Andrea Canning talks with Josh Mankiewicz about his episode, “The Last Mile,” which covers the 2018 murder of Mollie Tibbetts in her hometown of Brooklyn, Iowa. The 20-year-old college student disappeared while out for a run, sparking a massive search. Weeks later, Mollie’s body was found in a cornfield. Cristhian Bahena Rivera, a local farmworker, was charged with her murder. Andrea and Josh discuss the investigation that led to Rivera’s arrest and the questions raised during his trial. Josh also shares a podcast-exclusive clip from his interview with Mollie’s cousin, Morgan Collum, about their childhood.Have a question for Talking Dateline? DM us on social @DatelineNBC or leave a voicemail at (212) 413-5252 — your question might be featured in a future episode.Listen to the full episode ‘The Last Mile’ on Apple: https://apple.co/4mBG7xIListen to the full episode on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/0KKmktbudrxxptlROyPjII?si=oISZG1qMR-iBQKyc0QoBeQ
Chapter 1: What is the story behind Mollie Tibbetts' disappearance?
Hi, I'm Andrea Canning, and this is Talking Dateline. I'm joined by Josh Mankiewicz, and today's episode is called The Last Mile. It's about the story of Molly Tibbetts, a 20-year-old college student who vanished after going out for a jog on a warm summer evening in Brooklyn, Iowa.
What started as a small-town search quickly became a massive investigation, with volunteers combing cornfields, analysts digging into phone and Fitbit data, and a single blurry video of a black car that cracked the case wide open, leading to an arrest. If you haven't listened to the full episode yet, it's the one posted yesterday. There's also a link in the description to this episode.
Or you can watch it on Peacock. So go there and do that. And when you come back, Josh has an extra clip from his interview with Molly's cousin, Morgan Collum, who shares one of her very first memories of Molly. Later, we'll answer some of your questions from social media. All right, let's talk Dateline. Hi, Andrea.
Hey, so Josh, the first thing that really jumped out at me from this story was just how safe this area seemed. I mean, this is the heartland. This is country. This is the blacktop and the cornfields.
Chapter 2: How did the investigation unfold in small-town America?
You know, I mean, this is small town America where everybody knows everybody else. Maybe not everybody else, but you know a lot of your neighbors when people drive by you and things like that. This is sort of the quintessential small town where neighbors look out for each other and people don't lock their doors.
And she was the kind of young lady that grows up in a town like that, sweet and a nice person and trusting of other people. Hollywood couldn't write this any more effectively than real life did.
This is not Brooklyn, New York. This is Brooklyn, Iowa.
No, this is someplace even cooler, Brooklyn, Iowa.
But it's, you know, it's the kind of thing, it's just never in a million years would she have thought, would Molly have thought when she went out for her usual run that something like that could happen. And I think most people would feel the same if they lived in a place like that.
I mean, I don't know that I, having done this job and also having been a reporter for nearly half a century, would ever go to sleep without locking my door. I don't know that there is a city on earth or a town on earth where I would not lock the door. So I can't say that that would be the case. But I will say that clearly everything about Brooklyn, Iowa, said you're safe here.
And she clearly did not feel in any danger.
It's interesting when an investigation comes to a town like that, because when you talk about the surveillance video and canvassing neighbors and all that, it's like we knew that was, you know, that was Susie's car and that was Bill's truck. And that was, you know, it's not hard to sort of figure out who owns what vehicles and who lives where and who knew her and who might have seen her.
And for investigators, I think that was a big help. I mean, here in Los Angeles, you see a black Chevy Malibu. I mean, you go to DMV, there are going to be thousands of those, but not in that area. So, I mean, that kind of, that smallness definitely helped in the investigation.
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Chapter 3: What role did technology play in solving the case?
Something else I had never heard of through the FBI was this CAST team, the Cellular Analysis Survey Team, that deals with cell data and information. And I was riveted as you start seeing Molly, you know, you have her running at 10 miles per hour and then then she's suddenly she's going 60 miles per hour and she's going in a whole new direction and she's going 15 miles south of Brooklyn, Iowa.
And it's bone chilling when you think about this poor girl that she's just out for her casual run. And then you can see on the data that everything suddenly changes.
Right. You know, when she's going 60 miles an hour, obviously she's in a car there. Is she alive at that point? Is she with her phone at that point? Because we only know the phone is going 60 miles an hour. So that doesn't necessarily mean she's with it. But in this case, I think it did. So, I mean, those are all things that investigators have to think about while they're looking at that data.
You know, I mean, she was she had a Snapchat streak going with her cousin for 600 days. That kind of helps. because that kind of person is not going to fall off the earth. You know, like that person is not going to stop. They're not going to stop.
I mean, they knew right away with her that something was wrong. And when we come back, we'll hear more from Molly's cousin, Morgan Column, the person she considered a sister. So I want to give a big shout out to Deputy Sheriff Steve Kivy. I mean, talk about eagle eyes. The fact that he's driving and he just happens to see, you know, this like a Malibu and thinks to himself, maybe.
