact an officer from Iowa City to do that interview? Yes. Pamela Romero from the Iowa City Police Department came to interview Christian Rivera. The interview then took place at the sheriff's office? Yes, it did. We've already been over that, so I'm not going to ask you to recount it, but were you present for much of that interview? Were you present in the building? Yes, I was. after the interview at the sheriff's office was concluded did you go to a certain location in poweshiek county on the early morning hours of august 21st 2018 yes we did and do you remember the address of that location it's 2478 460th avenue and at that location or near that address what was found? The body of Molly Tibbetts. Whenever you were present on the field side,

or at the field, I should say, the cornfield, was the defendant also present? Yes, he was. Was he located in a vehicle? Yes. During the course of the investigation, were officers able to locate the Fitbit or the phone known to be worn by Molly Tibbetts? No, we never found those. Did you search for them? Yes. Did you search the area around where her body was located? Yes. No success? No. Did you search other areas in an attempt to find the Fitbit or the phone? Yes. Describe generally what other areas you would have searched to try to find those two items. You would start where her body was located and then move all around that area. We'd spent quite a bit of time along 385th.

The FBI has a device dog that we were able to use that actually sniffs out electronic devices. And then the ditch on, I think it's 200th Street that goes south towards 460th Avenue. And utilizing those resources, were you able to locate either of those two electronic items? No, we never found those. Was information that was located in other places relating to the phone and the Fitbit, was that provided to FBI agent Kevin Horan in an effort to pinpoint their location? Yes, it was. Whenever you arrived at the location where Molly Tibbetts was located, did you go out to where, specifically where her body was located? Yes.

Describe for the jury what you saw whenever you arrived. All I could see was her fluorescent running shoes because the rest of her body was concealed under corn leaves, corn stalks. Your observations had been before Amy Johnson or John O'Berry would have arrived from the crime scene team? Yes. Were you or other agents able to locate any weapon that was used to inflict the injuries on Molly Tibbetts? No, we weren't. Did you learn that there were sharp force injuries that caused her death? Yes.

So what type of weapon would you have been looking for? A knife, something that would create sharp force, like a bladed weapon. To your knowledge, was any firearm ever associated with the death of Molly Tibbetts? No. And to your knowledge, were you able to locate a knife or a weapon that would cause sharp force injuries that was associated with the injuries of molly tibbets no we never found the knife did you look all over the place what other types of places would you have searched in an effort to try to find the item like a knife that would have caused the death of molly tibbets well christian rivera

also had two vehicles so we would have looked there and then at or near her molly tibbets body Did you stay in touch with Officer Pamela Romero concerning admissions or statements that the defendant was making concerning the death of Molly Tibbetts? Yes. And did you also stay in touch with and were you aware of physical evidence, specifically blood, that was found on or in the trunk of the Chevy Malibu that was driven by the defendant, Christian Bahena-Rivera? Yes. That's all the questions I have this time. Thank you, Mr. Brown. Defense may cross-examine.

Brooklyn, Iowa, between July 23 when you get there and August 20th, let's use that date, it was kind of a media frenzy, wasn't it? We didn't pay a lot of attention to the media, but it was, I guess. There was a lot of media attention. Okay. National media was there, correct? Yeah. A lot of local media there?

Yes. And there was a reward put out for the solving of Ms. Tibbetts' disappearance, wasn't there? Yes. And it was exponential, like $400,000 if memory serves me, right? I think that sounds correct, yes. Is that the largest reward that you've ever been involved with in an investigation? Yes, by far, yes. So this was a case with a lot of attention, would you agree with me?

Yeah. The whole town was circling the wagons trying to find Molly, right? Yes. People coming from all over trying to help out. Yes. This case was in the spotlight, right? Yep. Mr. Brown just asked you about the attempts to find the murder weapon.

You recall that question? Yes. Did you ever go back to 622 West Des Moines Street and look for a weapon there? We would have had no reason to. Okay. Now, was it your decision to have Sheriff Tom Kriegel go on television on July 25 and publicly clear Dalton Jack? The media's decisions were not part of my decision-making.

