Crimeatorium
Part 5: The State of Iowa vs Cristhian Bahena Rivera | The Murder of Mollie Tibbetts
Sat, 11 Jan
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Part 5: Testimony from the medical examiner.Before we begin, I want to take a moment to reflect on the life of Mollie Tibbetts, a young woman whose light touched everyone she met. Mollie Cecelia Tibbetts was born on May 8, 1998, in San Francisco, California, and raised in both San Francisco and Brooklyn, Iowa. She graduated from BGM High School in 2017 and was pursuing a degree in psychology at the University of Iowa, driven by her dream of becoming a child psychologist to help children struggling with mental health issues.Mollie loved life, and it showed in everything she did. She excelled in writing and speech, sharing her thoughts on complex topics like mental health and self-esteem. She made friends everywhere she went, and children adored her. She worked at a summer camp where her laughter and warmth left a lasting impression. She was a runner, a dancer, an actor, and a singer. But above all, Mollie was a young woman filled with kindness, ambition, and an undeniable joy for life.In July 2018, Mollie disappeared while on an evening jog near her hometown of Brooklyn, Iowa, sparking a massive search effort that united the community and drew nationwide attention. Sadly, her body was discovered weeks later.This episode covers the court trial in full, edited for length and clarity.Contact:[email protected] Blog for updates and insights:https://crimeatorium.com/blogSupport:Donations are appreciated, if you would like to help support the show, use the link below and buy me a burrito and a Diet Pepsi:http://Ko-fi.com/crimeatoriumFor $3 a month, you can support this show on Patreon, in return you will receive ad free, early, and bonus episodeshttps://www.patreon.com/crimeatoriumIf you like the podcast, please share it on social media and with friends, and take a minute to leave a review for Crimeatorium on Spotify, Podchaser or Apple Podcasts.https://www.crimeatorium.com/rate/Music:im Kulig (timkulig.com)Titles: Crimeatorium IntroLicensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0997280/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1Thank you for listening!Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/crimeatorium9009/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
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State may call its next witness. Our next witness is Dr. Dennis Klein. Dr. Klein, good afternoon. Good afternoon. Can you please state your name for the record? Yes, my name is Dennis Klein, K-L-E-I-N. And how are you employed? I'm the state medical examiner.
Dr. Klein, part of the duties of the medical examiner, maybe one of the chief duties of the medical examiner, is to perform a forensic autopsy. Is that true? Yes. Can you please tell the jury, describe for them, and define what is the purpose of a forensic autopsy?
The purpose of a forensic autopsy is to document medical findings, collect evidence, and provide information that determines cause and manner of death for deaths that occur under medical examiner jurisdiction. So any case that would be of interest to the state would be of interest to the medical examiner.
Dr. Klein, when did you first become involved in the recovery or autopsy of a person later identified as Molly Tibbetts? I was first informed by a telephone call from the county medical examiner, Dr. Paulson, in Poweshie County. My first encounter was on August 21st when I went out to the cornfield, the scene where the body that was ultimately identified as Molly Tibbetts was found.
So you and a team from your office went to the location where she was located? That's correct. All right, and that would have been in a cornfield near the town of Guernsey? That's correct. Whenever you arrived at that area, were you shown to the location where the body had been located? Yes. What were your initial observations?
The initial observation was there were human remains in a state of decomposition that were mostly covered by corn stalks. To your knowledge, had any of the corn stalks been removed from the body? Not to my knowledge at that time.
Commonly, you come across a crime scene team assigned by the Division of Criminal Investigation. Yes. Were any personnel from DCI there that were assigned as crime scene technicians? Yes. Was that Amy Johnson? Yes, it was. And Jonna Berry? Yes. Did you and your team then recover the remains that were underneath the corn stalks? Yes.
And how is it that you go about doing that with a body that's in the state of decomposition that we've seen here last week? Yeah, so we document with photographs in a layer-wise fashion. So we take pictures with the vegetation, corn stalks on the body. We carefully remove that vegetation, take additional photographs, observe the body, and then using multi-hands with my team,
We lift the body up and carefully place it into a body bag, and then we photograph and examine the area where the body was to see if there were any other pieces of evidence or body parts that we would need to recover. So whenever you lifted the body, later identified as Molly Tibbetts, up and put her into the body bag, was there anything of significance underneath her that you observed?
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