'Our innocence was taken away': Mollie Tibbetts' hometown comes together to grieve and heal

Courtney Crowder | The Des Moines Register

Show Caption Hide Caption Mollie Tibbetts' hometown reacts: 'Our innocence has been taken away' Hearts are heavy in Brooklyn as news sweeps the small Iowa community that a body believed to be Mollie Tibbetts' has been found.

BROOKLYN, Ia. — Barb Schwiebert had to get out of her house.

Maybe working in her yard would help take her mind off the news that a body had been found in a cornfield southeast of town, she thought.

Maybe by getting in the dirt she could convince herself that whoever was in the field wasn’t Mollie Tibbetts, the 20-year-old University of Iowa student missing for a month.

But in her front yard, Schwiebert was confronted by the red-lettered "MISSING" sign she’d installed as a small gesture of hope in the hometown she loves so deeply.

That woman, Schwiebert said, that beautiful, smiling, young woman, was she — could she — really be gone?

"This is never how we wanted this to end," Schwiebert said, immediately breaking into deep, rolling sobs. "She was so young. This is not how her story was supposed to be written."

Schwiebert’s grief and anxiety mirror the sentiments of many in this rural community who had any hope of their beloved Mollie coming home dashed when authorities said Tuesday that the body found in the cornfield was most likely Tibbetts.

Now, the community that rallied to find her will have to come together again to grieve and, eventually, heal.

The dairy farm employee from Mexico who authorities say was responsible for Tibbetts' death, Cristhian Bahena Rivera, 24, faces a first-degree murder charge. If found guilty, Rivera faces life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Mollie Tibbetts murder suspect arrives in court Cristhian Bahena Rivera arrives at the Poweshiek County Courthouse for his first appearance after being charged with the murder of Mollie Tibbetts.

MORE: Complete coverage of Mollie's disappearance

With gray clouds hanging low in the sky reflecting the town's dark and somber mood, Jackie Robey, 53, said the lives of everyone in Poweshiek County changed "irrevocably" Tuesday.

"Our innocence was taken away," she said.

Working a volunteer shift at the store that sells antiques and trinkets to raise money to maintain the town's display of flags from every state, Robey called the new information "gut-wrenching."

"My innocence has been tainted, certainly," she said. "I work down here and I feel comfortable here and then all of a sudden, in my heart, I start to question people and things that happen and what ifs, and I don’t like that feeling."

As residents spent the last month getting word out about the raven-haired Harry Potter lover, a caution descended upon the town — leading to what some called "the Mollie effect."

Parents kept a closer eye on their children. Families stayed home. And the main thoroughfare became quiet.

“The sense of (safety) being in a little community, I guess that has gone aside,” said Angie Thompson, 48, a family friend and lifelong Brooklyn resident.

Tibbetts’ story commanded widespread attention since she was reported missing after an evening jog near Brooklyn. With internet sleuths offering tips and religious communities sending prayers, Mollie's smile was posted in places as far away as Washington, Brazil and Spain.

As those posters inevitably come down from their resting places on semitrailers, cars and front yards, the community of Brooklyn contends with moving forward. With school starting Thursday, routine will return and with that, Schwiebert hopes, so will some semblance of normalcy.

At some point, Schwiebert knows that she will have to take her sign down, too. But not today, she said, looking down at her gloves as the tears dripped from her cheeks to her shirt.

“Not today.”

A hole in your heart

The main drag through Brooklyn could be the backdrop for a remake of "American Graffiti."

On a drive up the long hill toward the flag display, you pass a quaint grocery store, a service station with decor from the Eisenhower era and The Classic, a deli that’s become the hub of media activity as national news outlets descend to tell the town’s story.

With only 1,500 residents, it’s hard not to know everybody, Schwiebert said, whose family has been living in the white house on top of the hill for three generations.

“We didn’t know her (Tibbetts) personally, but with 30, 40 kids in a class, you know them,” she said. “You cheer for them in their sports and everything.”

At the hardware store across from the town’s main bar, Rusty Clayton said he had a hole in his heart.

“Not only me but this entire community is grieving now,” Clayton said.

When word first leaked that Tibbetts was missing, the town of Brooklyn "busted their butts" to get out and help in whatever way they could, Thompson said.

After work a few days, she lent a hand at the sign store in town, where they were printing posters and T-shirts to be delivered all over America.

"If you’re a mother, if you ever had little kids, you just can’t stop thinking, 'What if this was my child?'" said Thompson, who called Tibbetts a “beautiful soul.”