But you're aware that Sheriff Kriegel publicly declared Dalton Jack on July 25? I am aware of that, yes. who made that decision? I would always be aware when a press conference or something would take place. I guess I can't honestly remember who made that decision. Okay, well, you're the case agent and you're in charge at that point, right? Right. And a decision like that would have to go through you, would it not? Media decisions were way out of my decision-making process. Well, who else would have the authority to make that decision besides you? Well, there was a lot of supervisors there, So you not only had the sheriff of Powichee County, you had several DCI supervisors.

The FBI had supervisors almost there. Now, you understand the very next day on July 26th, you had Matt George approach Dalton Jack again and ask for another interview, right? Yes, I remember that, yes. And then Dalton Jack gave another interview on the 27th. You're aware of that. Right. And in that interview, it was learned that he wasn't completely forthright in the previous interviews. right? Yes. I don't want to object to the characterization that he's not forthright.

I think that's speculation on behalf of this witness. Objection's overruled. Go ahead and answer. Yes. And that was information concerning an affair he had had on Molly Tibbetts. Yes, that's true. And you reviewed the reports of Agent George from that interview, right? Yes. And to your recollection, why was Dalton Jack not coming forth with that information initially? I'm going to object as to any reasons that Dalton Jack may have had as a speculation. Sustained. Did Dalton Jack give any reasons? I don't recall exactly.

Do you recall reviewing Agent George's report and Dalton Jack saying that he didn't think it was relevant? If it's in Matt George's report, it would be correct. You talked about Molly Tibbitt's text messages. So you went through her text messages, right? The investigative team did, yes. Okay, and what about them led you to believe she was extremely low risk? She just, like, she didn't use profanity or anything on there. There was no, it's very benign sort of text messages.

She always appeared to be, like, trying to help her friends out. Often we will find on text messages from our victims just, like, talks of drug use or things like that. We just didn't really find anything from Molly that raised red flags. She seemed very kind, right? Yes, she did. And very loving to everyone around her, right? Yes, she did. And that coincided with the interviews agents were doing trying to learn about Molly, right?

Right. Even to people she didn't know, she was very kind. Yes. In the materials I've been given, I don't think I've found anyone who spoke an ill word of Molly Tibbetts. Right. I mean, she seemed to be a genuinely nice person. Yes. And if she didn't know you but thought you needed a hand, she would offer that hand, right?

Yeah, I would believe that to be true. I mean, she is truly an innocent victim, right? Right. We can agree on that. Yes. And she had friends that cut across all socioeconomic spectrums. She liked the poor kids and she liked the rich kids, right? She did.

She liked the boys and she liked the girls, right? Right. She liked the white kids and the non-white kids, right? Right. I mean, she just truly gave everybody a fair shot, right? Yes. So, again, she's truly an innocent victim here. Right.

Going back to the interview that Dalton Jack gave on July 27, you've collected a report on that from Agent George, right? Yes. And you've reviewed that, right? Yes. And that report is all part and parcel of this investigation, at least as of July 27, right? Yes. Do you recall reading in that report that the affair that Dalton Jack had with Jordan Lamb had become sexual? They're talking about a Jack Houser here saying, sustained.

And because of information in that report, what was the next step you took regarding Dalton Jack's affair with Jordan Lamb? You know, I don't know. Maybe, again, I could only guess that maybe Jordan Lamp was interviewed, but I don't remember exactly. Dalton Jack, in his interview with Matt George, indicated that if Molly knew he had become sexual, she would have broken up with him, right? Dalton Jack calls for speculation here. Overruled. I think Molly knew about Jordan, and I think she had forgiven him, so I don't know why Dalton Jack would have said that in that interview.

Okay. And where did you get that information? I think from several people. I think her family even knew about it, but I can't say exactly. I just, my recollection is that that was no surprise to Molly that that happened and she had forgiven him over it. In the course of your investigation, did you learn that the Jordan Lamb affair had happened more than once? I think you're right on that, yes.

