Cristhian Bahena Rivera, 27, was set to be sentenced to life in prison without parole this week after being convicted in May of murdering University of Iowa student Mollie Tibbetts, but a judge delayed that sentencing Wednesday due to two new witnesses who have shaken up the case. Tibbets, 20, disappeared in July 2018 while on a run in her hometown of Brooklyn, Iowa. Bahena Rivera, a Mexican national who came to the United States illegally as a teenager, led investigators to her body in a remote cornfield about a month after she vanished and was convicted by a jury of first-degree murder on May 28. Bahena Rivera testified at trial that two masked men who actually killed Tibbets forced him to drive them around and dispose of Tibbetts' body. Prosecutors dismissed Rivera's claims, but his defense attorneys now say that two new witnesses came forward during the trial to support Bahena Rivera's story.

Source: Fox News July 14, 2021 20:15 UTC