An illegal immigrant has been convicted in the Mollie Tibbetts murder case. Fox News. Cristhian Bahena Rivera, an illegal immigrant from Mexico who lived and worked in Iowa, was convicted of first degree murder and will be sentenced to a mandatory life sentence. There was strong evidence that tried Rivera to the victim, including DNA evidence, a confession and the fact that he helped police find the body. The defense argued that Rivera was present at the scene of the murder but two other men had forced him to be the driver while they killed Tibbetts and he testified to that during his trial. They also argued that no murder weapon was found and that no witnesses saw Rivera killing Tibbetts. The defense also argued that Tibbetts boyfriend, Dalton Jack, may have been involved in the murder but a witness testified he was at work at the time.
My Comment:
I first wrote about the Mollie Tibbetts murder case back when Rivera confessed to the crime and the body was discovered.
At the time I expected this case to be a lot bigger than it was. After all it played into what I thought the 2020 election narrative was going to be. Illegal immigration. However, given the twin crisis's of the Coronavirus pandemic and the riots that destroyed much of America's big cities, the issue of illegal immigration disappeared and any effort to use this case for political hay going either way was not taken advantage of.
However, it's clear that illegal immigration is still a major issue and the current media coverage of the conviction is evidence of that. Most non-conservatives outlets are describing Rivera as a "farm laborer". They aren't describing him as being from Mexico or addressing his immigration status at all, even ignoring their own doublespeak of calling illegals "undocumented".
Folks, this seems to me to be an act of outright racism. When I think of a "farm laborer" I don't think of an illegal immigrant from Mexico, I think of a strong young blond farmer boy working with his dad. That's probably a strongly outdated idea of who does actual farm labor but I think it's a stereotype that exists. And the media knows this because they want the people that just read the headlines to assume that this horrible crime was committed by a white person. It's racism. They will do anything to downplay the fact that this crime was caused by an illegal immigrant.
Regardless of the illegal immigration angle this case was always a disturbing one. It seems to me that what happened in the case was crystal clear. Rivera saw a pretty young girl jogging and decided that he wanted her. She rejected him and that set him off, ending up with Tibbetts dead in a corn field. The crime didn't have anything to do with his race or the fact that he was in the country illegally, but it was a horrible one. He was a murderer that should not have been in this country, but if a similar situation happened in Mexico he probably would have done the same thing there.
Rivera had very little defense for the accusations. The idea that two murderers would abduct a Mexican man who speaks next to no English and force him to drive them to their murder makes no sense. Why would they need a third person to drive and use his car? Why would they leave a witness to their crime? It makes no sense to me. And accusing the boyfriend, who had an alibi, did not save him in this case. Without having seen the trial I am not sure what I would have done but I can't imagine if I was on that jury I wouldn't have convicted him as well. Still, his lawyers should be commended for at least trying to defend a man that had little in the way of defense. I don't know what I would have done differently in their shoes, even if defending this man would have to be distasteful.
The sad thing is that the people of Iowa will now have to feed, house and shelter Rivera for the rest of his life. For a man that shouldn't even be in this country. My guess is that he won't do well in prison as the Tibbetts case was big enough that even prisoners probably heard about it. If he's in general population and not protective custody he will probably get beaten or worse for what he did. In a perfect world he would have been deported long before he ever got the chance to hurt anyone.
As for Mollie Tibbetts herself she seemed like a normal example of her generation. From what I gathered from her social media, she was the kind of person that would be defending Rivera for being in this country illegally. Same with her family. There is something seriously wrong with people if they can't simply condemn an illegal immigrant because they fear being called racist, even after he murdered your own daughter. It's still sad that she died but it's clear the her beliefs and the people that shared them indirectly caused her death. Rivera may have been a murderer regardless of where he was and what race he happened to be but the fact remains that Tibbetts would be alive if he had been deported, which is something she opposed.
I hate white people https://t.co/vNNhvpl98e
— Mollie Tibbetts (@Motibbs) December 13, 2017
As for what can be learned from this case? I don't know. It was a senseless murder that could have easily been prevented by a deportation but that doesn't seem to be in the cards now. We will likely see more cases like this soon as both immigration enforcement and general law enforcement have been kneecapped. My guess is that they won't get the attention that this case got as it was just a fluke that she became a media cause before her murderer was revealed to be an illegal immigrant.
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