Okay. And she had forgiven him once and then it happened again? I don't know about that. It was my perception that she knew about the entirety of it and had forgiven him. Okay. So, let's go back to the theory that Mr. Bahena, that you developed that Molly was killed by Mr. Bahena, okay? Now, is it your assertion that Molly was killed on 385th Street? I don't know exactly where she was killed.

But it's your assertion that she was abducted on 385th Street? Yes. Would you agree with me, given your experience, that this was a violent death for Molly Tibbetts? Yes, it was. Somebody stabbed her multiple times, correct? That's correct, yes. Would you agree with me that she was stabbed with a significant amount of force? That would be a better question for the pathologist.

You understand that the weapon that was used to kill Molly Tibbetts essentially at least pierced her skull, right? Yes, it did. In your training and your education and your experience, that would take a significant amount of force, wouldn't you agree? Yes, yes. So whoever did this didn't do it with a butter knife, right? Again, the pathologist could answer that better. I don't know if they, I can't remember if they had an opinion on what type of knife it would be. Okay.

In your experience with violent crimes, you've seen violent crimes like this before, I assume? Yes. Would it fit the experience that you have that whoever committed this crime did so out of a rage? I don't actually object to that. That does cause, or call for speculation. Sustained. do you have training and experience in that area in the area why interpreting wound patterns causes of death and the behavior behind it i would say yeah based on experience more so than

anything okay and you are you comfortable giving an opinion based upon your experience in law enforcement as to the person who stabbed molly tibbets what their motivation may have been Judge, I'm not objecting to any speculation by this witness or really any other concerning what a person's actual motivation may have been. At this time, I want to overrule it in the sense that the question posed asks for a yes or no answer right now. So the witness can answer that, and we'll go from there. And can you repeat the question, then? Can you read it back, please? And are you comfortable giving, based on your experience in law enforcement, as to the person who stabbed Molly Tibbetts, what their motivation may have been?

I would say there's, whenever we have a violent crime, especially one like this, I think you could give several opinions as to why someone acted the way they did. And given your experience in violent crimes, you're comfortable giving us those opinions? I mean, I could speculate on a couple different reasons why people act the way they do. Could anger be one of those? It could be. You talked about going through Molly's phone records. Some of those phone records included conversations with Dalton Jack, right? Correct.

Those are part of the case file. Yes. And you looked at those closely in the course of your investigation, right? Yes, they were analyzed very close, yes. There were a lot of conversations between her and Dalton Jack, right? Yes. A lot of conversations where Dalton Jack admits to having anger problems, aren't there? So you're talking about Jack's calls for hearsay?

Overruled. As a case agent, we assign people to certain tasks. So while I would have a general overall knowledge of the case, I wasn't the one that would have went through those phone records specifically. You just told me they were looked at very closely. Right. Would you agree with me that if Dalton Jack had admitted to having anger problems, that would be something that you as case agent would want to know?

Well, I did know that, but if it's in the Celebrite dump, then that would be true. Okay. My question was, as case agent, you would want to know if this man who's closest to Molly had anger problems. Yes, of course. And why would you want to know that? Again, it goes back to victimology. It would go back to people closest to Molly and who she is associating herself. And in your training and experience, the people who commit crimes like this are typically those closest to your victim, right?

A high percentage of the time a victim knows their attacker. And again, do you have any evidence that Molly Tibbetts knew Christian Bahena? We had no evidence that they knew each other, no. Dalton Jack and his text messages that were reviewed referred to times where he went psychotic, didn't he? Again, I'm going to expand this to relevance in the time frame with regard to any of these comments that he's examining Agent Valetta about. Sustained. What about relationship problems between Dalton Jack and Molly Tibbetts? Those would be very relevant in your investigation, correct?

