Evidence in trial of man accused of killing Laken Riley will show the Georgia student ‘fought for her life,’ prosecutors say

By Rebekah Riess, Devon M. Sayers, Holly Yan, Nick Valencia, Amanda Musa and Emma Tucker, CNN

Athens, Georgia (CNN) — Loud sobs echoed about the courtroom Friday where an undocumented migrant is on trial accused of murdering college student Laken Riley earlier this year.

Members of the gallery passed tissues between rows and covered their faces as prosecutors presented graphic body camera video, showing the moment a police officer found Riley’s body on February 22.

Jose Antonio Ibarra, the 26-year-old undocumented migrant charged with killing Riley, “went hunting for females on the University of Georgia’s campus,” before encountering his victim, according to prosecutors.

Ibarra’s trial began nine months after the nursing student was killed while jogging at the University of Georgia in a case that developed into a lightning rod over crime and illegal immigration.

Riley, a 22-year-old nursing student at Augusta University’s Athens campus, went for a morning jog in a wooded area of the UGA campus. Ibarra struck Riley in the head with a rock multiple times and asphyxiated her, according to his indictment.

Superior Court Judge H. Patrick Haggard will decide the fate of Ibarra, who is charged with murder and aggravated assault with intent to rape in connection with Riley’s death. Ibarra waived his right to a jury trial during a court hearing this week.

Sgt. Kenneth Maxwell could be heard gasping in the video footage as he found Riley and began performing CPR on her lifeless body.

Maxwell testified Riley’s shirt was pulled up when he found her and she was at least 50 feet away from the trail authorities say she was jogging on.

“It did not look as if something had unintentionally happened,” Maxwell said. “It looked more intentional, as if somebody had attempted to either remove her top, or maybe had used it to drag her.”

“The evidence will show that Laken fought. She fought for her life. She fought for her dignity. And in that fight, she caused this defendant (Ibarra) to leave forensic evidence behind,” said prosecutor Sheila Ross during opening statements.

Data from the smartwatch Riley was wearing will show that her encounter with Ibarra “was long,” and “fierce,” said Ross. Riley placed a 911 call at 9:11 a.m. and her heart stopped at 9:28 a.m., with no more movement from her watch, the prosecutor said.

Additional forensic, digital and video evidence will be presented during the trial, Ross said, including Ibarra’s DNA which the state says was found under one of Riley’s fingernails and his thumbprint on Riley’s cell phone.

“In a struggle with (Riley) over her phone,” Ross said, Ibarra “left behind his left thumbprint on her iPhone, which was found not far from her body at the crime scene.”

The same day Riley was killed, Ross said police found three black, disposable kitchen gloves in the bushes near Ibarra’s home, one of which had blood on it. The gloves were sent to a state crime lab where it was later determined the blood belonged to Riley, Ross said.

During opening statements, the prosecutor noted the disposable glove found to have Riley’s blood on it also had a hole where the thumb would be. Riley’s DNA was also found on a jacket police recovered from a nearby dumpster, the prosecutor said.

“The jacket found in the dumpster has blood on it and in the blood, for traditional DNA, is Laken Riley’s DNA and this defendant’s DNA, and only the two of them,” Ross said.

Meanwhile, defense attorney Dustin Kirby said any evidence that shows Ibarra killed Riley is circumstantial.

Video prosecutors say shows Ibarra disposing evidence in a dumpster about 15 minutes after Riley is believed to have died was also played in court during opening statements.

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

If “the presumption of innocence is respected, there should not be enough evidence to convince (the judge) beyond a reasonable doubt, that Mr. Ibarra is guilty of the crimes charged,” Kirby added.

Kirby is expected to bring into question the DNA evidence, arguing the prosecutors are relying on conflicting methods to link DNA and fingerprints to Ibarra. He also rebuffed the prosecution’s claim that Ibarra’s fingerprint was found on Riley’s phone, saying, “he was wearing gloves, supposedly.”

