Post by Graveyardbride on May 26, 2021 18:33:08 GMT -5
Illegal Alien Concocts Preposterous Tale
Today (May 26), defense attorneys called Cristhian Bahena-Rivera to the stand and through an interpreter, elicited what has to be one of the most cockamamie tales ever cooked up in an American murder trial.
According to Bahena, on Monday, August 18, 2018, he got out of the shower to find two masked men – one large and the other smaller and muscular – in the living room of the trailer where he lived. One of them, he said, was holding a gun and the other a knife, and the pair ordered him into his car, a black Chevrolet Malibu, where one of them got into the passenger seat and the second positioned himself in the backseat directly behind Bahena.
As they drove around Brooklyn, Iowa, a small city of approximately 1,700, they came upon a young woman – whom the defendant later discovered was Mollie Tibbetts – jogging along the street and he was instructed to stop. He was subsequently forced to circle around several times before pulling over along a road near where the 20-year-old student was last seen, at which point, the man with the knife got out of the car and moved up the road out of sight. It was during this time Bahena heard the man in the backseat whispering to himself and was able to pick up the phrase, “Come on, Jack.” (Dropping the name “Jack” was an obvious attempt to implicate Dalton Jack, the deceased’s boyfriend.)
After approximately 10 or 12 minutes, the knife-wielding kidnaper returned and Bahena heard the men putting something heavy into the trunk, after which he was ordered to drive away. “Before they leave, one of them tells me not to say anything about what had happened,” the defendant testified. “That they knew Iris [Gamboa] and they knew my daughter, that if I said something, they would take care of them.” After issuing their warning, the murderous duo took off – on foot – toward a gravel road.
Once they were gone, the terrified Bahena checked the trunk of his car, where he found Tibbetts – wearing running shorts, a sports bra and a single shoe – barely alive. Realizing he could not save the girl, he decided to hide the body. “She was very heavy ... I picked her up and I put her in the cornfield,” he told the jury, adding that he covered her with cornstalks because he “didn’t want her to be too exposed to the sun.”
Unsure where he was, Bahena testified he used his cellphone – which the men had been considerate enough to toss into the trunk, along with his keys, with the woman’s body – to get directions back to the trailer where he lived.
Asked by his lawyer why he hadn’t called police, Bahena said he was scared. “If I called police, it was something that wouldn’t be good, that wouldn’t seem right,” he mewled.
On cross-examination, prosecutor Scott Brown reminded Bahena he had numerous opportunities to tell investigators what happened and could have requested protection for his ex-girlfriend and daughter.
Defense attorneys, in a further attempt to garner sympathy for their client, attempted to paint Bahena as a hardworking immigrant, whose life centered around his family. Accordingly, jurors were forced to endure Bahena’s woeful tale of life in Mexico and how he paid a coyote to assist him, along with approximately 10 other illegal aliens, in crossing the Rio Grande on an inflatable raft in order to reach the Texas border.
The defense called several other witnesses, but after Bahena’s performance, everything else was anticlimactic and some reporters noted jurors seemed less interested in the proceedings.
Sources: Eric Ferkenshoff and William Morris, The Des Moines Register, May 26, 2021; and Stephen Sorace, Fox News, May 26, 2021.
Today (May 26), defense attorneys called Cristhian Bahena-Rivera to the stand and through an interpreter, elicited what has to be one of the most cockamamie tales ever cooked up in an American murder trial.
According to Bahena, on Monday, August 18, 2018, he got out of the shower to find two masked men – one large and the other smaller and muscular – in the living room of the trailer where he lived. One of them, he said, was holding a gun and the other a knife, and the pair ordered him into his car, a black Chevrolet Malibu, where one of them got into the passenger seat and the second positioned himself in the backseat directly behind Bahena.
As they drove around Brooklyn, Iowa, a small city of approximately 1,700, they came upon a young woman – whom the defendant later discovered was Mollie Tibbetts – jogging along the street and he was instructed to stop. He was subsequently forced to circle around several times before pulling over along a road near where the 20-year-old student was last seen, at which point, the man with the knife got out of the car and moved up the road out of sight. It was during this time Bahena heard the man in the backseat whispering to himself and was able to pick up the phrase, “Come on, Jack.” (Dropping the name “Jack” was an obvious attempt to implicate Dalton Jack, the deceased’s boyfriend.)
After approximately 10 or 12 minutes, the knife-wielding kidnaper returned and Bahena heard the men putting something heavy into the trunk, after which he was ordered to drive away. “Before they leave, one of them tells me not to say anything about what had happened,” the defendant testified. “That they knew Iris [Gamboa] and they knew my daughter, that if I said something, they would take care of them.” After issuing their warning, the murderous duo took off – on foot – toward a gravel road.
Once they were gone, the terrified Bahena checked the trunk of his car, where he found Tibbetts – wearing running shorts, a sports bra and a single shoe – barely alive. Realizing he could not save the girl, he decided to hide the body. “She was very heavy ... I picked her up and I put her in the cornfield,” he told the jury, adding that he covered her with cornstalks because he “didn’t want her to be too exposed to the sun.”
Unsure where he was, Bahena testified he used his cellphone – which the men had been considerate enough to toss into the trunk, along with his keys, with the woman’s body – to get directions back to the trailer where he lived.
Asked by his lawyer why he hadn’t called police, Bahena said he was scared. “If I called police, it was something that wouldn’t be good, that wouldn’t seem right,” he mewled.
On cross-examination, prosecutor Scott Brown reminded Bahena he had numerous opportunities to tell investigators what happened and could have requested protection for his ex-girlfriend and daughter.
Defense attorneys, in a further attempt to garner sympathy for their client, attempted to paint Bahena as a hardworking immigrant, whose life centered around his family. Accordingly, jurors were forced to endure Bahena’s woeful tale of life in Mexico and how he paid a coyote to assist him, along with approximately 10 other illegal aliens, in crossing the Rio Grande on an inflatable raft in order to reach the Texas border.
The defense called several other witnesses, but after Bahena’s performance, everything else was anticlimactic and some reporters noted jurors seemed less interested in the proceedings.
Sources: Eric Ferkenshoff and William Morris, The Des Moines Register, May 26, 2021; and Stephen Sorace, Fox News, May 26, 2021.