You know, I mean, and he wasn't even on the case at that moment. He was what I think he was driving home or something. No, he was definitely.
I think he was on a day off and he just sees them out. He's like, oh, well, look at that. You know, now I will say this. After we finish recording talking Dateline, I'm going to to the retirement of a homicide detective here in Los Angeles. And she is one of those people like that.
Steve Kivy, who would have noticed the car, put it together and despite being on day off, you know, would have started making some phone calls. You know, there are a lot of cops. I'm not talking about homicide detectives, but guys in uniform in radio cars who just obsessively punch in plate numbers that they see all day long.
on every street corner because they're thinking, like, that car doesn't look like it belongs in this neighborhood. And sometimes that's how you get hits, you know, because you're always working and always thinking. And Steve Kivy is one of those guys.
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Chapter 4: Why was the timing of the suspect's arrest significant?
Chapter 5: How did witness statements influence the investigation?
And so this goes so far beyond someone's, you know, ring camera. I mean, the way that first of all, OK, let's just talk about one thing. I say this. I sound like a broken record. I learned something new on Dateline every single time I watch. And I say that every time on Talking Dateline because it's true.
In this episode, I didn't realize that, so they don't have Molly's phone, but they have her password. They have her phone number. So they go to, what was it? Was it Walmart? And they buy a new phone?
Yes, they go out and they buy a new phone and they connect it to her account.
Yes.
Thus being able to essentially clone it, I guess.
I didn't know that that was a thing because, you know, usually you hear about, OK, no phone. Well, there's password issues, you know, or whatever, like they can find some things. But I mean, that that was like amazing that they were able to do that.
It depends on what kind of phone you have. It depends on what kind of first of all, whether they build the people know the password. That's that's a huge thing.
Thankfully, someone knew it. Right.
And in this case, you know, it wasn't as probative as it otherwise might have been because, you know, you're looking on the phone and what you want to see is a text from the killer saying, hey, why don't you meet me at such and such a place at 6 p.m., right? And there wasn't anything like that.
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Chapter 6: What insights did Molly's family provide?
It's just I mean, it's it's just the most gigantic error. And I know she's super regretted that. Fortunately, I mean, and the result was, I think, like six hours of his interrogation went out the window. The judge ruled they couldn't use that. Fortunately, he got remorandized, which was so brilliant.
That was so brilliant. Right. And he was a body.
He led them to her body and then he made another confession there. So, I mean, that ended up not being as big a deal as it otherwise might have been.
So smart. Yeah. I mean, because it's interesting with the Miranda rights. I did another story where a bunch of the interview was thrown out with some key moments in it with the police interview because they didn't. It was supposed to be sort of more of this casual conversation, which, you know, you don't. always have to read Miranda rights, like in the movies.
It's not a sure thing that like every single time, especially if it's a very cordial conversation. And in the case I'm talking about, things started to get testy. The person that was being interviewed and the officer does not read the Miranda rights. Then it's up to a judge to decide, okay, you know what? I feel like this is crossing the line now.
Like this is crossing into interrogation versus, you know, casual interview.
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Chapter 7: How did law enforcement approach the case?
When it is custodial or when the person believes it is custodial, in other words, I can't leave. I'm being questioned. I don't have the option to leave. That's where you need to advise somebody of their rights.
Yeah. Something that brought back a lot of memories for me was looking at all the first of all, so many people turned out, you know, Molly's cousin thought maybe 20 would come and hundreds came. They were all the people I could see them lined up along the cornfield body to body.
And I remember when I was a reporter in Canada, in Barrie, Ontario, back in 1998, a boy by the name of Jake just went missing and remembers it was in a forest and everyone went body to body in the forest to try to find this teenager. They never unfortunately found him.
But it just brought back those memories when I saw all those people getting ready because cornfields, that's a really tough place to search.
Yeah. Yeah. And it's great that everybody did show up. I mean, that really tells you a lot about what kind of what kind of place Brooklyn, Iowa is.
I know you interviewed the cousin. We are going to take a listen to some extra sound from Morgan Column, Molly's cousin, sharing one of her earliest memories of Molly.
So growing up, Molly lived in Oakland, California with her mom and dad and younger brother Scott, older brother Jake. And we would receive VHS tapes from them, kind of showing the escapades of their life in California. And I remember the first time I actually met Molly, I remember we were eating spaghetti at my grandma's house.
and Molly was sitting in the high chair and she was the messiest baby I had ever seen. By the time she got done eating the spaghetti, I think she had meat and noodles in her nostrils and in her hair and all over her shirt. And I remember they took her out of her high chair And threw her in the tub. I mean, she was an infant at this point, but it was it was really funny.
And I just thought, oh, what a goofball.
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