The outcome of the case will reverberate beyond the courtroom walls. Both Republicans and Democrats invoked Riley’s story at political events, and immigrant communities in Athens are divided over the vitriol.

Ibarra, who’s from Venezuela, is also charged under Georgia’s “peeping Tom” law for allegedly going to a UGA apartment building on the same day as Riley’s death, looking through the window and spying on a student, his indictment states.

Ibarra was indicted on 10 counts: malice murder, three counts of felony murder, kidnapping with bodily injury, aggravated assault with intent to rape, aggravated battery, obstructing a person making an emergency call, tampering with evidence and peeping Tom, according to the indictment.

The defense and prosecution on Tuesday agreed to a bench trial – meaning the judge, not a jury, will hear evidence and testimony and decide Ibarra’s fate.

If Ibarra is convicted of the most serious charges, prosecutors intend to seek a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole, according to court records.

It’s unclear why the prosecution is not seeking the death penalty against Ibarra. During Tuesday’s hearing, the judge forbade attorneys and the defendant from speaking with the media.

Suspect entered the US illegally and was previously arrested

Ibarra’s history in the US has fueled outrage among politicians. They say failed border policies and lax laws contributed to Riley’s death.

Ibarra was arrested in 2022 after entering the US illegally and was “paroled and released for further processing,” US Immigration and Customs Enforcement said.

He also was arrested by New York City police in September 2023 and charged with “acting in a manner to injure a child less than 17 and a motor vehicle license violation,” ICE asserted in a news release. But police released Ibarra “before a detainer could be issued,” ICE said.

When asked about Ibarra’s arrest and release in New York City at that time, the NYPD said it did not have a record of his arrest. NYPD’s public information office, in an email to CNN Wednesday, reiterated “there are no arrests (of Ibarra) on file.”

By February 2024, Ibarra was living in Athens, Georgia – home to the University of Georgia.

Police started searching for Riley after receiving a call around noon on February 22 from a friend who said Riley had not returned from her jog at UGA’s intramural fields that morning, UGA Police Chief Jeff Clark said. Less than an hour later, Riley’s body was found near a lake.

Police connected Ibarra to Riley’s killing by using campus security camera footage, physical evidence and key input from the community, Clark said.

Ibarra was arrested the day after Riley’s death. Investigators have said there is no evidence he and Riley knew each other, and police described the killing as a “crime of opportunity.”

Testimony describes crime scene, finding jacket with DNA

A Georgia Bureau of Investigation crime scene specialist, Daniella Stuart, was called as a witness in Ibarra’s trial on Friday afternoon. She described finding injuries on the left side of Riley’s head, along with linear marks on her torso and below her underwear.

“Her hair was very tangled, which made it difficult for me to locate the additional injuries, and tangled with (…) leaves, blood, dirt, tangled in her hair,” the specialist said.

Stuart called attention to a large spot that was not covered with leaves in the wooded area where Riley’s body was found, depicted in photographs of the crime scene in court Friday. Leaves were covering the crime scene, except for one large spot where Stuart believes a “significant disturbance happened.”

“You could see almost like a slight depression in that area that led from the (running) trail, to the area where the ground could be clearly seen,” Stuart said.

The specialist testified to finding a latent print “in the area where you would swipe to unlock,” as well as “reddish stains suspected to be blood,” on Riley’s cell phone, found in the leaves at the crime scene.

The specialist then recounted photographing injuries on Ibarra at the Athens-Clarke County Police Department the following day, noting scratches and injuries on his hands, arms, neck and back.

Another witness, Athens-Clarke County Police officer Zachary Davis, testified about finding the jacket that had both Riley’s DNA and Ibarra’s DNA on it, which was recovered from a nearby dumpster.

“I began checking dumpsters, just because people tend to try and get rid of property in dumpsters that they don’t want to be in possession of,” Davis told the prosecutor. After searching several other dumpsters, he found a dark blue jacket inside a recycling dumpster, Davis testified.

