The illegal alien accused of murdering 20-year-old Mollie Tibbetts last year confessed to the murder due to “sleep deprivation,” according to a witness brought by the defendant’s legal team.

In August 2018, Cristhian Bahena Rivera, a 25-year-old illegal alien from Mexico, was charged with Mollie Tibbetts’ murder after police said he admitted to confronting and chasing down the young woman.

Following a nationwide search, Tibbetts’ body was found in a cornfield in Poweshiek County, Iowa. The illegal alien lived in a region of Iowa that was surrounded by sanctuary cities, as Breitbart News noted, and worked on a dairy farm using a stolen ID and Social Security card after allegedly crossing the U.S.-Mexico border as a child.

Last week, an interrogation expert for the defense took the stand to claim that Bahena Rivera’s confession to murdering Tibbetts was due to “sleep deprivation.”

“Based on the sleep deprivation aspect and the amount of various techniques that were used, I would in my opinion not take a lot of what was said as credible,” Brian Leslie told the court of the murder confession.

The claim comes as Bahena Rivera’s attorneys have worked tirelessly to ensure that their client’s murder confession is thrown out before the trial begins next year. His attorneys have said that Bahena Rivera’s “constitutional rights” were violated when police questioned him.

Already, Bahena Rivera has successfully gotten the murder trial against him moved to February 2020. The defense said they needed more time to gather expert witnesses and time to convince Judge Joel Yates to bar the murder confession from being used as evidence in the trial.

According to prosecutors, Bahena Rivera was the last person who saw Tibbetts jogging on the evening of July 18 in Brooklyn, Iowa. That is the night Tibbetts went missing.

Bahena Rivera, according to police, said Tibbetts was jogging when he saw her. That is when he said he approached Tibbetts and started talking to her. After Tibbetts told Bahena Rivera that she would call the police if he did not stop following her, the illegal alien allegedly chased her and says he “blacked out” after this.

Police believe Bahena Rivera stabbed Tibbetts to death, then drove to a cornfield where prosecutors say he placed cornstalks over her to hide her body. The illegal alien has been held on a $5 million bond.

John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder.