Mollie Tibbetts
The Cedar Rapids Gazette reports about 2,000 people attended Sunday afternooon’s funeral mass for Mollie Tibbetts, the 20-year-old University of Iowa student reported missing in July — sparking a nationwide search.
A reporter who attended the funeral says Mollie Tibbetts’ father addressed the crowd who gathered in the high school gymnasium in Brooklyn. According to The Gazette, Rob Tibbetts said Mollie was “nobody’s victim” and it’s time to “live like Mollie did.” Tibbetts acknowledged his family and their community of supporters in Brooklyn and beyond had been through a “long ordeal” but he said it was time to “turn the page” and begin healing by turning toward the kind of life his daughter had lived.
Mollie Tibbetts body was found in a corn field near Guernsey last Tuesday. She disappeared five weeks earlier while on out for a run in Brooklyn. Cristian Rivera, a local farmworker who authorities say has been living in the country illegally, has been charged with her murder.