Body camera video of Davis retrieving the jacket was played in court. “Upon picking up the jacket, I noticed that there were leaves on it. There were tears on the front as well, and what appeared to be some darker red or brown stains on the sleeves near the wrist,” he said.

In the video footage, Davis is heard saying: “Oh sh*t. There’s hair on the buttons. … women’s long hair wrapped up in the buttons.”

People inside the courtroom were seen getting emotional during Davis’s testimony, shaking their heads in disgust with each new detail. Several people walked out of court.

Riley’s killing used as political fodder

Data reviewed by CNN suggests there is no significant connection between immigration and any increase in crime rate.

But Riley’s death turned into political fodder from both sides of the aisle.

Republican President-elect Donald Trump blamed the Biden administration’s immigration policies for contributing to Riley’s death. In the months leading up to his second election, Trump vowed large-scale deportations of undocumented migrants.

Riley’s parents attended a Trump rally in March and met with Trump backstage, co-campaign manager Chris LaCivita said.

Democrats have also invoked Riley’s death in political speeches. While campaigning for presidential candidate Kamala Harris in October, former President Bill Clinton, supporting Biden’s attempt to secure the border, lambasted Trump for scuttling a bipartisan border security bill earlier this year.

The bill sputtered in January when Trump’s opposition to it led Republican support to erode. During her presidential campaign, Harris vowed to revive the bill and sign it into law if she were elected.

Clinton said the bill would have led to “total vetting before people got in” at the US-Mexico border.

“Now, Trump killed the bill,” Clinton said, before citing Riley’s death.

“You got a case in Georgia not very long ago – didn’t you, they made an ad about it – a young woman who had been killed by an immigrant. Yeah, well, if they’d all been properly vetted that probably wouldn’t have happened,” Clinton said.

‘We lost one of the brightest lights’

Riley’s death devastated both the UGA and Augusta University communities. She was a UGA student until May 2023 before studying nursing at Augusta’s College of Nursing campus in Athens.

At a vigil cohosted by Riley’s Alpha Chi Omega sorority at UGA, the chapter president said, “We lost one of the brightest lights that there’s ever been. This campus and our sisterhood will never (be) the same without Laken Riley.”

Augusta University’s College of Nursing said Riley was a “promising future nurse” whose “compassion and care for others is evident.”

Riley had just made the fall dean’s list and received her honorary white coat, “symbolizing humanism, compassion, and the start of her nurse’s journey,” the nursing college said on Facebook. She was set to graduate in 2025.

“The College of Nursing will miss Laken’s spirit on campus, and our hearts go out to her family and friends,” the statement said. “We know that she would have been a wonderful nurse, and her passing is a loss for the profession and the communities she would have graciously served.”

Riley’s younger sister, Lauren Phillips, memorialized her “best friend” in an Instagram post.

“The best sister and my built-in best friend from the very first second,” she wrote. “I’m not sure how I’m going to do this but it’s all going to be for you from now on. I cannot wait to give you the biggest hug someday. I will miss and love you forever Laken.”

The tragedy still permeates everyday life at the University of Georgia

“You would hopefully think that a campus is a safe place to be. But after (Riley’s killing), it definitely makes me more alert,” pharmacy student Margaret Fawcett said.

Fawcett walks at night with heightened vigilance and offers to accompany her friend when she runs on the same wooded trail where Riley was killed.

“Sometimes I do get nervous for her,” Fawcett said.

Several Athens residents told CNN they’re disappointed the prosecution is seeking life imprisonment without the possibility of parole – not the death penalty – if Ibarra is convicted. But Fawcett said she’s not bothered by the decision.

“I definitely believe in the death penalty, but also I feel like he’d suffer more with life in prison,” she said.

CNN’s Shawn Nottingham, Eric Levenson, Priscilla Alvarez, Rafael Romo, Kaanita Iyer, Jason Morris, David J. Lopez, Elizabeth Wolfe, Kate Sullivan and Steve Conterno contributed to this report.

Correction: An earlier version of this story named the wrong member of Jose Ibarra’s defense team. It was Dustin Kirby.

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