Twitter/Mollie Tibbetts Rob Tibbetts, Mollie Tibbetts' dad.
Rob Tibbetts, the father of missing Iowa college student Mollie Tibbetts, has confirmed to Fox News that the body found Tuesday morning in Iowa was that of his daughter Mollie, who vanished on July 18.
As of last week, investigators had narrowed their focus to areas near where the woman disappeared. However, further information about the location was not yet revealed. Mollie’s body was found on August 21, 2018, reports said.
Rob Tibbetts remained in the East Bay when his marriage ended a decade ago, but has spent weeks in the Brooklyn, Iowa, area holding news conferences and passing out posters with Mollie’s picture on it. He had last spent time with her at his June wedding near Yosemite, where they hiked the falls and Mollie told him that he was her best friend, according to Mercury News.
Mollie’s father had tried to remain positive during the investigation and didn’t want to give up hope that they would find Mollie alive. Unfortunately, the month-long search was brought to a sad end, after her body was discovered Tuesday.
Here’s what you need to know:
Mollie Went Missing On July 18 While Dog Sitting For Her Boyfriend’s Brother & The News of Her Disappearance Made National Headlines
A missing poster for Mollie Tibbetts.
Tibbetts went missing on July 18 from Brooklyn, Iowa, while dog sitting at her boyfriend’s brother’s house. She was last seen jogging around 7:30 p.m. The circumstances surrounding her disappearance are not clear; while Tibbetts was not seen after the run, she did talk to her mother and her boyfriend in the hours after it. Police do not know when she vanished, or if she went for a pre-work run in the morning on July 19.
Tibbetts’ family reported her missing on Thursday, July 19, after she didn’t show up for work and stopped responding to calls and messages. Her phone was going straight to voicemail, he family said. Tibbetts works as a day camp intern at Grinnell Regional Medical Center, according to her Facebook page. While her family originally thought she went missing Wednesday night, they now think she might have disappeared Thursday.
Her boyfriend Dalton Jack also suspected an issue Thursday morning. “I was the one who threw red flags,” Jack told KCRG-TV. “She hadn’t called in. I looked at my phone and noticed I texted her good morning that morning and she hadn’t looked at it so I got ahold of her friends and family.”
Rob Tibbetts Believed Mollie Was Alive & With Someone She Knows & Urged Her to Come Home
Rob Tibbetts, Mollie’s father.
Tibbetts father, Rob, tried to remain stayed optimistic during the search, and had told Fox News earlier this month that he believed his daughter was alive and with someone she knew, but that she didn’t know “how to resolve this” so they hadn’t come forward.
“It’s total speculation on my part, but I think Mollie is with someone that she knows, that is in over their head,” he said. “That there was some kind of misunderstanding about the nature of their relationship and at this point, they don’t know how to get out from under this.”
He urged whoever might be with his daughter to “just simply call the authorities and put an end to this.”
“Let Mollie come home and hold yourself accountable for what you’ve done so far, but don’t escalate this to a point where you can’t recover yourself,” he said.
Rob Tibbetts & His Daughter Were Very Close & She Was The ‘Best Man’ at His Wedding
Rob Tibbetts recently remarried, and Mollie was bestowed the honor of standing by his side as his “best man,” at the wedding, which occurred June 3, 2018 in California. The two were very close, as evident by posts on Mollie’s Twitter account and screenshots of text conversations the two shared.
Mollie Tibbetts posted a screenshot of their texts on Twitter, in which Rob Tibbetts told his daughter, “You are amazing. I just can’t believe the person you are becoming. Keep it up.” Mollie responded, “I’ll do my best” and captioned the February 2017 tweet, “My dad will always be my #1.”
On July 30, 2018, Robert Tibbetts told the San Jose Mercury News that he had talked to Mollie for three hours about three weeks before that date. Robert Tibbetts lives in Fresno, California and is a member of the board of directors for the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce.