More than 1,200 people gathered to mourn Mollie Tibbetts at her funeral on Sunday, August 26. The slain Iowa college student’s father and brother were among those who delivered emotional eulogies.
“Today, we need to turn the page. We’re at the end of a long ordeal,” Mollie’s dad, Rob Tibbetts, said in the gymnasium at Brooklyn-Guernsey-Malcom High School in Brooklyn, Iowa, via The Des Moines Register. “But we need to turn toward life — Mollie’s life — because Mollie’s nobody’s victim. Mollie’s my hero.”
Rob called upon the community to unite in remembering his daughter. “The person best equipped to help us through this is Mollie,” he said. “Let’s try to do what Mollie would do. Let’s say what Mollie would say.”
Rob went on to thank the volunteers, police officers and members of the media who helped search for Mollie, who was reported missing on July 18 and found dead on August 21. He also called on the school’s football team as well as a couple who had been married the day before the service to stand up to congratulate them.
“That felt good,” Rob said. “That’s what Mollie would have done.”
Mollie’s older brother, Jake, and cousin Morgan Collum also spoke at the funeral.
“Please don’t be mad at God for taking Mollie away from us,” Collum said. “Rather, praise God for his creation in making a soul so sweet, so pure and so caring to all.”
Mollie, who was a psychology major at the University of Iowa, was last seen going for a jog around her hometown. Police arrested suspect Cristhian Bahena Rivera and charged him with first-degree murder after he led them to her body in a nearby cornfield. Authorities said Rivera, 24, lived and worked in the area for four to seven years after immigrating from Mexico.
The Iowa State Medical Examiner later confirmed that Mollie died from “multiple sharp force injuries.”
