The father of Mollie Tibbetts, the American student whose body was found last month, has condemned those seeking to appropriate her death to promote a political agenda, after Donald Trump Jr wrote an incendiary article blaming the Democrats for her death.
“Do not appropriate Mollie’s soul in advancing views she believed were profoundly racist,” Rob Tibbetts declared in an article for the Des Moines Register. “The act grievously extends the crime that stole Mollie from our family and is, to quote Donald Trump Jr., ‘heartless’ and ‘despicable'.”
Mollie Tibbetts, 20, had been missing for more than a month after she went for a jog in Brooklyn, Iowa, when her body was found in a cornfield and an undocumented Mexican migrant then charged with her murder.
Immediately after the details of her death were released, US president Donald Trump posted a video on Twitter pointedly referring to Ms Tibbetts' "permanent separation" from her family in apparent reference to his since modified policy of separating migrant children from their families at the US border.
In the address he called for wide-ranging changes to American immigration policy after authorities announced that the man accused of abducting and killing the 20-year old is an undocumented migrant from Mexico who was later named as Cristhian Rivera, a dairy farmworker.
Mr Trump has reportedly not contacted the Tibbetts family to offer his condolences, despite widespread criticism, and on Friday his son blamed the left’s “ideological commitment to open borders” for her death.
It led Mr Tibbetts to state Mollie is not a “pawn in others’ debate and that “the person who is accused of taking Mollie’s life is no more a reflection of the Hispanic community as white supremacists are of all white people. To suggest otherwise is a lie.
To the Hispanic community, he said, “My family stands with you and offers its heartfelt apology. That you’ve been beset by the circumstances of Mollie’s death is wrong.
"We treasure the contribution you bring to the American tapestry in all its color and melody,” he added.
Her father said that he was compelled to write the column after he read what Mr Trump Jr had written.
The executive vice president at The Trump Organization claimed that the Democrats were “more concerned with protecting their radical open-borders agenda than the lives of innocent Americans” and that liberal commentators “jump at the opportunity to exploit any tragedy involving guns to call for the end of the Second Amendment”.
It prompted Mr Tibbetts to say that to “knowingly foment discord among races is a disgrace to our flag. It ... lends legitimacy to the darkest, most hate-filled corners of the American soul. It is the opposite of leadership. It is the opposite of humanity. It is heartless. It is despicable. It is shameful.”
The Road to Power, a white supremacist neo-Nazi group based in Idaho, called the Tibbetts family in an automated 'robocall' which called the Tibbetts traitors to their race and claimed if Mollie could be brought back to life, she would say of immigrants, “Kill them all.”
“It was unbelievably painful,” Tibbetts told Des Moines, adding that his wife, Kacey Auston-Tibbetts, became physically ill when she heard the call. “It was everything that’s dark and wrong in America right now.”
