Laken Riley case: Suspect found guilty of all counts in campus killing

The accused suspect murder Laken Riley of the University of Georgia campus was found guilty Wednesday of aggravated assault and felony murder.

The prosecutor described the evidence against the suspect as “strong”, and the defense raised in its closing arguments that the defendant could be an accomplice but not the killer.

Jose Ibarra, 26, was charged with murdering the 22-year-old nursing student, who was on the run after prosecutors said she “refused to be a rape victim.” Jose Ibarra, an undocumented migrant, was charged with attempted murder and felony murder in connection with her death, which is the cry For immigration reform by many conservatives, including President-elect Donald Trump.

Jose Ibarra he waived his right to a jury trial, and the case was presented in four days in Athens-Clarke County District Court before Judge H. Patrick Haggard, who handed down the verdict Wednesday.

Sobbing could be heard in the courtroom as the guilty verdicts on each charge were read.

Before his verdict was announced, Haggard said in court that he had written two statements from attorneys in closing arguments.

One was the prosecutor’s statement, which he said was “overwhelming and powerful evidence.”

The other was from the defense attorney, who said the judge should “put my emotions aside.”

“It’s the same thing we tell jurors,” he said. “That’s how I have to approach this, and I did. Both of those statements are correct.”

The court is in recess until 12:30 p.m., at which point Haggard said he is ready to proceed with the verdict.

Jose Ibarra has a minimum sentence of life in prison with parole.

Prosecutors called 28 witnesses who said it was proven beyond a reasonable doubt that Jose Ibarra killed Riley, who died of head trauma and asphyxiation.

Special prosecutor Sheila Ross told the court that Jose Ibarra encountered Riley on his morning run on Feb. 22 while he was out “hunting” for women on the Athens campus.

Ross said Riley “fought for his life” in the fight Jose Ibarra left court evidence behind. Digital and video evidence also pointed to a single killer, he said.

“The evidence in this case has been overwhelming, and the evidence in this case has spoken loud and clear – that Laken is Riley’s killer, and that he killed her because she didn’t let him rape her,” Ross said in closing. discussion on Wednesday.

A forensic expert testified that Jose Ibarra’s DNA was found under Riley’s right fingernail, and that his two brothers, who lived in an apartment near campus, were left out as matches.

When Jose Ibarra was questioned by the police one day after the murder, he did so visible scratches in his arms, the officers said. She also had scratches on her neck and back, which Ross said Riley could have left alone.

“To find him not guilty, you would have to believe your eyes,” Ross said.

“He marked it. He marked it for everybody to see. He marked it for you to see,” Ross told the judge.

Prosecutors argued that Jose Ibarra prevented Riley from calling 911, and said he left his fingerprint on her phone. Data from her Samsung phone and the Garmin watch Riley wore on her run showed the devices overlapped and were close to each other in the woods where she was found dead, an FBI analyst testified.

Jose Ibarra was caught on film in the Ring with a bloody jacket and disposable gloves near his apartment about 15 minutes after Riley was killed, prosecutors said. The individual’s face cannot be seen in the video, but Jose Ibarra’s roommate testified that it was him. The defendant’s brother, Diego Ibarra, also identified him as the person in the video while being questioned by the police the day after the murder.

Riley’s DNA was found on the jacket and gloves, the forensics expert said. Jose Ibarra’s DNA was also found on the jacket, while his two brothers were left out as matches, according to the expert.

“That’s what we call guilty conscience in our business; he threw those items away because he knew he killed him, and he threw them away because he didn’t want anyone to find him,” Ross said.

His DNA was also found on an Adidas hat he was seen wearing in the video, the expert said. That hat wasn’t discarded, Ross believed, because Jose Ibarra couldn’t see that there was actually blood on it.

Jose Ibarra was also seen in Erazutuna footage hours after the murder throwing unidentifiable items into a bag that was never recovered by the police. Ross believed the bag contained clothes she had been wearing earlier, similar to the ones she was wearing in a selfie she posted on Snapchat that morning.

“The digital evidence that she posted selfies of herself wearing self-rapist clothing an hour before leaving her self-incriminating home is self-incriminating,” Ross said.

The defense called three witnesses, including a neighbor who said Diego Ibarra threatened Riley on the night of her murder.

The defense said they planned to call two more witnesses — including Diego Ibarra, who is in federal custody after pleading guilty to possessing a fraudulent green card, but whose attorney declined to testify.

“While the evidence in this case is overwhelming, it is circumstantial,” defense attorney Kaitlyn Beck told the judge.

Beck told the judge that they advised Jose Ibarra to have a trial “with the confidence that your honor could and that your honor would put emotions aside in this case and just consider the evidence.”

He argued that there are doubts about what was analyzed and said that the judge should have been “skeptical” about the DNA evidence.

He presented the “alternative theory” that Diego Ibarra was actually Riley’s killer, and that Jose Ibarra was complicit in covering up the evidence.

“Maybe he was the one who threw the jacket, like Diego said, maybe he was covering for his brother,” Beck said.

“On that theory, of course, Jose would be guilty of tampering, but that theory does not prove that he was present or involved in Laken Riley’s murder,” he said.

He said three gloves were since discarded, which “suggests that there are multiple pairs of hands wearing those gloves.”

In rebuttal, Ross called the defense’s theory “desperate” and a “mischaracterization of the evidence.”

“There is no reasonable explanation for all of this evidence, except that he is guilty of every count in this indictment,” Ross said.

Diego Ibarra told the officers during the interrogation that he was asleep at the time of the murder. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation testified earlier Wednesday that there was no evidence to contradict that statement.

Jose Ibarra, a Venezuelan migrant who officials say entered the US illegally in 2022, waived his right to testify at trial. He pleaded not guilty to the charges, including involuntary manslaughter and felony murder.

Additional charges in the 10-count indictment included aggravated battery, kidnapping with bodily injury, aggravated assault with intent to rape, obstructing or obstructing a person making an emergency telephone call and tampering with evidence. That last indictment alleged that he “knowingly” concealed evidence — the jacket and gloves — of the crime of involuntary manslaughter.

Jose Ibarra was also charged with the crime of peeping tom. Prosecutors said he spied on a UGA graduate student through the window in the hours before Riley’s murder, and said the incident “showed his state of mind” that day.

The student testified that he called the police after hearing someone trying to open the door.

Ross said the person in the student’s apartment was wearing similar clothing to the one Jose Ibarra was wearing in the Snapchat selfie posted earlier this morning, including an Adidas hat.