“You and you alone, forever changed the lives of those who loved Mollie Tibbetts.”
Judge Joel D. Yates said that to convicted murderer Christhian Bahena Rivera before sentencing him to life in prison without the possibility of parole on Monday, Aug. 30, in Montezuma.
The sentencing was held in the Poweshiek County Courthouse.
Bahena Rivera was convicted in the 2018 killing of University of Iowa student Mollie Tibbetts while she was out for a run outside her Brooklyn home.
Bahena Rivera, 27, drew the maximum penalty under the law.
Earlier, Yates had rejected a request for a new trial for Bahena Rivera, who was convicted on May 28 of first-degree muder in the death of Tibbetts, who was 20 at the time.
Yates dismissed claims that newly-discovered evidence implicated other alleged suspects in Tibbetts’ slaying.
Story source: Reports from NBC via WHO-TV in Des Moines.