IA - Mollie Tibbetts, 20, Poweshiek County, 19 Jul 2018 *Arrest* #40

[TL4S]

When LE said ( or rather the news) that he used his phone, I interpreted it to mean he had to use a map to help explain how to get there. I'm not sure how he remembered she was there in the first place, and I think that's what you are asking. Do we know if he told police he did remember that part, where she was left, but just couldn't remember how she got there?

It's in the affidavit that he used his phone to determine the route he traveled (to the cornfield). And according to CR, he came to (from his blackout) at an intersection and he did a u-turn and drove to a driveway to a cornfield and pulled in to park. That's when he claims to see the earbud and remember her in the trunk. So he drags and carries her into the cornfield.

 

[Mom24]

The euphinism remnants of sperm include DNA. Up-post, an excellent article pointed out that intact spermatazoa have been recovered up to 36 days and 5-6 weeks post-mortem. The nice thing about intact spermatazoa is that it protects the enclosed DNA like an astronaut in his space capsule. Finding intact spermatazoa is a very significant indicator of finding intact foriencsically usuasable DNA, verses free DNA that would be more susceptible to bacterial degradation making it foriencsically unusable.

This having been said, I would maintain that bacteria, both gut and soil, are equal opportunity digesters, as they eat everything! Some even eat diesel fuel and crude oil, and that stuff is REALLY tough and nasty! It's what they were made to do. And while I have learned the dictum that DNA is somewhat tough stuff, I don't understand your belief that DNA is somehow preserved through or against decomp. Once post-mortum autolysis of the cell and it's organelles, including the nuculus and mitochondria, occurs releasing free DNA; please document for me how DNA is any less prone to bacterial breakdown and degradation than any other sugar, nitrogenious base, and phosphate containing bio-molocule like ATP and others. As that is the only confusion I see here.

A couple of articles for you.
Persistence of spermatozoa and prostatic acid phosphatase in specimens from deceased individuals during varied postmortem intervals. - PubMed - NCBI
The recovery of seminal components and DNA from the vagina of a homicide victim 34 days postmortem. - PubMed - NCBI
The second is a case study from Maine where they were able to recover both seminal components and DNA from a female 34 days postmortem.
and lastly this one:
[The forensic expertise of cadavers of females suspected to be victims of sexually motivated homicide]. - PubMed - NCBI

It's why DNA has become an intriguing field. Even with touch DNA there is conflict on how long that DNA lasts. Let's say you're being tried for a murder, your DNA was found at the crime scene. You could argue, and win, that your DNA was left there long before the crime occurred, possibly even years earlier, because there is no "set" time for the degradation of DNA. In a corpse, on the soil, under corn leaves, there is a difference in the rate of degradation of the corpse itself, but interior areas, for lack of a better term, hold on to things like seminal and epithelial DNA. The putrification process makes "pockets" for preservation of DNA, much like teeth (in older cadavers) and the inner ear (in less degraded cadavers).

 

[MsBetsy]

Young people today are hooked to those phones like a fish to a line. I do not think he gave it a second thought that he had his phone, it is almost another appendage.
As said earlier he might not have known how to actually shut off Mollie's until he destroyed it. Maybe.

Maybe. But I'm alot older than he, and I never knew a thing about phones until I had to get one, now that I have a teenager. It hasn't been that long. I know. . .shocking that I lived so long without one. But even I know they can be tracked, so I would think someone younger would know that and much more. Unless he is even dumber than we think, I just don't get it.

 

[Mom24]

sbm

Ewww!

Sorry! I was a little grossed out by that one as well. It's why anyone who's taken a microbiology or genetics course never shares undergarments.

 

[MsBetsy]

I'm not an expert, but it depends on time and conditions. At a certain point in decomp, the nails slough off. Also, liquification will soak the ground under and around the body, and this type of forensic DNA (et al) could also be degraded. After a month in the summer heat, in the shade of the cornrows, it is a crap shoot as to what's left to find. The ME and the Iowa and FBI (and other) lab folks will do their best with what they have to work with.

So, a definite maybe, IMHOO

What I remember from the article you provided, was that the fingernails fall off after two weeks. So maybe there is a chance to find remnants from that area of the body in small samples? If that makes sense?

 

[Bravo]

"If" we are to believe his words he blocks out things when angry. Seems to me there would be lots of victims as another reported he was pursuing her thru SM and she was brushing him off. I doubt she and Mollie were the only one's. He also reports Mollie threatened to call LE which added to his raging block out. Is that all it takes for this killer to "block out" Not that I believe it anyway. I have a feeling those he lived with and worked with could say a whole lot about him. I have a feeling they were intimidated by him. I believe some of his co-workers "status" is keeping them from speaking out. IMO

 

[cluciano63]

Jmo he would be far from the first perp not to think about phone tracking.

 

[TL4S]

A couple of articles for you.
Persistence of spermatozoa and prostatic acid phosphatase in specimens from deceased individuals during varied postmortem intervals. - PubMed - NCBI
The recovery of seminal components and DNA from the vagina of a homicide victim 34 days postmortem. - PubMed - NCBI
The second is a case study from Maine where they were able to recover both seminal components and DNA from a female 34 days postmortem.
and lastly this one:
[The forensic expertise of cadavers of females suspected to be victims of sexually motivated homicide]. - PubMed - NCBI

It's why DNA has become an intriguing field. Even with touch DNA there is conflict on how long that DNA lasts. Let's say you're being tried for a murder, your DNA was found at the crime scene. You could argue, and win, that your DNA was left there long before the crime occurred, possibly even years earlier, because there is no "set" time for the degradation of DNA. In a corpse, on the soil, under corn leaves, there is a difference in the rate of degradation of the corpse itself, but interior areas, for lack of a better term, hold on to things like seminal and epithelial DNA. The putrification process makes "pockets" for preservation of DNA, much like teeth (in older cadavers) and the inner ear (in less degraded cadavers).

