Delaware County Daily Times - Jan 19, 2002 Article

FBI agent: Rivera feared not ever seeing Katelyn

Delaware County Daily Times (Primos - Upper Darby, PA) - Saturday, January 19, 2002

Author: MARLENE DiGIACOMO ; mdigiacomo@delcotimes.com

MEDIA COURTHOUSE -- Accused baby killer Robert Rivera told authorities he was motivated to kidnap his daughter on Aug. 10, 1999 out of desperation because he feared he wouldn't be able to see her, and then he said he gave 20-month-old Katelyn Selena Rivera -Helton away to a stranger.

FBI Special Agent Donna Kibbie told the jury that when Rivera was questioned shortly after his arrest, he said that as he put out his arms to give his baby to a lady he met at Longwood Gardens the child cried out.

"‘No daddy.' And he ( Rivera ) said he just closed his eyes and gave her away," said Kibbie.

Also yesterday Assistant District Attorney John F.X. Reilly brought the prosecution's case to a dramatic conclusion as Jennifer Helton identified a picture of her daughter, playfully putting a piece of her tiny clothing over her head.

Shown in the same photograph snapped about 11 days before Katelyn was snatched from Helton's life, is the baby's sneaker, found on a highway and which the prosecution contends links the husky 35-year-old Rivera to his daughter's murder.

"It's a picture of my Katelyn over at my aunt's house," said Helton, as she looked sadly at the photograph. "My cousin was trying to put this sneaker on his big toe," she said as she touched the sequin-studded baby's shoe that is in evidence and forms the crux of the commonwealth's case.

William Lively, a prison snitch, testified earlier that Rivera told him that he suffocated his daughter, buried her body and tossed her clothes on a Delaware Highway. Lively led authorities to the tiny shoe and yellow sock found by Delaware State Police Detective Pamela Martin on Aug. 31, 1999 on a large grassy median of Route 202 near the Delaware-Pennsylvania border.

As the picture and shoe were passed around to jurors several of the women appeared to be wiping tears away.

Helton also said that while Rivera has been in jail he's mailed her between 75 and 100 cards and letters many expressing love. Included in the correspondence is a card in which he expressed birthday wishes for Katelyn that was sent in December 1999 -- four months after the youngster disappeared without a trace.

Also sent was an advertisement for a television show with the words: "No body, no evidence … It's a star's murder mystery."

Rivera , 35, of Upper Chichester, is facing first-degree murder charges and a possible death penalty. Attorney Guy Smith is expected to begin the defense case when the trial resumes Tuesday before Judge Charles C. Keeler.

Also yesterday, officials recounted the arduous searches that took them from a Chadds Ford gas station, where Katelyn was last seen with her father, to Elkton, Md., to New York and to other areas that stretched all the way to Puerto Rico. But they came up without a trace of the child. Her body has not been found.

County detective Lt. David C. Peifer played a tape of a statement taken Nov. 23, 1999 in which he asks Rivera repeatedly about Katelyn . In the tape Rivera evades the question, sometimes offering excuses that Helton is an "unfit" mother or that he was abused as a child.

At one point Peifer states, "Let's do this for Katelyn . It's coming up on her birthday."

The tape is punctuated by crying and long pauses from Rivera and then he is heard asking Peifer to turn the tape off.

Peifer testified after the tape machine was shut, he continued to press Rivera .

"I asked him, ‘Tell me where Katelyn is?' He ( Rivera ) started crying, sobbing. His head was down. He said, ‘If I tell you where Katelyn is, I'll spend the rest of my life in jail.'"

Peifer also said that at another point he told Rivera that when he is charged with murder it might affect his status on the prison block. "He ( Rivera ) blurted out, ‘No it wouldn't. There are other murderers on our block.'"

Helton also testified that she attempted on several occasions to plead with Rivera to tell her where her daughter is, but he wouldn't tell her anything about the baby's whereabouts.

Kibbie testified that shortly after Katelyn was reported missing, her picture and other information was funneled out of 55 FBI field offices nationwide and they came up without a trace.

Two other FBI agents testified they traveled to see Rivera 's mother in New York and his father and other relatives in Puerto Rico with no luck regarding Katelyn .

Charles Pickett, senior case manager for the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children said flyers and posters were disseminated around the country as well as in Canada and Puerto Rico. He said the information included distributions in newspapers, television, at airports. He said the flyers were also sent out to 1,960 homes that had fax machines in the year after her disappearance.

He said there were mailings and that Katelyn 's picture and other information was also included in IRS information on 38 million documents and also printed in the instructional booklet that went out to every U.S. taxpayer in 2000.

He said despite all that, they received eight leads from people who thought they saw the child. Peifer said they followed each one and came up empty.

Lee Wary, who headed the Delaware Valley Regional Search and rescue operations, testified everything from helicopters to cadaver sniffing dogs were utilized during the 29 months since she disappeared. He said there were 39 searches from Aug. 12, 1999 through Jan. 2, 2002 covering 1,644 acres in several states and involving 5,000 man-hours.

"Were you successful in locating Katelyn ?" he was asked.

"No," replied Wray.