Prosecutor says man accused of murdering Georgia nursing student Laken Riley “went looking for women.”

A Venezuelan man “went onto the University of Georgia campus looking for women” earlier this year and killed nursing student Laken Riley after a struggle, a prosecutor said Friday. However, the man's lawyer said the evidence was circumstantial and did not prove his client was guilty.

Jose Ibarra, who entered the United States illegallyHe is charged with murder in February, which helped fuel the immigration debate during this year's presidential campaign. Ibarra waived his right to a jury trial, meaning his case is being heard and decided by Athens-Clarke County Superior Court Judge H. Patrick Haggard.

Prosecutor Sheila Ross told the judge that Ibarra encountered Riley on Feb. 22 while she was running on the University of Georgia campus in Athens. Riley, 22, was a student at Augusta University College of Nursing, which also has a campus in the city, about 70 miles east of Atlanta.

“When Laken Riley refused to become his rape victim, He crushed her skull repeatedly with a rock,” Ross said, adding that the evidence would show that Riley “fought for his life, for his dignity.”

As a result of that fight, Ross said, Ibarra's DNA was left under his fingernails. Riley called 911, and the struggle over her phone left Ibarra's thumbprint on the screen, she said.

The prosecutor said the forensic evidence was enough to prove Ibarra's guilt, but digital and video evidence also proved Ibarra killed Riley.

Defense attorney Dustin Kirby described the evidence in the case as graphic and disturbing, but he said none of it proves that his client murdered Riley.

“The evidence in this case is overwhelming that Laken Riley was murdered,” he said. “The evidence that Jose Ibarra killed Laken Riley is circumstantial.”

The killing further fueled the national debate over immigration after federal officials said Ibarra had entered the U.S. illegally in 2022 and was allowed to stay to pursue his immigration case.

Republicans, including President-elect Donald Trump, blamed the Democrats. President Joe Biden's border policies For his death. Biden mentioned Riley by name when he talked about border security during his State of the Union address a few weeks after the killing.

Riley's mother, Alison Phillips, and other family members packed the courtroom Friday morning, but did not return until after lunch. Phillips put her face in her hands and cried repeatedly, especially when shown photos of her daughter and when describing what happened to her.

Dressed in a plaid shirt and dark slacks and with shackles on his feet, Ibarra was wearing headphones to listen to a Spanish-language interpreter. He appeared alert, sometimes looking up when shown photos or videos and sometimes looking down at his lap.

During his opening statement, Ross created a timeline, using data from Riley's phone and watch, along with doorbell and surveillance camera footage, to piece together her final moments.

Riley left the house at 9:03 a.m. and headed to the wooded trails where she often runs. Data from her watch shows that at 9:10 a.m., she was running at a fast pace, when something happened that “stopped her dead in her tracks.” She called 911 at 9:11 a.m.

The 911 dispatcher answered but when she repeatedly asked for a response no one answered, and then the caller ended the call. The dispatcher immediately called back, but no one answered.

“Her encounter with him was long. Her fight with him was fierce,” Ross said, noting that Riley's watch data showed that her heart was still beating at 9:28 a.m.

Ross also played security camera video that shows a man whom he said was Ibarra in the parking lot of his apartment complex at 9:44 a.m. The man was seen throwing something into a recycling bin and then throwing something into nearby bushes. In the recycling bin, officers found a dark-colored hooded jacket stained with blood that turned out to be Riley's and long black hair stuck to a button. In the bushes they found black disposable kitchen gloves, one of which had a hole in the tip of the thumb.

Another video taken about 35 minutes later shows the same man dressed in different clothes walking towards a dustbin with a bag and then returning empty handed. The bin was emptied before the police could search it.

One of Riley's three roommates testified that she became concerned when Riley did not return from the race. The four friends used a phone app to track each other's whereabouts, and Lily Steiner testified that she became more concerned when she noticed that on Riley's phone she was in the same location for long periods of time. Was visible.

Riley often talked to her mother on the phone while she ran, and her mother also became concerned that morning when her daughter did not answer her calls.

Steiner and another roommate, Sophia Magana, drove to where the phone app indicated the relay was located. On the way, they found one of Riley's earbuds and returned to the house to call the police.

One of the responding officers found Riley's body Partially covered with leaves, 64 feet from the path. Although her shirt was pulled up and her underwear was visible above the lower waistband of her tights, Ross said there was no evidence that Riley was sexually assaulted.

Police arrested Ibarra the day after the murder.

Before Ross played the video from the body camera of the officer who found Riley, he warned Riley's family that his body would be shown. Riley's mother left the courtroom, but other family members and friends remained, some of them crying or covering their faces during the video.

Ibarra was charged with one count of malicious murder, three counts of felony murder and one count each of kidnapping, aggravated assault, aggravated battery, interfering with an emergency telephone call, tampering with evidence and being a peeping tom. Has been done

Prosecutors say that on the day of Riley's murder, Ibarra peered through an apartment window in a university residential building, which is the basis for the peeping tom charge.