DAVENPORT, Iowa - The defense calls its first witness in the Cristhian Rivera murder trial Tuesday morning.
The prosecution spent Monday making the case that Rivera is the only one to have any sort of connection in the death of Mollie Tibbetts, killed while she was jogging near her home in Brooklyn, Iowa in 2018.
Lead investigator, Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation Special Agent Trent Vileta, said security footage from a home in Brooklyn on July 18, 2018, helped lead investigators to Rivera.
“The footage on Logan Collins cameras broke open the case for us, it was the lead that we needed,” Vileta said.
Defense attorney Chad Frese questioned Vileta about other possible suspects, including sex offenders and men with a history of violence against women.
Prosecutor Scott Brown resumed direct examination and emphasized that unlike Cristhian Bahena Rivera, there were no admissions or DNA evidence connecting any of those men to the case.
Also Monday, FBI agent Kevin Horan testified about data using Mollie’s cell phone signal and nearby cell phone towers, and how her cell phone began moving at speeds up to 60 miles an hour in the opposite direction after moving at a speed consistent with a jogger.
The state Medical examiner and a forensics expert also took the stand before the prosecution rested, confirming the body of Tibbetts had nine definitive stab wounds.
A motion for acquittal in the case by the defense, claiming the state had not proved first-degree murder, was denied by Judge Joel Yates.
Iowa City based defense Attorney Eric Tindal told KCRG-TV the defense must now do more to establish a reasonable doubt needed for Rivera to found not guilty.
"You need to do more than throw dust up in the air," Tindal told KCRG. "It doesn't mean you have to prove your theory of defense, but you have to make it more than just possible. You really need to have a probable defense. So far we haven't heard that."
Day five in the trial begins at 8:30 Tuesday morning.