Iowa Farmworker Gets Life in Prison for the Murder of Mollie Tibbetts
A farmworker was sentenced on Monday to life in prison without the possibility of parole in the fatal stabbing of an Iowa college student in 2018, a crime that Donald J. Trump seized upon as president as he amplified his hard-line policies against illegal immigration.
The farmworker, Cristhian Bahena Rivera, was convicted in May in the abduction and murder of Mollie Tibbetts, 20, a University of Iowa student who disappeared after going for a run.
It took more than a month until Mr. Bahena Rivera led investigators to the body of Ms. Tibbetts, which had been hidden in a cornfield outside Brooklyn, Iowa, her hometown.
The arrest of Mr. Bahena Rivera, who had been described by the authorities as an undocumented immigrant from Mexico, quickly drew the attention of Mr. Trump. The president sought to use the case to his political advantage during the midterm elections in 2018 and in his efforts to build a border wall.
