The Tragic Murder Of Mollie Tibbetts, The Iowa Student Who Never Returned From Her Daily Run

When 20-year-old Mollie Tibbetts disappeared during a routine evening jog in rural Iowa, investigators made a horrifying discovery in a cornfield weeks later.

Mollie Tibbetts. Twitter/X.com

To learn the full story, read my article on All That’s Interesting.

Mollie Tibbetts was just 20 years old when she went out for an evening run in the small town of Brooklyn, Iowa, on July 18, 2018. A psychology student at the University of Iowa, she was known for her bright personality, her love of running, and her dream of one day becoming a child psychologist.

It was a routine run on a familiar route.

But Mollie never came home.

When she failed to show up for work the next morning, her family and friends immediately knew something was wrong. What followed was one of the largest search efforts in Iowa history, with volunteers, investigators, drones, and police dogs combing through fields and rural farmland in hopes of finding her alive.

For weeks, there were no answers. No one could find Mollie.

Then investigators made a critical discovery. Data from Mollie’s phone and Fitbit showed that she had been jogging normally when she suddenly stopped moving at around 8:28 p.m. Moments later, her phone began traveling at highway speeds, suggesting that she had been forced into a vehicle.

A neighbor’s home security camera captured a black Chevrolet Malibu repeatedly driving near Mollie along her running route. The vehicle belonged to 24-year-old farmworker Cristhian Bahena Rivera.

Rivera initially denied ever seeing Mollie that night. But when confronted with surveillance footage, he began to tell a very different story.

How did a normal summer evening jog end in a senseless act of violence that took the life of a beautiful, young woman with her entire future ahead of her?

Read the full article on All That’s Interesting. It’s free!