Illegal alien confesses to the murder of the missing Iowa student Mollie Tibbetts

Mollie Tibbetts. Police handout. 

An illegal alien has confessed to the murder of a missing Iowa student named Mollie Tibbetts. AP. Cristhian Bahena Rivera, a 24 year old from Mexico has been charged with 1st degree murder in the case. Rivera confessed to the murder and had led police to the location of Tibbetts body, who he dumped in a corn field. Rivera said that he got out of his car and started to run with Tibbetts who was disturbed enough that she threatened to call the police. Rivera said that he blacked out and when he came too Tibbetts was dead. Tibbetts' disappearance launched a massive manhunt and gained worldwide media attention. 

My Comment:

I confess to not following this story closely when it was happening. I kinda had the feeling that it was just a pretty white girl deciding to disappear for awhile and then getting spooked by the national media coverage, which was pretty disproportionate. It turns out I was wrong and that there was a real and disgusting case here. It is a tragedy that Tibbetts was murdered. 

The case reminds me of one that I read about in a book about FBI profiling where another man attacked and murdered a woman that was out jogging. In that case he too got out of his car and started to jog with her but when she rejected his advances he killed her. In that this is far from an unprecedented case. The murder of Suzanne Collins, as detailed in the book Journey into Darkness by John Douglas is eerily similar.

My guess is that Rivera acted in a similar way. He saw a pretty young woman who he knew he had no chance with and tried to proposition her. She quite rightly declined him, sensing the danger and that set him off. He was pissed that someone like her wouldn't go for someone like him and he killed her for it. It's not much of a mystery why he did what he did. Let's hope that it was only a murder though...

It's fairly unusual for someone like Tibbetts to be murdered. She is what as known as a low risk victim as she wasn't involved in crime in any way and she lived in a safe area. The fact that she was murdered is newsworthy in its own as things like this rarely happen, despite the media claiming it happens all the time. The vast majority of murders in this country is one criminal murdering another with people not involved with the criminal life mostly safe from this kind of violence. Not so in this case. 

There are going to be some major political implications for this case. I doubt that is what the family wants but it's going to happen regardless because this case now involves one of the great hot button issues of the day, illegal immigration. It's inarguable that if Cristhian Rivera had been deported Mollie Tibbetts would still be alive and unknown today. Given that immigration is probably the most important national and global issues around today there was no way that this case disappears even if that's what the media would like. 

Of course the media has some responsibility for turning this into a major story in the first place and one that will likely impact the 2018 midterms. Outside of bashing President Trump, the Mollie Tibbetts story was THE top story for several weeks. Though I disagree with most leftist talking points on the media I do have to say there is a real phenomenon of "missing white girl" stories where the media cover cases where a pretty young white girl goes missing far outside the actual importance of the case. It's obviously very important to the people that loved and missed Tibbetts but as a national news story? The coverage was probably over the top. Given how in favor the media is when it comes to illegal immigration it ended up biting them back hard. 

Now the media is going to be forced to cover the fact that an illegal alien confessed to the murder of a woman who they turned into a media star. The media narrative is and has always been that illegal aliens are just normal people that don't contribute much to America's crime problem and to be opposed to them is just racism. This case shatters that narrative because it was very clear that Rivera should have never been in this country. 

This will likely become a rallying cry for the Republicans in November. The story was too large and the crime so evil that it will effect people that believe that illegal immigration is a clear and present danger to the safety of US citizens. Such a thing feels slightly distasteful, but given the circumstances of the case it was impossible for it not to end up that way. 

Still, when it comes down to it this story is not about the political implications of a murder. It's about a young woman who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and ended up cornered by a monster. That's the real story here and I am glad that Cristhian Rivera will likely spend the rest of his life behind bars for what he did.