Man convicted of murdering Laken Riley, Georgia nursing student, killed during jogging track

The judge has convicted the man on trial for the murder of Laken Rileya nursing student in Georgia whose death in February shook both the college town where she studied and the country.

Jose Ibarra26, was found guilty of murder and other charges in connection with Riley’s death. Ibarra, an undocumented Venezuelan immigrant, entered the United States illegally in 2022, officials said, but was allowed to stay in the country to continue his immigration case. His status helped bring along the national debate on border laws reached a boiling point earlier this year when prominent Republicans, including President-elect Donald Trump, blamed President Biden’s policies for Riley’s death.

The decision by Athens-Clarke County Superior Court Judge H. Patrick Haggard ended a series of hearings that began last week. Ibarra waived his right to a jury trial after pleading not guilty to a 10-count indictment filed against him after Riley’s murder, meaning the case would be heard and decided solely by the judge. He also refused to testify during the trial.

The state had charged Ibarra with one count of malice murder, three counts of murder and one count of kidnapping, aggravated assault, aggravated battery, obstructing an emergency telephone call, tampering with evidence and being a “voyeur.” The latter charge stemmed from prosecutors’ allegation that Ibarra peered through the window of a university apartment building on the day Riley was killed. Prosecutors said he was “hunting for women on the University of Georgia campus” when he encountered Riley.

Although prosecutors in the case did not seek the death penalty, they said in court documents that they planned to push for a life sentence without the possibility of parole.

Riley was found dead on Feb. 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 had gone for a run that morning around the school’s intramural fields, which was routine for her, and a concerned friend called University of Georgia police around noon when Riley didn’t return. She often spoke to her mother on the phone in the morning while she was running, so when Riley’s friends and family didn’t hear from her, they worried something was wrong.

Riley’s mother, Allyson Phillips, called and texted her daughter several times after missing an initial call from Riley just after 9 a.m., according to logs and messages recovered from the student’s phone and shown in court Tuesday, as the state’s case wrapped up. Phillips and other family members continued to contact Riley for hours, but she did not respond.

Phillips cried during Tuesday’s hearing as her text messages were read on the stand by Georgia State Police Sergeant. Sophie Raboud, one of the lead investigators on Riley’s case. In one of her last messages to Riley at 11:47 a.m., her mother wrote, “You make me nervous when I don’t answer when you’re running. Are you okay?’

Riley’s mother, along with family and friends in attendance, became emotional at another point in Raboud’s testimony, where she answered questions about the video played of Riley running the morning of her death.

Ibarra was arrested the next day and booked into the Athens-Clarke County Jail without bond. Police have said Riley’s killing appeared to be a random attack. But the indictment brought by a Georgia grand jury in May described a gruesome confrontation in which Ibarra allegedly choked the student, hit her on the head with a rock to the point of disfiguring her skull, and pulled up her clothing with the intention of raping her.

In court, attorneys for the state also described a disturbing scene. Prosecutor Sheila Ross said Friday that Ibarra violently killed Riley after a lengthy struggle.

“When Laken Riley refused to be his rape victim, he repeatedly struck her skull with a rock,” Ross told the judge. She said evidence — including surveillance footage, traces of Ibarra’s DNA under Riley’s fingernails and his fingerprint left on her phone screen — shows the student “fought for her life, for her dignity, for almost 20 minutes.”

Data from Riley’s watch indicated that she suddenly stopped while running around 9:10 a.m. on the day she died and called 911 about a minute later. The watch showed Riley’s heart was still beating as of 9:28 a.m., Ross said.

Ibarra’s attorney, Dustin Kirby, had argued that the prosecution’s evidence against his client was circumstantial and did not prove his guilt. Ibarra appeared in court with shackles around his ankles and headphones to listen to a translation of the trial into Spanish.

“The evidence in this case is very good that Laken Riley was murdered,” Kirby said. Still, the defense has tried to question the strength of the prosecution’s evidence, saying even the DNA sample may not completely rule out other suspects. For example, Ibarra’s legal team raised questions about whether one of his brothers could have committed the crime. The suspect’s brother, Diego Ibarra, was working in the dining hall at the University of Georgia on the day of the murder.

Testimony for the prosecution continued until Monday, when FBI Special Agent in Charge James Burnie told the court that electronic location data appeared to be place Riley and Ibarra in the same wooded area at the time of her death. GPS coordinates from Riley’s cellphone and smartwatch confirmed her precise location in the area where officers found her body, and pings between Ibarra’s phone and cell towers suggested he was likely in the woods as well, Burnie said.

Prosecutors during that hearing also played in court a recording of a May phone call between Ibarra’s wife, Layling Franco, and Ibarra while he was in jail. During the phone call, Ibarra told Franco that he was looking for work at the University of Georgia, and his wife urged him several times to tell her the truth about what happened to Riley, FBI specialist Abeisis Ramirez said during his testimony. The recording of their conversation was translated from Spanish for the court.

The prison sentence was not admitted as evidence in Ibarra’s trial and could not be taken into account in the case, Judge Haggard announced Tuesday morning.

“After hearing the translations, I conclude that it was more than contextual and therefore violates the confrontation clause of the Sixth Amendment,” the judge said. The clause protects the rights of a person accused of a crime to confront witnesses.

contributed to this report.