A teen told the media that her sister was also pursued by Mollie Tibbetts’s killer, in the same Iowa town, but that she thought nothing of it at the time.
“She told me that a little while ago he drove up to her while she was walking through Brooklyn. He told her she was really pretty and things like that,” Gibson told Daily Mail. “In the end she was really creeped-out by his behavior. She had to keep telling him she wasn’t interested.”
Gibson said that Rivera was not a stranger to her 17-year-old sibling, and that this wasn’t their first encounter. Gibson said that she knew him too.
“I know Cristhian from my sister. She thought he was a nice, well-spoken person. They hung out a few times but nothing really happened romantically.”
She revealed that the encounter was odd and that Rivera eventually left her sister alone.
“It was more flirty than sexual but my sister is very shy. She didn’t appreciate it. Even though she knew him a little she felt unsafe and didn’t want to talk to him.”
Rivera is accused of killing 20-year-old University of Iowa student Mollie Tibbetts in her hometown of Brooklyn, Iowa. The case has become a point of controversy, partly because Rivera is a Mexican national in the country illegally. He used a fake name and an I.D. and social security number that didn’t belong to him in order to gain employment, Daily Mail reported.
Rivera said he found Tibbetts in the trunk of his car, bleeding from her head, and put her body in a field. He said he doesn’t remember attacking her and blacked out at the time.
Surveillance footage showed him driving up to Tibbetts in his car as she ran ahead.
“It all clicked when we heard the news. It’s so scary to think he did something similar with my sister,” said Bailey, via Daily Mail.
Rivera was in court on Aug. 21.
Iowa governor Kim Reynolds also suggested that a broken immigration system played a part in the tragedy.
ICE officials have already placed an immigration detainer on him, meaning that they will probably take action to deport him when he is released by the Scott County Jail or other local authorities.