Missing College Student Mollie Tibbetts Went for a Jog. She Never Made It Home

For University of Iowa (UI) student Mollie Tibbetts, exercise was her sanctuary.

“She always made it a priority to run,” her mom, Laura Calderwood, tells A&E Crime + Investigation. "It was just about getting out there, forgetting about stuff, and relieving stress.”

On the evening of July 18, 2018, the 20-year-old psychology major embarked on a routine jog alongside the cornfields of rural Brooklyn, Iowa, but she never made it back home.

“She literally just disappeared,” Calderwood says.

Calderwood describes Tibbetts, who grew up with two brothers, as a “quintessential middle child.”

“She thought I preferred the boys over her; it was just kind of silly,” she says. “She would call me a ‘boy mom.'”

That feeling of favoritism that Tibbetts seemingly felt may have fueled her drive and independence.

During summer break, she worked at a children’s day camp and moved into a home in Brooklyn, Iowa, with her boyfriend, Dalton Jack, his brother and Jack’s brother’s fiancée.

Tibbetts planned to end the summer on a high note.

She had just received her passport and was looking forward to a tropical getaway with Jack to the Dominican Republic that August before preparing to resume her studies at UI in the fall.

With goals and aspirations, the avid jogger had no reason to intentionally go missing.

“She had a plan in place,” Calderwood says.

So, when loved ones couldn’t get a hold of Tibbetts later in the evening on July 18, 2018, and she failed to show up to work the next morning, it immediately raised red flags. Family members called 911 to report her missing.

The desperate search for the beloved college student dragged on for five weeks.

During that time, local and state law enforcement pursued multiple leads, analyzed data from Tibbetts’ Fitbit and cell phone, and combed through hours of surveillance footage around her last known whereabouts.

Investigators got a break when a video surfaced of a black Chevy Malibu with chromed handles and spoked wheels circling the area six times around the time that Tibbetts vanished.

“That was what sort of tipped things off at the beginning,” Assistant Attorney General of Iowa Scott Brown, who prosecuted the case, tells A&E Crime + Investigation.

Investigators were able to trace the suspicious car back to Cristhian Bahena Rivera.

Police picked up the 24-year-old undocumented farmworker during his shift at Yarrabee Farms on August 20, 2018, and brought him in for an interview. Bahena Rivera’s immigration status became a standout aspect of the case when Donald J. Trump and other Republicans highlighted it during the 2018 midterm elections in order to make a point about illegal immigration and advocate for stricter laws and the construction of a border wall. Tibbetts’ father Rob asked that his late daughter’s case remain apolitical and not be used to perpetuate “views she believed were profoundly racist.”

At first, Bahena Rivera denied crossing paths with Tibbetts the night she disappeared, but following an 11-hour interrogation, he conceded that she was in fact no longer alive, according to Brown.

During questioning, Bahena Rivera “casually admits to seeing Mollie on the road,” Brown recalls. “He thought she was hot, pretty, but she didn’t want to have anything to do with him.”

According to court documents, he got out of his car and began to run alongside her.

“She rebuked him and threatened to call police,” Brown says. “And then he claims he blacked out.”

Bahena Rivera told detectives that when he finally came to, he was back behind the wheel, headed south, with Tibbetts’ body in the trunk. He dumped her body roughly 60 feet into a cornfield and covered it up with corn stalks.

Bahena Rivera subsequently led officers to her remains but stopped short of confessing to the method in which Tibbetts was killed.

Brown explains that investigators "think he hit her with some sort of steel pipe-type instrument” rendering her unconscious, before putting her into the trunk of his car.

Tibbetts’ DNA and blood were recovered in Bahena Rivera’s trunk, supporting the prosecution’s theory.

“I think he raped her at the scene of the cornfield, stabbed her to death, and left,” Brown surmises. "Mollie was laying on her back with her hands above her head, and her pink jogging bra was up above the area where her breasts would have been, her spandex shorts and her underwear were off of her body, and her legs were spread open.”

An autopsy revealed Tibbetts died from multiple stab wounds to the head, neck, abdomen and hands, but due to the level of decomposition, a medical examiner was unable to definitively determine if she was sexually assaulted.

A few days into Tibbetts’ disappearance, her mother came to terms with the realization she would never see her daughter alive again.

“I knew she wasn't coming home because there was no way she was just going to disappear, so I just had to play the game,” Calderwood says. “She was gone for five weeks, so I just had to sit back and let the authorities do their job.”

While she was heartbroken to receive confirmation that her daughter's body was found more than a month later, "it was a relief for everyone," Calderwood says, "even though the outcome was not what we wanted, we knew where she was.”

On August 22, 2018, Bahena Rivera was charged with first-degree murder in connection with Tibbetts’ slaying.

During his two-week trial in 2021, the defense argued his confession was coerced and instead tried to blame the killing on several other individuals, including Jack, a deputy who lived within a mile of where her body was found and a pair of masked men who purportedly threatened to murder Bahena Rivera’s infant daughter and then-girlfriend if he turned them in.

Still, the 12-member jury found the defendant guilty.

Bahena Rivera was sentenced to life in prison without parole.

In 2023, the Iowa Court of Appeals affirmed his conviction, and loved ones agree justice was served.

“I wouldn’t say that I’m happy, but I am at peace with the fact that he is behind bars for life. He's never going to do this to anyone else again,” Calderwood says.

She continues to handle the unimaginable tragedy with grace.

“You can become bitter and you can become angry, but I know what Mollie would have wanted, and that is acceptance of what happened,” she explains. “And that's the road I choose to travel down.”

To honor her daughter’s dream of becoming a child psychologist, Calderwood started the Mollie Tibbetts Memorial Fund at the University of Iowa Children’s Hospital, where more than $900,000 has been raised to support children struggling with mental illnesses to date.

She says Tibbetts would be proud.

“That’s what she wanted. She wanted to help kids,” Calderwood adds.

If given the chance to leave her daughter with one final message, it would be one filled with hope and promise.

“Mollie, I love you, I miss you,” she says, “but I know that someday we will see each other again.”