I used to work extracting DNA from hair. I don't know anything about forensics, but I do know when an animal dies in a field, there is oftentimes hair scattered around the decomposing body. Does hair have a slower rate of decomposition? I do know under the right conditions, hair follicles are an excellent source of DNA.

 

[MsBetsy]

Y'all give CBR too much credit. He is the product of a rural, agrarian lifestyle, both here and in his home country. His premeditation may have been no more than passing MT, and then following in his car after saying 'yo chica' in his head. After that point, all of his thinking was with his little head, and not the big one! In the heat of the moment, who's thinking about a phone, any phone? He had other things on his mind(s).

True, but even students that I have had with similar backgrounds know enough to use burner phones for their criminal activities. Even though they may not be too bright, they are "phone savy"

 

[Mom24]

"If" we are to believe his words he blocks out things when angry. Seems to me there would be lots of victims as another reported he was pursuing her thru SM and she was brushing him off. I doubt she and Mollie were the only one's. He also reports Mollie threatened to call LE which added to his raging block out. Is that all it takes for this killer to "block out" Not that I believe it anyway. I have a feeling those he lived with and worked with could say a whole lot about him. I have a feeling they were intimidated by him. I believe some of his co-workers "status" is keeping them from speaking out. IMO

In addition think of his coworkers as a mini community with lots of family ties interspersed and add the illegal immigration status and you could victimize people without anyone telling. Even when people are legally here, in areas where people have language barriers it can lead to this kind of behavior. Think of the Amish community and how few crimes are reported to outside authorities.

 

[Kapua]

Jmo he would be far from the first perp not to think about phone tracking.

Steven Capobianco comes to mind immediately, and I'm sure veteran sleuths here can name many others. In CR's case, LE had no reason to suspect him prior to their review of the video surveillance footage, so he had no reason to fear his phone being tracked. But I agree that he didn't give it a second thought. His focus was elsewhere. MOO

 

[MsBetsy]

I used to work extracting DNA from hair. I don't know anything about forensics, but I do know when an animal dies in a field, there is oftentimes hair scattered around the decomposing body. Does hair have a slower rate of decomposition? I do know under the right conditions, hair follicles are an excellent source of DNA.

True, but wouldn't it have to be his hair that would have to be found there?

 

[kpm]

True, but even students that I have had with similar backgrounds know enough to use burner phones for their criminal activities. Even though they may not be too bright, they are "phone savy"

He knew enough to get fake ID

He had the courage to abuse our laws to satisfy his wants

 

[TL4S]

True, but wouldn't it have to be his hair that would have to be found there?

Yes, which hopefully they find.

 

[Mercedes]

Posts always appear in chronological order. The only way to tie your post to the one you're responding to is to quote the previous post.

Yes, I know that, but it does not print the correct quote.

 

[Warwick7]

Curious how his father knows what he would do if he did the crime.....



“If he had done what they say he did, he would have come back here [to Mexico],” Eduardo Bahena Radilla, his father, said in a telephone interview from Guayabillo, a small town in Mexico. “But he’s innocent, so he didn’t run and hide.”

Good catch!

 

[Elley Mae]

Mobile phone tracking

Mobile phone tracking - Wikipedia

 

[Mercedes]

Of course, now it is working. Can’t win.

 

[SharonNeedles]

If he took 200 south (past lower point) and over, would that road be decent (it looks gravel)? It seems to me that either on the way down or the way home the car/phone had to be at 430 and 200. Why else that point on LE's map?

Yes, that’s road is well maintained. I agree, he had to be at that POI at some point or it wouldn’t be a POI. Since it’s a direct shot from the point where Mollie was abducted and his immediate concern would likely be to get out of town quickly before anyone sees him, it makes sense to me that’s the route he took.

And your route that covered all the dots could well have worked if CR drove back through town after he took MT, which if he didn't know the roads, maybe he was more comfortable with?

Note this route does not go back to Brooklyn, there’s 3 miles of rural area between Brooklyn and I-80. Didn’t CR live somewhere South of Brooklyn and North if I-80? Maybe not... But that is a logical route if he initially headed east just to get out of town then wanted to get back to the TA truckstop without going through town. That would then put him on a very direct tout past WC’s farm en route to the corn field where Mollie ended up.

Worth noting: if he was concerned about whether anybody was following him, these gravel roads make a lot of sense. You can easily see if somebody’s coming your way from a mile away. It would also make sense that if he were southbound on 200th and thought somebody was behind him he’d turn west on 400th (along the route I marked). If that car also turns west on 400th he’s probably being followed, but it didn’t so he continued on his way.

 

[MsBetsy]

It's in the affidavit that he used his phone to determine the route he traveled (to the cornfield). And according to CR, he came to (from his blackout) at an intersection and he did a u-turn and drove to a driveway to a cornfield and pulled in to park. That's when he claims to see the earbud and remember her in the trunk. So he drags and carries her into the cornfield.

Oh,thats right, I forgot about him saying that. So that means that he had the route in his phone somehow..I didn't know that phones could record an exact route that you took. So in other words he checked the exact route? Not just the general route that one can travel to get there?