DES MOINES, Iowa — The trial for a man charged with first-degree murder in the July 2018 death of 20-year-old University of Iowa student Mollie Tibbitts has been moved once again. KCCI reports court documents filed Wednesday in Poweshiek County indicate that Cristhian Bahena Rivera’s jury trial will take place May 17 in Scott County. The trial had been scheduled for Jan. 25. According to court documents, the trial delay is in accordance with an order from the Iowa Supreme Court to postpone trials due to the pandemic.

Mollie Tibbetts

A pretrial conference scheduled for Jan. 12 is continued to April 14 and will be held at the Poweshiek County Courthouse. The trial has already been delayed at least three times from the original date in April 2019.

Tibbetts, a psychology student at the University of Iowa, went missing after going for a jog in her hometown of Brooklyn. Investigators say Rivera stalked Tibbetts while she was out for a run in July 2018 in Brooklyn, Iowa, and stabbed her to death. After a massive police and volunteer effort to find Tibbetts, authorities say, Bahena Rivera led them to her body, which was found Aug. 21, 2018, in a cornfield.