A judge has found the person guilty at trial The murder of Laken RileyA nursing student in Georgia who died in February rocked the college town Where he studied, as well as the country.
Jose IbarraThe 26-year-old was found guilty of murder and other charges related to Riley's death. Authorities said Ibarra, an undocumented Venezuelan immigrant, entered the United States illegally in 2022, but was allowed to remain in the country to pursue his immigration case. His position helped bring about National debate on border laws The issue came to a head earlier this year, when leading Republicans, including President-elect Donald Trump, blamed President Biden's policies for Riley's death.
Eliza Nouvelez/AFP via Getty Images
The decision by Athens-Clarke County Superior Court Judge H. Patrick Haggard concludes a trial that began last week. After pleading not guilty to a 10-count indictment brought against him in the wake of Riley's murder, Ibarra waived his right to a jury trial, which meant the case would be heard and decided only by a judge. He also refused to testify during the trial.
The state charged Ibarra 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.” . That last charge stemmed from prosecutors' allegation that Ibarra had peered into an apartment window in a university residential building on the day Riley was murdered. Prosecutors said he was “looking for women on the campus of the University of Georgia” when he encountered Riley.
Although prosecutors did not seek the death penalty in the case, they said in court documents that they intended to push for a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Riley was found dead on February 22 in a wooded part of the University of Georgia campus in Athens, where she was enrolled in the Augusta University College of Nursing. The 22-year-old girl had gone for a run on the school grounds that morning, which was routine for her, and when Riley did not return a concerned friend called University of Georgia police around noon. She would often talk to her mother on the phone during her morning runs, so when Riley's friends and family didn't hear from her, they worried something was wrong.
Riley's mother, Alison Phillips, Called and messaged my daughter several times The state's case collapsed after the initial call to Riley disappeared after 9 a.m., according to logs and messages extracted from the student's phone and shown in court Tuesday. Phillips and other family members continued contacting Riley for several hours when she did not respond.
Phillips cried at Tuesday's hearing as her text messages were read aloud on the stand by Georgia police Sgt. Sophie Rabaud, one of the lead investigators in Riley's case. In one of her final messages to Riley at 11:47 a.m., her mother wrote, “You're annoying me by not responding when you're running. Are you okay?”
Riley's mother, along with family and friends present, became emotional at a different point in Rabaud's testimony, where she answered questions about the video being played on the morning of Riley's death.
Miguel Martínez-Jimenez/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP
Ibarra was arrested the next day and booked into the Athens-Clarke County Jail without bond. Police have said that Riley's murder appears to be a random attack. But Indictment returned by Georgia grand jury A horrific confrontation in May was described in which Ibarra allegedly strangled the student, hit her on the head with a stone so hard that her skull was fractured and pulled down her clothes with the intention of raping her.
In court, state lawyers also described a disturbing scene. Prosecutor Sheila Ross said Friday that Ibarra violently killed Riley after a lengthy struggle.
“When Laken Riley refused to submit to his rape, he repeatedly crushed her skull with a rock,” Ross told the judge. He said the evidence – including surveillance footage, traces of Ibarra's DNA under Riley's fingernails and his thumbprint left on her phone screen – would show that the student fought for about 20 minutes “for her life, for her dignity.” “Fought for”.
Data from Riley's watch indicate that on the day she died, she stopped suddenly in the middle of a race at about 9:10 a.m. and called 911 about a minute later. The watch showed that Riley's heart was beating at 9:28 a.m., Ross said.
Ibarra's defense attorney Dustin Kirby had argued that the prosecution's evidence against his client was circumstantial and did not prove his guilt. Ibarra has appeared in court with shackles around his ankles and headphones to follow the translation of the trial proceedings into Spanish.
Miguel Martínez/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP, Pool
“The evidence in this case is overwhelming that Laken Riley was murdered,” Kirby said. Nevertheless, the defense has tried to challenge the strength of the prosecution's evidence, saying that even the DNA sample could not completely rule out other suspects. For example, Ibarra's legal team raised questions about whether either of his brothers might have committed the crime. Diego Ibarra, the defendant's brother, worked a shift at the University of Georgia dining hall on the day of the murder.
Testimony from prosecution witnesses continued Monday, when FBI Special Agent James Burney told the court that electronic location data appeared to Place Riley and Ibarra in the same wooded area At the time of his death. GPS coordinates from Riley's cellphone and smartwatch confirmed his exact location in the area where authorities found his body, Burney said, and pings between Ibarra's phone and cell towers showed he was also in the woods.
During that hearing, prosecutors also played in court a recording of a phone call between Ibarra's wife, Leling Franco, and Ibarra in May, while he was in jail. On the call, Ibarra told Franco that he was looking for work at the University of Georgia, and that his wife urged him several times to tell her the truth about what happened to Riley, FBI specialist Abysis Ramirez said in her testimony. Said during. The recording of their conversation was translated from Spanish for the court.
Judge Haggard announced Tuesday morning that the jail call was not admissible as evidence in Ibarra's trial and could not be considered in the case.
The judge said, “After hearing the translation I find that it was more than relevant, and therefore violates the Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment.” This section protects the rights of a person accused of an offense to confront witnesses.
Contributed to this report.