Delaware County Daily Times - Jan 25, 2002 Article #1

Rivera can carry burden of his secret to jail - Editorial

Delaware County Daily Times (Primos - Upper Darby, PA) - Friday, January 25, 2002

We have now heard from Robert Rivera . And we have heard from the jury mulling his fate.

The jury took a little more than four hours to reject his explanation that he's not a killer.

Following the verdict, we heard the voices of the prosecutor, district attorney and the victim's mother, all of whom said they were satisifed with the verdict of second-degree murder.

But there is one voice we have yet to hear. In fact, no one will ever hear that voice again.

Tiny Katelyn Rivera -Helton was 20 months old when Rivera snatched her from the home of her day-care provider in August 1999. She was last seen alive later that day. Now there remains one nagging, gnawing question to be answered in this heart-wrenching murder mystery: Where is Katelyn 's body? It's a question only Robert Rivera can answer. So far, despite several explanations he has admitted were lies, it remains his secret. Against his lawyer's advice, the Upper Chichester man took the stand earlier this week. Any hope that Rivera would shed light on his daughter's whereabouts vanished as quickly as some of his explanations for what happened to the tot. Rivera had no intention of providing the answers that have dogged investigators and family members for more than two years. No, Rivera had his own agenda. He wanted people to know he was not the monster police and prosecutors made him out to be. He wanted to complain about Katelyn 's mother, Jennifer Helton. And he wanted to state that he did not murder his daughter. So what happened to her? Rivera has no shortage of explanations. Unfortunately, by his own admission, most of them are lies. Let's see, first there was the story of giving little Katelyn away to a couple at Longwood Gardens. Nope, Rivera admitted he made that one up. Then there's the saga he told police of having given her to a woman he knew who had lost a baby. Also a lie, according to Rivera 's own testimony. And the words he told the girl's mother, that he "was going to hell and Katelyn was going to heaven?" Just words. His statement to Daily Times reporter Rose Quinn during a jailhouse interview that "only me and God know where Katelyn is?" He meant only that God is everywhere and knows everything. The statement to a county detective that if he admitted where Katelyn was "he would spend the rest of his life in jail?" He didn't mean it that way. But that's what he got. While the jury spared him his life, it wasted little time in convicting him of second-degree murder. It carries a mandatory sentence of life without parole. And what of Katelyn ? As part of his Longwood Gardens canard, Rivera testified that his little girl looked at him and cried, "No, daddy." Assistant District Attorney John F.X. Reilly hammered away at this point during his closing arguments. He told the jury that while most of Rivera 's story was a pack of lies, that one quote rang true. Quite likely, that plea of "No, daddy," were the last words she uttered before Rivera snuffed out her life. A former cellmate testified during the trial that Rivera admitted he suffocated the child, tossed her clothes on the highway and buried her "in a round hole filled with sticks, rocks and dirt." For more than two years, it has been the single pressing question that's remained unanswered in this tragic case. "Where's Katelyn ?" As has been the case since Aug. 10, 1999, only one person can answer that question. And Robert Rivera isn't saying. He has a lifetime to change his mind.