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Dateline NBC

Talking Dateline: The Last Mile

Dateline NBC

NBC News

True Crime, Culture, Social, Society & Culture, News

4.438K Ratings

🗓️ 4 June 2025

⏱️ 22 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Andrea Canning talks with Josh Mankiewicz about his episode, “The Last Mile,” which covers the 2018 murder of Mollie Tibbetts in her hometown of Brooklyn, Iowa. The 20-year-old college student disappeared while out for a run, sparking a massive search. Weeks later, Mollie’s body was found in a cornfield. Cristhian Bahena Rivera, a local farmworker, was charged with her murder. Andrea and Josh discuss the investigation that led to Rivera’s arrest and the questions raised during his trial. Josh also shares a podcast-exclusive clip from his interview with Mollie’s cousin, Morgan Collum, about their childhood. Have a question for Talking Dateline? DM us on social @DatelineNBC or leave a voicemail at (212) 413-5252 — your question might be featured in a future episode. Listen to the full episode ‘The Last Mile’ on Apple: https://apple.co/4mBG7xI Listen to the full episode on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/0KKmktbudrxxptlROyPjII?si=oISZG1qMR-iBQKyc0QoBeQ

Transcript

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0:00.0

Hi, I'm Andrea Canning and this is Talking Dateline.

0:04.0

I'm joined by Josh Mankowitz and today's episode is called The Last Mile.

0:09.0

It's about the story of Molly Tibbets, a 20-year-old college student who vanished after going out for a jog on a warm summer evening in Brooklyn, Iowa.

0:17.0

What started as a small town search quickly became a massive investigation, with volunteers

0:22.9

combing cornfields, analysts digging into phone and Fitbit data, and a single blurry video

0:29.0

of a black car that cracked the case wide open leading to an arrest.

0:34.4

If you haven't listened to the full episode yet, it's the one posted yesterday.

0:37.9

There's also a link in the description to this episode.

0:40.9

Or you can watch it on Peacock.

0:42.8

So go there and do that.

0:44.1

And when you come back, Josh has an extra clip from his interview with Molly's cousin, Morgan Column, who shares one of her very first memories of Molly.

0:52.2

Later, we'll answer some of your questions from social media.

0:55.4

All right, let's talk Dateline.

0:57.3

Hi, Andrea.

0:58.2

Hey, so Josh, the first thing that really jumped out at me from this story was just how safe

1:05.7

this area seemed.

1:07.5

I mean, this is the heartland.

1:08.9

This is country.

1:10.0

This is the blacktop and the cornfields. You know, I mean, this is the heartland. This is country. This is the blacktop and the cornfields.

1:13.1

You know, I mean, this is small town America where everybody knows everybody else. Maybe not

1:18.1

everybody else, but you know a lot of your neighbors when people drive by you and things

1:22.1

like that. This is sort of the quintessential small town where neighbors look out for each other and people don't

...

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