Laken Riley’s death: Key takeaways from first day of Georgia murder trial

CNN
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About half a dozen people, including at least one Laken Riley Relatives left the courtroom in Athens, Georgia, to avoid seeing the videos and images of the nursing student’s lifeless body.

Emotions ran high among gallery members Friday at the start of the murder trial of Jose Ibarra, an undocumented immigrant accused in the death of a 22-year-old Augusta University student earlier this year.

Riley, who was named to the dean’s list at the university’s School of Nursing shortly before her death. on February 22He was on a morning run on the University of Georgia campus when prosecutors say he encountered Ibarra.

“(Ibarra) wore a black hat, a hoodie-style jacket, and black kitchen-style disposable gloves and went hunting for women on the University of Georgia campus,” prosecutor Sheila Ross said in her opening statement Friday.

“When Laken Riley refused to be a rape victim, he repeatedly threw rocks at her skull,” Ross said.

Prosecutors described Riley’s final moments as he fought for his life; under her fingernails, she collected crucial DNA evidence that they claim identifies Ibarra’s attacker and murderer.

Ibarra, 26, faces 10 charges in connection with Riley’s death, including premeditated murder and aggravated assault with intent to commit rape. He waived his right to a jury trial during a hearing earlier this week.

The Venezuelan immigrant is also Georgia’s “spying tom law. According to the indictment, on the day Riley was killed, he went to an apartment building at UGA, looked through the window and spied on a student.

Riley’s death sparked political controversy and debate over crime and illegal immigration during the 2024 election season.

Here are the key takeaways from Friday’s testimony:

On the morning of his last run, Riley was wearing a smartwatch he had been given for Christmas, prosecutors said. “This watch captured a lot of important data,” Ross said.

Based on the watch’s data analyzed by the FBI’s Cellular Analysis Investigative Team, investigators were able to determine that something happened around 9:10 a.m. that “caused (Riley) to stop in his tracks,” according to Ross. Around that time, Riley activated her phone’s SOS function and called 911.

“He’s driving down this road with the defendant for approximately four minutes, and four minutes later you see his Garmin (smart watch) move 25 feet into the woods,” Ross told Superior Court Judge H. Patrick Haggard, who will decide Ibarra’s fate.

According to the watch, Ross described Riley’s encounter with the attacker as “long” and “violent.” The prosecutor said, “When his heart stopped at 9.28 in the morning, there was no movement from his smart watch anymore.”

Lilly Steiner, one of Riley’s roommates, testified Friday that she saw Riley’s iPhone location using the phone’s Find feature earlier that morning. “I checked his location to see where he was and saw that he was running on a track he usually runs on,” Steiner said.

Concerned that Riley’s approximate location had not changed around 10:45 a.m., Steiner and another roommate used the feature to go outside to search the trail area, Steiner said.

They came across an AirPod believed to belong to Riley, photographed it and brought it home, calling UGA police around 12:05 p.m., according to Ross.

The responding officer said it took approximately 21 minutes to find the body

Body camera video of responding officer Sgt. Kenneth Maxwell of the University of Georgia Police Department, who found Riley’s body, appeared in court during his arraignment.

Judge Haggard paused the hearing to allow anyone who did not want Riley’s body to be shown to leave.

Maxwell described discovering Riley’s partially nude remains. “It looked more deliberate, like someone had tried to take her top off or used it to drag her,” Maxwell said, adding that it took about 21 minutes to locate Riley. In the video, he was seen immediately starting to implement life-saving measures.

As the video played, Maxwell was seen swallowing hard and others could be heard crying in the courtroom. Some covered their faces or looked down.

Georgia Bureau of Investigation crime scene expert Daniella Stuart on Friday described injuries observed on Riley’s body, including linear marks on the left side of her head, linear marks on her torso and a larger linear mark under her underwear.

“His hair was very tangled, making it difficult for me to locate other injuries, and there were leaves tangled in his hair mixed with blood and dirt,” Stuart said.

Stuart also noted a large absence of leaves at the scene and said he believed a “significant disturbance” had occurred there. The expert said that although the leaf cover at the scene was dense, “you could almost see like a slight depression in the area leading from the (running) path to the area” where the ground was clearly visible.

Riley’s cell phone was found among the leaves at the scene. Stuart testified that he found a fingerprint and “reddish stains suspected to be blood” on the device “in the area where you would swipe to unlock it.”

Stuart also recounted photographing Ibarra’s injuries the next day at the Athens-Clarke County Police Department, noting scratches and lacerations on his hands, arms, neck and back.

Prosecutors said DNA evidence found under Riley’s right fingernails pointed to Ibarra.

“He also put down a struggle with his phone,” Ross said. “He left his left fingerprint on his iPhone.”

Defense attorney John Donnelly said Friday that any evidence showing Ibarra killed Riley was “cautionary.”

Ibarra’s hearing will continue at 8:30 a.m. ET on Monday.

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