That's correct. And if Molly Tibbetts were talking about breaking up with Dalton Jack within a month before the disappearance, that would be relevant to you, right? Yes, and I also thought that they were planning on getting engaged maybe that next weekend or the weekend after. But the question I had is, if Molly Tibbetts was talking about severing the relationship a month before she disappeared, that would be something you would want to explore in detail, correct? And I did say yes, yeah, previously. And why is that? Again, it's at the early stages of the investigation, that's something, relationship issues is something that's very relevant to the case.

And as soon as three days before Molly Tibbetts went and disappeared, there were text messages, again, talking about Dalton Jack and Molly Tibbetts having relationship issues. Do you recall seeing those? Again, if it's in the text messages, that would be true. And that's relevant to your investigation? It would have been at the time, yes. Okay. But you ruled out Dalton Jack because he was in Dubuque?

He was in Dubuque, yes. And you say that because his boss told you he was in Dubuque? His boss and his roommate, yes. Okay. Now, his roommate is a young man named Brandon Gordy, right? Yes. Now, Brandon Gordy told you he was in the room with Dalton Jack? that night? I don't know if that's specific, what he says, but he did say Dalton was in the room

that night. Okay. Because have you also reviewed the interviews with Dalton in law enforcement where Dalton said Brandon Gordy was out of the room until like five in the morning smoking pot? I do remember Brandon Gordy had left for a while to do that, yes. Okay. So you're relying on Brandon Gordy's vouching for Dalton Jack right no that's there we collected all different kinds of information to show Dalton Jack was in debut well agent George asked him for receipts and he couldn't produce receipts could he well he didn't have receipts no okay so he he was asked for receipts and couldn't produce him is the question and I said no okay yes Dalton Jack talked about being outside drinking

beer and playing bag games with his buddies at the hotel, right? I was told he said that during his testimony now, but I think he told us back then that he was in his room. Okay. His testimony here at trial is different than what he told officers? I didn't see his testimony only from what I've heard. I think, again, I can only speculate as to why he was mixed up on what he was doing. Okay. But if he testified that way, like you just talked about, if he was outside the room playing bags and drinking beer, that's different than your understanding of what he told law enforcement. It was my understanding that he was in his room that night. Who got the surveillance video from the hotel? I don't think the hotel had surveillance video.

Was the hotel last? I think, yes. Okay. Was there ever a report created on that? If there was, it would be in my case file. Okay. Bank records of Dalton Jack were retrieved? Yes. And nothing from those bank records showed him in Dubuque on July 18th, did it? That's not true at all. Okay. Mr. Brown talked to you about Wayne Chaney. Wayne Chaney came to your attention partially because someone called and gave a tip, right? Yes. And that tip was that he was known to stalk women, right? Yes. And I think the sheriff's office also knew that already. So somebody who was known to have a violent tendency toward women was someone that the sheriff's office would bring to your attention and someone you'd want to know about. Right. And he was also within that southeast

quadrant of the county where you were really focusing your investigation. Yes. Did you ever receive a tip regarding Ron Pexa? Yes, we did. And who gave you that tip? I believe it was his ex-wife. Okay, and when was that given? It's relatively later in the investigation. I don't recall the exact date. Okay, and did you go talk to Ron Pexa? Yes, we did. Who's we? I seem to remember I was out there. I don't remember. I think there was two or three of us that were there that day, though. Okay, now Mr. Pexa's in law enforcement, right? He's a, yes, he's a reserve deputy, I think, in Tama County. Okay, and he's a reserve deputy to this day, right? I don't know. you might be right he might still be there yes did you uh record your interview with mr pexa no

why not because again when we it was not uncommon for this case for us to make contact with someone before we did the deep dive and full interview with them the tip was unusual and again i think at that time our resources were starting to dwindle a little so um just like with everybody else we did we would try to figure out who they were where they were at and then using all the resources do a deep dive into that type of person well your files indicate that you first got a tip about ron pexa with a call to the sheriff's office on july 22 and that was before you got there right no you got there on the 20th didn't you i did get there on the 20th yes and at 6 59 p.m an anonymous caller said, although the caller gave her phone number, a male by the name of Ron Pexa from Guernsey

