Reinaldo Javier Rivera murdered four women in the Augusta, Georgia area in 1999-2000. He was sentenced to death in the Peach State. Rivera, a Spanish immigrant, was born in Madrid on September 13, 1963. His family was middle class and his father worked as a doctor. The Riveras emigrated to the United States when Reinaldo was 7 years old and settled in Puerto Rico. He enlisted in the Navy in 1984 and was stationed in Florida and California. For five years Rivera worked for the Joint Chiefs of Staff in Washington D.C. while also attending University of South Carolina, earning a degree in office administration. He moved around the Carolinas before settling in North Augusta. Rivera married a local woman named Tammy Bonnette in 1993 and they had two children. By the time of the murders, he was working at a tire factory in Aiken.
On July 17, 1999, Melissa Dingess, 17, a resident of Graniteville, South Carolina, disappeared. Local police learned that a girl matching her description was seen twice, accompanied by an older Caucasian male with dark hair. She got into a tan Chevy Celebrity sedan in the first instance and a red Toyota in the second. As it turned out, neither of these individuals were Dingess. On October 13, 2000, her skeletonized remains were found in some woods near Harlem, Georgia after Rivera showed police where they were.On December 4, another 17 year old, Tiffaney Wilson of Jackson, disappeared while shopping at a North Augusta Winn-Dixie with her two month old daughter Kaitlyn. Wilson's car was found in the parking lot. Witnesses reported seeing Wilson getting into an '84 or '85 Ford LTD sedan which quickly took off. On the 7th, Kaitlyn was found by herself inside her mother's car in front of a Georgia welcome center just over the state line. Suspecting a kidnapping, police searched areas along the I-20 and H-25, finding what appeared to be Wilson's clothes. On December 30, some hunters found Wilson's remains in dense woods near Graniteville. Her body was identified from fingerprints. Wilson's hands were tied behind her back and she was raped and killed via a knife thrust to the back.
On June 19, 2000, Tabitha Bosdell, 18 and a resident of Augusta, also went missing. Her relatives said she'd been dropped off at a Huddle House where she was going to apply for a part-time job before going to her main job as a telemarketer. Her skeletonized remains were found on October 16 and identified through dental records. A navel ring and two white socks with a blue logo that were found in the area were also identified as being Bosdell's.On October 10, a few days prior to that, Rivera stopped 18 year old Chrisilee Barton at a stop sign in North Augusta with the claim that he needed directions. Some drivers lined up behind her became annoyed and started beeping their horns, so Rivera proposed they take their conversation to a nearby parking lot instead. There they continued to talk and at length he told Barton he was a professional photographer and asked if she'd like to do some modeling work. However, he was unable to produce any identification to prove he was affiliated with a modeling agency, so Barton told him she didn't believe him. Rivera persisted, so Barton proposed he come with her to her stepfather's apartment. This was a ruse on her part and during the drive she tried to evade him by switching in and out of lanes, but he caught up to her anyway and parked by her apartment.
Rivera's co-worker and sister saw the reports of the attack on the evening news and called police to say they believed he did it. He was eventually tracked down to a South Carolina hotel and attempted to commit suicide by cutting his wrists, but police got to him before he could succeed. Rivera was treated at a hospital for his injuries. He confessed to the attack on Chrisilee Barton as well as the murder of Tabitha Bosdell and a further murder of a 21 year old Army servicewoman named Marni Glista. Rivera also confessed to murdering Tiffaney Wilson and Melissa Dingess.On September 5, a bit over a month earlier, Glista, an Army sergeant, had failed to report for duty when her husband phoned her from Kuwait. Her C/O and another Army officer went to her residence and found her husband's truck in the driveway, the windows rolled down, some grocery bags in the seats. Inside the bags was a cell phone, a wallet with $20 in it, and a store receipt indicating the groceries were purchased at 11:12 AM yesterday. The lights and a ceiling fan were running inside Glista's house, but no one answered the door. The Army officers called police, who got inside and found Glista laying face-up in the bedroom, nude aside from an unfastened bra. She was making gurgling sounds and one finger was twitching. Her neck and wrists had medical tape wrapped around them and the wrists were also bound with tape.
Her wrists had significant abrasions, suggesting she'd struggled to extricate herself from the tape, and she had injuries consistent with a ligature around the neck. Glista's back had indentation marks from the bed rails and she had bruising to the chest, knees, and pelvic area, and many scratches and abrasions everywhere. The ligature strangulation caused brain death from lack of oxygen and her brain swelled until it compressed the brain stem, responsible for controlling essential functions such as breathing. Glista was put on life support and expired three days later. Autopsy confirmed that she had been raped and that the cause of death was complications from ligature strangulation.Rivera confessed that he'd encountered Tabith Bosdell walking to her telemarking job in Augusta. He offered her a ride, she accepted it, and he drove her to a secluded spot where she fought him ferociously, but was finally overpowered, raped, and choked with his arm and her shirt, after which he threw the body in the woods where it was found and dumped her clothes off I-20. Rivera also said that Marni Glista was still alive when he left her house.
He was found guilty of murdering Glista and of the attempted murder of Chrisilee Barton in January 2004--the jury did not convict him of the other murders due to insufficient physical evidence. Rivera said he was "sick" and urged doctors to study his condition so they might find a cure and that he'd do it again if he ever went free. As of 2025, he remains on Georgia's death row awaiting execution.Chrisilee Barton passed away from cancer in November 2025 at the age of 42. Her life after her terrifying encounter with Rivera, which included being a mother of five children, had been a struggle and she was arrested several times over the years, including a drug bust in Aiken in 2011 and driving away from a gas station without paying for gasoline she filled her car with. All of these offenses were misdemeanors and she got probation or served short jail sentences for them.
>>18580940>>18580943two cute girls, the rest were disgusting trailer trash
>>18580938he's not black we're not interested, OP. if he was then you'd have a thread.
>>18580946Poor woman. she probably get cancer and died early because of the physiological stress on her system from the attack which she never recovered from.
>>18580941He followed Barton inside and while she was washing up in the bathroom, he grabbed a kitchen knife, attacked her from behind, and raped her. Rivera strangled her and decided she was probably dead, so he left her body on the floor. He went outside, moved his car down the street, and returned on foot to make sure he left no incriminating evidence in the apartment. To his surprise, Barton had come to. Rivera grabbed a towel and tried to choke her, then got another kitchen knife and stabbed her in the neck, lacerating the jugular vein, and fled. Yet Barton proved far harder to kill than he'd expected. Despite the injuries to her neck, which caused permanent nerve damage, she was able to reach the phone and call 911. Police arrived and found the deadbolt on the door to the apartment locked from the inside, and it looked like Rivera had escaped out a back window.
>>18580972>>18580941this woman was tough and also lucky. if he got her carotid artery instead of the vein she would have bled out.
>>18580946man she was huge. that neck was like a fucking tree trunk.
>>18580967That's the law of averages in the South.
>>18580938This spic married and had kids but I'm gonna die an incel.
