On a July evening in 2018, 20-year-old college student Mollie Tibbetts laced up her running shoes and went for a jog through her small Iowa hometown. She never came home.
What began as a missing person case quickly grew into a national search-hundreds of volunteers, drones over cornfields, and the unrelenting hope of a family that refused to give up. Then, weeks later, an arrest and a confession changed everything.
The Vanished Jogger is a deeply researched, human-centered account of the disappearance that gripped America. Linda Davidson traces the investigation from its first frantic hours to the courtroom where one man stood accused and a community wrestled with grief, anger, and identity. Through meticulous documentation and compassionate storytelling, this book reveals not only what happened to Mollie Tibbetts-but what her story exposed about justice, immigration, and the way tragedy reshapes ordinary lives.
Both haunting and humane, The Vanished Jogger honors the person behind the headlines and examines how a single summer night in rural Iowa rippled far beyond one town's borders.
Inside you'll find:
A verified, evidence-based timeline of the case
Courtroom insights from the trial of Cristhian Bahena Rivera
The emotional journey of the Tibbetts family and the community that rallied around them
Reflections on media ethics, bias, and the intersection of crime and politics
For readers of I'll Be Gone in the Dark and American Tragedy, this is not just the story of a crime-it's the portrait of a young woman whose light continues to lead the way home.