who has been founded to have sexual acts with children. This person was concerned about him being in the area. Judge, this anonymous caller is hearsay. Sustained. Did you ever receive a call on July 22 regarding Ron Pexa? I don't recall a day, but I know Ron Pexa's name and I know that we'd been out to his house. Well, do you recall how many times you got tips on Ron Pexa? Okay. So no, I don't, but I know when we got leads like that, eventually they were assigned and run out. Okay. If you would have got a lead on 7-22-18, would you have assigned someone to that lead? Yes. I mean, well, it was assigned a lead at some point. I would assume yes. Agent Villada, I put in front of you a document for the purposes of refreshing your recollection.

If you look at page two of that document and read it to yourself. Okay. Having done so, is your recollection refreshed? Yes. Now, on July 22, 2018, did you or your law enforcement receive a tip about Ron Pexa? Yes. Now, tell me what was done in relation to that tip. Like I said, at some point we had made it out to his residence to talk to him.

Again, any time we had a lead and with all the resources that we had, I can confidently say Ron Peck's name was talked about quite a bit after that tip came in. This was around the same time you were interviewing Wayne Chaney, right? Yes. He had all the resources of the FBI, right? Right. And I think your word was that their resources were basically unlimited, right? Yes.

we have no report of an interview with Ron Peksa right I don't I don't know if we ever did a formal interview no you probably would not okay did you also receive a report concerning Ron Peksa following a canvas on August 1 2018 if there's a canvas regarding Ron Peksa then that would be yes yes if I showed you that canvas report would refresh your recollection yes okay that's an activity log that was kept in your case file right yes and that activity log refreshes your recollection right yes and that activity log indicates that the residents at 610 west brooklyn west street in brooklyn gave information about ron pexa right that's correct yes and they indicated that ron pexa

that had been a person who had harmed children and women in the past. Yes, that's how this reads, yes. This tip that he received on August 1, 2018, also indicated that Ron Peck's home had a hidden room, right? Yes. I'm going to object to this. Not Ron. Overruled.

Go ahead. Yes, the report here says there was a hidden room. And that room concealed edged weapons, right? Judge, again, object. the relevance. Yes, that's what it says. And that Mr. Pexa had threatened women, specifically his ex-wife, with death and burial, right? Objection to hearsay and relevance. Sustained on that hearsay. Remind the jury how far from Ron Pexa's house Molly Tibbetts' body was found. I think it's the adjacent property. The fence line to Ron Pexa's property was within

a hundred yards from where Molly Tibbetts was found? It's probably close, yes. And Ron Pexa's house, quarter mile maybe, from where her body was found? Yeah, that would be close, yeah. What did Ron Pexa have to say after you discovered Molly Tibbetts' body? Judge, I'm going to object to all of your sayings. Sustained. You didn't talk to Ron Pexa after Molly Tibbetts' body was found, did you? We didn't need to. You didn't find it a bit ironic that this man who you had two tips on, the body was found a quarter mile from his house? Objection. Argumented. Overruled. I would say Christian Rivera cleared Ron Pexa. Question was, you didn't find it a bit ironic that this man you'd received at least two tips on, the body was found a quarter mile from his house? No, not

at all. Did you also receive a tip from a canvas on August 3, 2018 regarding Ron Pexa? Yes. And if I've showed you an activity log dated 8-3-2018, would that refresh your recollection? I think that's what I'm looking at right now. Is it refreshing your recollection? Yes. Now in that activity log and in that tip, again Ron Pexa is said to have a torture room in his home, right? I jump on it and object. It's also a hearsay. It's not relevant. this is all speculation provided by somebody else that provided information to the investigation overruled this report says he has a torture room in his basement and they gave you the address of two four one zero four sixtieth yes so twice you have these allegations on mr pexa is that when

you decided to follow up on it again i this was a very large investigation my exact thinking or any of the other investigators exact thinking it would be hard for me to recall but we did go out to ron pex's house i know we walked through there we did not find a torture room or anything like that but you didn't create a report on it no we did not create a report on that didn't record the interview on it no is he the only law enforcement officer you interviewed in this case i'm not sure Possibly, yes. You mean there could be other ones you're forgetting? We interviewed hundreds of people.