Family and friends sat on the enclosed porch at the Calderwood home a few hours after the news of Tibbetts' death was released to the public.

Obviously still shaken, Laura Calderwood, Mollie’s mother, declined interviews, but thanked everyone who had sent thoughts and prayers to Mollie and their family.

The family released a statement Wednesday that said their hearts were “broken” and asked for privacy to process the loss.

At the school complex, crisis counselors worked with teachers who were struggling with the news, Superintendent Brad Hohensee said. Those counselors will remain in place for the rest of the week to talk with students.

Hohensee struggled to get words out about the impact Tibbetts had on the entire staff —though his tears said it for him.

After working in the district for 13 years, Hohensee knows Tibbetts' entire family, he said, including her aunt, who is his secretary; her younger brother, who is a student there; and her older brother, who is a coach.

Tibbetts, who was born in San Francisco, moved to Iowa with her siblings when she was in second grade.

“She was always so positive,” Hohensee said. “I would joke around with her. She had this big water bottle and she would step out of class to fill it and I would give her a hard time for ‘skipping class’ for water.”

"She always had her hands full, so she’d be carrying that water bottle in her mouth, almost," he said.

As people coped with Tibbetts’ death, they struggled with what tense to use. The harsh reality is that Mollie is a was now, and that was too much to handle for many in the town, who are now forced to grapple with grief in public.

At the press conference Tuesday, a gaggle of students wearing high school colors stood behind the media.

When approached, one of the kids said, “We’re not taking questions,” a sure sign of a community who courted the media, but now finds itself struggling with the spotlight they helped create.

'Should I lock the door?'

A few miles off the interstate, the site where Mollie’s body was found is two miles up a gravel road and even further into a cornfield.

It’s surrounded on both sides by rolling fields of bright green cornstalks that grow darker and darker as they stretch toward the horizon.

Investigators searched this area, but it took the accused leading them to the body to put an end to the monthlong search.

Officials say Rivera, 24, admitted following and confronting Tibbetts while she jogged July 18, but claims to have blacked out at the time when the actual killing would have occurred.

Drone footage shows the field where officials were lead to Tibbetts body Drone footage shows the field where officials were lead to Tibbetts body by Cristhian Rivera who has been charged with first-degree murder.

The shocking details of the abduction — including that he slung her body over his shoulders and covered her in corn stalks — mixed with the extended worry of the search for Tibbetts, has put the entire town on edge.

Schwiebert saw a gentleman she didn’t know walking by her house earlier this week and her guard went up immediately.

“He's probably just a transient going through, but it’s like I almost wanted to go up to him and say, 'Why are you here? … What are you doing here?'” she said.

For Robey, who volunteers at the flag store downtown, there’s no avoiding the constant updates to the case, each of which adds a new layer of anxiety.

“This morning my husband and I were leaving and I said, "Should I lock the door?'" Robey remembered. “And for one of the first times ever, he said, “Yeah, lock the door.”

Coming together

At the sign shop, the center of so much of the volunteer effort, the now-ubiquitous pins emblazed with “Missing” and Tibbetts’ face were scattered on a table, and bright white shirts overflowed from boxes.

So many of the questions this town searched for have been answered — where and when and partially how. But one important question is left: Why?

“I just keep asking myself why? Why?” Thompson said. “And we’ll never have an answer to that. You can’t have the answer to that.”

At the schools complex where classes start Thursday, there was a back-to-school night Tuesday. Tibbetts didn’t dominate any conversation, but her presence was still felt.

“As a superintendent, I used to think my worst fear was losing a kid," Hohensee said. "But my worst fear now is having a kid abducted because you are left with no answers. When she was missing kids couldn’t make sense of it, but now that we have answers we can try to help them with that.”

As much as locals decree this as a “senseless” act, they are thankful for a semblance of closure. Now, Tibbetts' parents won’t have to spend a year or two years or forever waiting for answers.

But they will have to lean on the bonds they formed throughout the search as they look to the future.

“A situation like this definitely brings us all closer and we do find out who are friends and our neighbors are and what we can do for each other in support,” Robey said.

Hands dipped in fresh dirt, Schwiebert offers an alternative to taking down the MISSING sign in her front yard: Maybe she can replace it.

“You want the family to know that they had a fantastic daughter,” she said. “and you want them to know that we are not going to forget her — ever.”

COURTNEY CROWDER, the Register's Iowa Columnist, traverses the state's 99 counties telling Iowans' stories. You can contact her at (515) 284-8360 or ccrowder@dmreg.com. Follow her on Twitter @courtneycare.

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