BREAKING: Illegal Immigrant Cristhian Bahena Rivera Found Guilty On 2018 Murder Of Mollie Tibbetts

Rivera Found Guilty Of First-Degree Murder

On Friday, jurors in the trial of Cristhian Bahena Rivera, an illegal immigrant accused of the horrific 2018 murder of Mollie Tibbetts, found him guilty of first-degree murder in a case that gained national attention due to the suspect’s immigration status.

The conviction was revealed Friday afternoon in Davenport, Iowa, following a two-week trial in which Cristhian Bahena Rivera, 26, was charged with first-degree murder and found guilty.

After little over seven and a half hours of discussion, the jury made a conclusion.

The jurors, excluding the alternates, varied in age from 19 to 71. The panel consisted of five women and seven men, three of whom were Hispanic and nine of whom were White.

Bahena Rivera, who entered the United States illegally as a teenager from Mexico, will be faced with life in prison without the possibility of parole, which is a mandatory sentence one convicted.

He will be detained without bond awaiting his sentencing hearing on July 15.

Chad and Jennifer Frese, the defense lawyers, said they intend to appeal the jury’s verdict.

Prosecutors asked the jury to convict Bahena Rivera, 26, for the murder of the University of Iowa student during closing arguments, noting “overwhelming evidence” connecting him to the crime.

After Bahena Rivera testified that two men murdered Tibbetts and forced him to transfer her body in his vehicle, the defense rested its case on Wednesday.

Bahena Rivera’s testimony was described by prosecutor Scott Brown as “a figment of his imagination.”

He said that on July 18, 2018, while jogging in Brooklyn, Iowa, Bahena Rivera drove passed Tibbetts, 20, and made advances towards her.

Wen Tibbets rejected him, Bahena Rivera became angry, Brown said.

“The way he reacts with that anger is to stab this young woman to death and to dump her body in a cornfield,” he told the jury.

Chad Frese, the defense attorney, claims his client made a forced false confession. Investigators never recovered a murder weapon or obtained witnesses to indicate where Tibbetts was murdered, he said.

Bahena Rivera was portrayed by the defense as a hardworking Mexican immigrant who crossed the border illegally as a youngster in hopes of a better life and was forced into admitting to the murder, Fox News reported Wednesday.

Frese stated it wasn’t very clear that his client would be, “brazen enough to pick up a woman, abduct her and maybe kill her in a span of 10 to 20 minutes.”

“Folks this was planned, not by him but by someone else,” Frese said.

Prosecutors introduced a rebuttal witness on Thursday to establish an alibi for Tibbetts’ boyfriend, Dalton Jack, who was suspected in the murder by the defense.

According to defense attorney Frese, authorities did not conduct a comprehensive investigation into Jack.

Within minutes after her disappearance, Jack sent Tibbetts a text message stating that his cellphone “data straight up won’t work.”

“That’s a suspicious text if I have ever seen one, folks. It sounds like someone trying to cover his tracks.” he said.

Nick Wilson, Jack’s former manager, testified that he was working on a bridge in Dubuque approximately one hour before the murder. After work, Jack went to a hotel and grilled and drank beer with his coworkers. Brooklyn is more than two hours away from Dubuque.

Watch Mollie Tibbetts murder case in its final stages below: