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OAKLAND — On the first day of school Tuesday at Corpus Christi Elementary, where Mollie Tibbetts was a student years ago, Principal Katie Murphy gathered the children in an assembly and shared the devastating news.
“We got bad news this morning that Mollie will not be coming home,” Murphy told them. “Mollie was kind and sweet and nice to everybody. Let’s try to be like Mollie. As we celebrate our first day, let’s celebrate her life and be like her today.”
They knew Mollie Tibbetts long before her tragic disappearance made international headlines, long before her mother had moved with her children to Iowa 11 years ago. For the family that had been active volunteers in the Oakland school and the parish, their old friends here donated to fundraising efforts, prayed at daily Masses and kept in touch with Mollie’s parents as the search went on.
They had held a vigil last week, lighting candles at the baptismal font and hoping for her safe return. But by Tuesday morning, authorities in Iowa had discovered the body of the missing 20-year-old University of Iowa student. By Tuesday afternoon, Iowa officials announced the sobering news that a 24-year-old undocumented immigrant had been arrested on suspicion of first-degree murder and that he had led them to her body in a corn field on the edge of Brooklyn, Iowa, a town of 1,500.
It was all too much to bear for the devoted friends of the Tibbetts family in Oakland, who feared that Mollie’s death would become a political issue, much like that of 32-year-old Kate Steinle in San Francisco. She was killed by an illegal immigrant whose bullet ricocheted and killed her on Pier 14, a month after Donald Trump announced his presidential candidacy.
“My reaction is that it’s not about an illegal immigrant,” said Kathleen Heafey Boyle, whose son was a classmate of Mollie’s at Corpus Christi school before the Tibbetts moved to Iowa. “It’s about the loss of a young woman. I don’t want it to be about that guy. It’s not right.”
To the family’s old friends at Corpus Christi Catholic Church, there were more important reasons why her story had grown much bigger than Iowa and Oakland.
“Of course we knew her,” Heafey Boyle said, “but if you didn’t know her, it’s like everyone had a Mollie, whether it’s a son, a daughter or a friend.”
As horrible as the news is that Mollie was killed, “at least her family is now allowed to grieve because I think they were just really being strong before and really positive. At least they can let go of that part of the pain.”
The July 18 disappearance of the young woman with the long dark hair and big smile had captured international attention and prompted massive searches through the cornfields and drainage ditches of the American heartland.
Mollie’s father, Rob Tibbetts, a marketing executive at a San Francisco architectural firm, remained in the East Bay when Mollie’s parents’ 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 them. 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.
It was too difficult for him to speak about the discovery on Tuesday, and other close friends from the East Bay were crushed.
Murphy, the school principal, said she was sending an email to the school community about the tragic news — a follow-up to one she sent a month ago asking for prayers. A steady stream of parents and former teachers who knew the family dropped by Tuesday.
“It’s just reminding us once again that we’re family,” Murphy said, “and while they can’t go to Iowa, they can come here and the doors are open to them.”
Mollie had last texted her mother, Laura Calderwood, at 7:30 p.m. July 18, that she was going for a run. She was never heard from again. Mollie had been staying at the house of her boyfriend, who was out of town on a job, and authorities wouldn’t say whether they believed she had been abducted during the run or at the house later. There were no signs of foul play at the house, and the boyfriend is not a suspect. Her Fitbit she wore on her wrist during runs and her cell phone were missing.
Authorities and search teams scoured the town of Brooklyn and focused much attention on a a nearby pig farm and a car wash. A body believed to be hers was found in Brooklyn’s Poweshiek County. Authorities wouldn’t say where.
At Corpus Christi, Murphy said they are discussing what kind of memorial or prayer service they might have in Mollie’s honor.
“What do you do?” Murphy asked. “We’re trying to figure out what to do.”