If someone was a reserve or something like that, that's possible, yes. Are there other people you interviewed you didn't create a report on? No. Just Ron Pexa? We didn't necessarily do the full interview. We just walked through his house. It was almost like a canvas. Did you tell Ron Pexa you had these allegations against him?

If my memory serves right, I think he almost guessed as to why we were there. Now, Mr. Brown asked you about Jackson Icorn. Remember that? Yes. What was the information that put Jackson Icorn on your radar? I'm not sure how it happened. I think it was through a Google fence warrant that maybe put his phone in that area. Google did a thing called a geofence, right?

Right. And what Google can do is they can set up kind of a net over an area and pick up anybody's phone who's on Google or any of Google's like Gmail or Google Docs, stuff like that, right? That sounds correct. So anybody who's using Google on their phone under this dome or under this net that they set up, they can pinpoint that person, right? Yeah, it's like a cell phone ping or something, yeah. And Jackson Icorn's phone was determined to be in the cemetery near 385th Street around the time Maui Tibbets would have been jogging. That's correct, yes.

So that made him of interest, right? Yes. Did Jackson Icorn have any connection to Dalton Jack? We always kind of assumed that younger people would all know each other. I can't remember if they were actually friends or even knew of each other. He was interviewed, right? Yes, he was. And you reviewed the reports of that interview?

Yes. I'm trying to recall. Do you recall who did that interview? Probably would guess Matt George did that. Okay. Now, Jackson Eichhorn was about 17 at the time, I think. Yes, he was. And when he was interviewed, he agreed that he was in the cemetery.

Do you recall that? Yes. And he gave some excuse or explanation, I should say, that he was there helping a friend mow the cemetery for a bit. Yes. He identified that friend. Do you recall the friend's name? No.

I think the friend might be Darian Davis. Yes, that sounds right. But then when he was, he cut off the interview. He stopped the interview, right? Right. But he was interviewed again about a week later. Yes. And then his story changed.

Yes. He recalled then he was just kind of driving through the cemetery hanging out. I thought he said he was like smoking marijuana or something, but maybe the car thing is correct, yeah. Okay. When the canvases were being done down on 460th, who were the agents that were doing the canvases, do you recall? Our canvas teams were different daily.

It always depended on who we had. Did you review the records of the canvas on 460th? Someone in the investigative team did. I can't say that I reviewed all the canvas sheets. Who is Curtis Laver? Curtis Laver, he had friends that had a pool party, and he was there and maybe met Molly at that pool party, something like that. How about Timothy, is it Tomatic?

Tomatic? Tomatic, yes. Tomatic. ditch. Just had done some unusual things around the time of Molly's disappearance that we needed to follow up on. And then came a lead to a guy named Michael Scott. You recall that? Yes, I do. He was the guy who was passing through town whose car broke down, right? His car broke down in Brooklyn. Yes, that's correct. And you received some tips that this car may have been suspicious, right? I don't know if it was a tip or one of our agents developed that. I remember the agent

coming to me talking about that car and they found a brown hair in that car uh yes they did yes the circumstances were he came to brooklyn his car broke down left his car there and bought a new one and kept on traveling right yes he did yes which seemed kind of bizarre it was very unusual yeah and then the dci went out and got a gps warrant to put a gps on mr scott's car right Yes. Is that how you excluded him? No. How'd you exclude Mr. Scott? He actually made it out to, I think, Omaha, if we're talking about the same person. I guess you're asking how we excluded people. There was really only a couple that we actually excluded. We revisited a lot of these people several times. Just not Dalton Jack? We did revisit Dalton Jack. How about the

idea that Pawasheek County has a number of sex offenders residing in it? Yes, they do. And you run all those people down? Yes. Everyone? The ones that we knew of, yes. So on the sex offender registry in Pawasheek County, you ran everyone down? I think so, yes. There was a gentleman named Brandon Roller that piqued your interest, right? Yes. What piqued your interest about Brandon Roller? I don't know specifically. When you said earlier the FBI had unlimited resources, basically, you were using whatever resources you could get your hands on to find Molly Tibbetts, right? Yes, we were. And Nick Potratz was kind of in control of that?

Yeah, he would be the best resource for what the FBI did, yes. Was he a part of the behavioral analyst unit? No. Was the behavioral analyst unit consulted during this? Yes. And that was primarily a woman named Molly Amon? Molly Amon used to be in that unit. She was no longer at that time.

She was a supervisor out of Des Moines. But the behavioral analyst unit was consulted? Yes. Did you yourself consult with them? I talked to them. Again, we play to our strengths. So Molly Amon used to be in that unit, so I think she had most of the contact. The meetings with this unit, these are the profilers, right?

My only contact with them is usually to ask them how to ask questions on certain people. Going back to Dalton Jack's home at 622 West Des Moines Street, Molly had a computer. Yes, she did. It was a MacBook? Yes. Made by Apple? Yes. And was that forensically examined?

If you're referring to, like, dumped or made copies of, no. So you had information, did you not, that Molly was on her computer that night? She was abducted? We did, and we later found out I think it was her brother that knew her password. Okay. So her brother went on her computer to try to find a trail, right? Right. Now, if you're working victimology inside out,

you didn't want to get on her computer to find out who she'd been talking to or where she may have gone? I think we're on her computer almost every day. We had a password. But you didn't have it forensically looked at for deleted files or file carving, nothing like that? I don't know what file carving is, but the FBI software guys were constantly on that analyzing stuff. So that wasn't necessary? Again, I don't know what file carving is or if it would be necessary or not.

Did the FBI software engineers or whoever have it indicate that Molly had a pen pal? Yes, she did. Did you figure out who the pen pal was? I think so. I don't remember the name, but I think at some point we figured it out, but I'm not sure. Did you interview the pen pal? I don't think so, no. Wasn't there some concern that Molly was sharing personal information with this pen pal,

but the pen pal was unknown? Jack calls for speculations irrelevant. Overruled, the witness may answer if he knows. I can't remember exactly. I think the pen pal was a younger person, like a younger kid or something. but that's something you'd want to know wouldn't you yes I mean we tried to figure out everybody in Molly's life was it you who directed the criminalist to take swabs and look for signs of seminal fluid where on Molly's body Molly's clothing the pathologist Dr. Klein would call me

and ask kind of what they would want done in a case like this it kind of goes without saying that that would be something that they would look for. So in a case like this, the theory always is that sexual assault is possible. Right, yes. So tell me, when in your mind did the investigation into Molly Tibbetts' murder basically end for you? When we were able to corroborate all the facts within Christian Rivera's confession. Was it over when the DCI reports were submitted to you showing a mixture of three different individuals' DNA in the trunk?

Again, that's kind of a complicated answer. The purpose of looking for Molly Tibbetts' blood or DNA in the trunk was basically to corroborate the statement made by Christian Rivera that he takes her out of the trunk. So when he says, I took her out of the trunk and she was bleeding, and we find that blood in the trunk, that made the statement that he gave us true. So the reason why we were looking for Molly Tibbetts' blood in the trunk was to show that Christian Rivera was telling us the truth. But when we get additional facts like a mixture of three individuals' blood or a fingerprint that's not Christian Bahena's, we don't care to look?

Christian Rivera didn't say anybody else helped him. So I don't know what, a DNA would be much more, in my understanding, DNA is much more conclusive than a fingerprint. Did you ever interview Ulysses Felix? Again, that's a name I've heard, but I can't remember why I know that name. You'd agree with me that no DNA from Christian Bahena was ever found on Molly Tibbetts' body? She was very decomposed. There was no DNA there. No DNA was ever found from under her fingernails? No, there was not.

