Laken Riley case: Suspect found guilty by judge on all charges related to campus murder

Suspicious accused of murder Laken Riley, on the University of Georgia campus, was found guilty by a judge on all charges, including premeditated murder and felony murder, on Wednesday.

While prosecutors described the evidence against the suspect as “very impressive,” the defense advanced the theory during closing arguments of the trial that the defendant may have been an accomplice but not the murderer.

Jose Ibarra, 26, was charged with killing the 22-year-old nursing student while she was out jogging after prosecutors said she “refused to be the victim of rape.” Jose Ibarra, an undocumented immigrant, was charged with malice murder and felony murder in connection with her death. rallying cry Many conservatives, including President-elect Donald Trump, have voiced support for immigration reform.

José Ibarra waived his right It was submitted to a jury trial and the case was presented over four days in an Athens-Clarke County courtroom to Judge H. Patrick Haggard, who handed down the verdict Wednesday shortly after the close of arguments at the trial.

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

Before announcing his decision, Haggard told the courtroom that he had written down two statements from attorneys during closing arguments.

One of these was the prosecutor’s statement saying that “the evidence is very strong and strong.”

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

“That’s the same thing we told jurors,” he said. “That’s the way I have to approach this issue, and that’s what I did. Both of those statements are true.”

Court is in recess until 12:30 ET, at which point Haggard said he was ready to impose sentence.

Jose Ibarra faces a minimum sentence of life in prison with the possibility of parole.

Prosecutors called 28 witnesses to establish what they said was evidence beyond a reasonable doubt that Jose Ibarra killed Riley, who died of blunt force head trauma and asphyxia.

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

Ross said Riley “fought for his life” in a struggle that caused Jose Ibarra to leave forensic evidence behind. He said digital and video evidence also showed he was the sole killer.

“The evidence in this case is overwhelming and the evidence in this case comes out loud and clear, he is Laken Riley’s killer and he killed her because she wouldn’t let him rape her,” Ross said during closing. debate on Wednesday.

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

Jose Ibarra when questioned by police a day after the murder visible scratches Officers said he was in their arms. He also had scratches on his neck and back, and Ross said they could only have been left by Riley.

“You have to disbelieve your own eyes not to find him guilty,” Ross said.

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

Prosecutors said Jose Ibarra prevented Riley from calling 911 and his fingerprint was left on her phone. An FBI analyst testified that data from the Samsung phone and the Garmin watch Riley wore while running showed that the devices overlapped and were very close to the woods where Riley was found dead.

Prosecutors said Jose Ibarra was caught discarding a bloody jacket and disposable gloves near his apartment about 15 minutes after Riley’s death. The person’s face is not visible in the video, but Jose Ibarra’s roommate stated that it was him. The defendant’s brother, Diego Ibarra, also said that he identified himself as the person in the video while being questioned by the police a day after the murder.

The forensic expert said Riley’s DNA was found on the jacket and gloves. The expert said that Jose Ibarra’s DNA was also found on the jacket, while his two brothers were found as matches.

“In our work, we call this guilt consciousness; she threw those items away because she knew it was killing him, and she threw them away because she didn’t want anyone to find her,” Ross said.

The expert said his DNA was also found on the Adidas hat he wore in the video. Ross speculated that the hat was not thrown away because Jose Ibarra could not see that there was actually blood on it.

Jose Ibarra was seen on Ring footage wearing different clothes and throwing unidentified items into a bag that was never found by police several hours after the murder. Ross speculated that the bag contained clothes she had previously worn, which also resembled the clothes she wore in a selfie posted on Snapchat that morning.

“Digital evidence that an hour before he left his house, condemning himself, he posted selfies of himself basically wearing rapist attire,” Ross said.

The defense called three witnesses, including a neighbor who said Diego Ibarra threatened him the night Riley was killed.

The defense said they planned to call two more witnesses, including Diego Ibarra, who is in federal custody awaiting sentencing after pleading guilty to a charge of having a fake green card, but his attorney did not want him to testify.

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

Beck told the judge that they recommended Jose Ibarra have a bench trial, “trusting that your honor can do it and trusting that your judge will put emotions aside in this case and just consider the evidence.”

He argued there were doubts about what was tested and said the judge should have been “skeptical” of the DNA evidence.

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

“Maybe he’s throwing away the jacket like Diego said, maybe he’s protecting his brother’s rights,” Beck said.

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

Since the three gloves were thrown, “it shows that there was more than one pair of hands wearing these gloves,” he said.

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

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

During interrogation, Diego Ibarra told officers that he was asleep when the murder occurred. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation agent handling the case testified early Wednesday that there was no evidence to contradict that statement.

Jose Ibarra, a Venezuelan immigrant who authorities say entered the United States illegally in 2022, waived his right to testify during the hearing. He has pleaded not guilty to charges including malice murder and three counts of felony murder.

Additional charges in the 10-count indictment included aggravated battery, kidnapping with bodily injury, aggravated assault with intent to commit rape, obstructing or obstructing a person from making an emergency telephone call, and tampering with evidence. The second charge was that he “knowingly concealed” evidence related to the murder (the jacket and gloves).

Jose Ibarra was also found guilty of surveillance. Prosecutors said Riley spied the UGA graduate student from her window in the hours before her murder, and that the incident “illustrates her state of mind” that day.

The student stated that he called the police when he heard someone trying to open his door.

Ross said the person at the student’s home was wearing clothing similar to what Jose Ibarra was wearing in the Snapchat selfie posted earlier that morning, including an Adidas hat.