The man accused of killing 20-year-old University of Iowa student Mollie Tibbetts is set to go to trial in the fall.
26-year-old Cristhian Bahena Rivera is charged with Murder in the First Degree after Tibbetts was reported missing on July 19, 2018 from the town of Brooklyn while she was out running.
Rivera allegedly told police he followed Tibbetts in his car while she was jogging in town, then got out and started running beside her. According to a criminal complaint, Rivera confessed to police that he blacked out and that, sometime after, he remembered Tibbetts’ body was in his car. Rivera told police that he hauled Tibbetts’ body into a cornfield and covered it with stalks.
The Iowa Supreme Court denied a motion from Bahena Rivera's legal team in February that claimed conversations with law enforcement were inadmissible as evidence.
Following the appeal's conclusion, a district court's order Friday has scheduled Bahena Rivera's trial to begin September 29 in Woodbury County.