And you understand that there are defensive wounds found on her body, right? Yes. When you went to Yerba, you ordered to have buckle swabs taken from all the employees, right? Yes. Why? I mean, there was a political talk of deporting millions of good, hardworking people just because of their immigration status. and we had this huge fear that if we had contact with an immigrant community that they wouldn't trust us or that they would be afraid of us.

They're a transit community. They're able to move from town to town and use false paperwork, that sort of thing. Getting the buckle swaps is purely for identification purposes. Please tell me the description that was given about Christian generally. Should I jump on it? Jack's calls for hearsay. Overruled. Go ahead. I mean, I just don't remember hearing anything negative, I guess, about Christian Rivera. Let me posit it this way.

If someone had told you something negative about Christian, you'd remember that. Right, yes. If someone told you he was violent, you'd remember that. Yes. If someone told you he was known to carry weapons, you'd remember that. Yes. You don't remember any of that? Nobody at the farm told us that that I can recall.

Now, you went to great steps to make sure these folks knew that you weren't going to get them in trouble with immigration, right? Yes. And that's because these folks take great steps to not be detected, right? I would agree with that, yes. Were you able to look at work records for Christian Bahena? Yes. And those work records showed you he was working 12 out of every 14 days, right? Yes.

And he was working about 12 hours a day, right? Yes. And he was working under a false name. Yes. And it wasn't like he was working under a Hispanic name. He was working under an Anglo name, right? Yes. I think it was John Budd. Now I want to go to the interview. You made the decision to use Pamela Romero, right? Right. Were you aware she was an officer for two and a half years? Yes, I was. Were you aware she had 16 hours of interrogation training? I was aware of the class that she went to. Now you yourself are a very experienced interviewer, right? Yes. And I

think Nick Potratz was there as well for the FBI? Yes, he is. He's a very experienced interviewer, right? Right. Jeff Fink was there as well. Yes. And he's a sergeant with the Coralville Police Department, right? He's with Iowa City Police. Was he Pamela Romero's supervisor? Yeah, I think he was her field training officer or supervisor is one of the two. He was an experienced interviewer? Yes. Fluent in Spanish, right? He says he's proficient, which evidently is different than being fluent. Pamela Romero was fluent, proficient, is different.

And she's fluent because she tells you she's fluent? Yes. Okay. Jeff Fink tells you he's proficient because he's educated and teaches it, right? I don't know what he teaches. But out of all the people that were there, it was your decision to send in Pamela Romero to talk to Christian. The initial interview was Jeff Fink and Pamela Romero. Yes.

Why did you choose the officer with the least amount of training and interrogation techniques to do this? That's how it evolved. So it evolved because Christian Rivera became engaged with her. He seemed to feel more comfortable with her. obviously the experience is a concern of ours but as long as he's engaged with her and talking to her we were still able to manage the interview somewhat but nick potter said i did not speak spanish so we the reason why we took as many breaks as we did was for her to fill us in on what he was saying and for us to do follow-up questions so you were still the man behind the

curtain controlling the interview from the law enforcement standpoint? Within reason. I mean, without being able to speak Spanish, I could only give general questions. I definitely didn't understand all or get all the information that was being told to her. Were you aware at some point that Christian's family came to the sheriff's office? Yes, I think they did at some point. Were you aware at some point they requested to speak to him? I don't remember that, no. And your training and experience, is it good practice for an officer to act as both interviewer and then be a translator? I've been doing this like 26 years and I have yet to figure out a good way to do a foreign language interview. They're difficult and the optimal I

think would be to have a highly experienced investigator that speaks the language but If I were to sit there, the flow was very choppy. You could have, though, had Ms. Romero in the room providing translation, and you could have done the interview. Right, and we've done that before in different cases. It's just very, I just don't like doing it that way. In watching the interview, you acknowledged there were times where Mr. Bahena fell asleep. I know he fell asleep.

I don't know if I watched it. He was clearly tired. Yes, we were all tired. Were you ever able to determine if Mr. Bahena had prior law enforcement contact? I don't know that answer. That's all I...