Authorities investigated a possible sighting of the Iowa college student who vanished two weeks ago — but the tip was unsubstantiated, according to a report.
Officers in Kearney, Missouri, received a tip that a woman matching the description of 20-year-old Mollie Tibbetts had been seen at a truck stop in their city on July 26, local station KMBC 9 reported.
The University of Iowa student was last seen jogging through her 1,400-person town of Brooklyn, Iowa, on July 18 and was reported missing the next day when she didn’t show up for her job at a daycare.
Officers hoping to find the girl or any clues into her disappearance searched the Pilot Truck Stop area — at Missouri 92 and Interstate 95, over 200 miles away from her town.
They spoke with “all possible witnesses” and “reviewed all available video footage,” Sgt. Joe Kantola said. They also sent a report to the investigating task force in Iowa, which includes federal and state officials.
But the search turned out to be a bust.
If Tibbetts had been spotted in the surveillance video, he would have mentioned it, Kantola said.
Additionally, only one person at the truck stop claimed to have seen the woman resembling Tibbetts, a short, athletic brunette.
“We couldn’t find anything to substantiate the sighting,” Assistant Chief of Police Barney Hatfield told Radar Online.




