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Friday, March 14, 2025

Man convicted of killing Laken Riley sentenced to life in prison without parole

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113 days ago
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Jose Ibarra listens through an interpreter during his trial at Athens-Clarke County Superior Court, Wednesday, Nov. 20, 2024, in Athens, Ga. (Hyosub Shin/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP, Pool)

Jose Ibarra listens through an interpreter during his trial at Athens-Clarke County Superior Court, Wednesday, Nov. 20, 2024, in Athens, Ga. (Hyosub Shin/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP, Pool)

Hyosub Shin

The Venezue­lan man con­vict­ed of killing Geor­gia nurs­ing stu­dent Lak­en Ri­ley has been sen­tenced to life in prison with­out the pos­si­bil­i­ty of pa­role in a case that be­came a flash­point in the na­tion­al de­bate over im­mi­gra­tion.

Jose Ibar­ra was charged with mur­der and oth­er crimes in Ri­ley’s Feb­ru­ary death, and Wednes­day’s guilty ver­dict was reached by Athens-Clarke Coun­ty Su­pe­ri­or Court Judge H. Patrick Hag­gard. Ibar­ra, 26, had waived his right to a ju­ry tri­al, mean­ing Hag­gard alone heard and de­cid­ed the case.

Hag­gard found Ibar­ra guilty of all 10 counts against him: one count of mal­ice mur­der; three counts of felony mur­der; and one count each of kid­nap­ping with bod­i­ly in­jury, ag­gra­vat­ed as­sault with in­tent to rape, ag­gra­vat­ed bat­tery, ob­struct­ing an emer­gency call, ev­i­dence tam­per­ing and be­ing a peep­ing Tom.

Pros­e­cu­tors said Ibar­ra en­coun­tered Ri­ley while she was run­ning on the Uni­ver­si­ty of Geor­gia cam­pus on Feb. 22 and killed her dur­ing a strug­gle. Ri­ley, 22, was a stu­dent at Au­gus­ta Uni­ver­si­ty Col­lege of Nurs­ing, which al­so has a cam­pus in Athens, about 70 miles (115 kilo­me­ters) east of At­lanta.

Ri­ley’s fam­i­ly and friends tear­ful­ly re­mem­bered her and asked Hag­gard to sen­tence Ibar­ra to the max­i­mum penal­ty. Her moth­er, Allyson Phillips, said there is “no end to the pain, suf­fer­ing and loss we have ex­pe­ri­enced and will con­tin­ue to en­dure.”

“This sick, twist­ed and evil cow­ard showed no re­gard for Lak­en or hu­man life. We are ask­ing that the same be done for him,” she told the judge.

Ri­ley’s younger sis­ter, Lau­ren Phillips, a fresh­man at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Geor­gia, talked about the pain of liv­ing with­out her “favourite per­son” and “biggest role mod­el” and the ef­fect her sis­ter’s death has had on her.

“I can­not walk around my own col­lege cam­pus be­cause I’m ter­ri­fied of peo­ple like Jose Ibar­ra,” she said.

Ibar­ra did not re­act as an in­ter­preter re­layed their words to him, but did ap­pear to be look­ing at the speak­ers at times.

De­fense at­tor­ney John Don­nel­ly asked Hag­gard to give Ibar­ra two con­sec­u­tive life sen­tences but to al­low him the even­tu­al pos­si­bil­i­ty of pa­role.

Pros­e­cu­tor Sheila Ross asked the judge for the max­i­mum sen­tence, say­ing Ri­ley’s fam­i­ly should nev­er have to wor­ry about Ibar­ra be­ing re­leased. Pros­e­cu­tors de­cid­ed be­fore tri­al not to seek the death penal­ty.

“You can’t bring her back and it’s hor­ri­ble. What you can do is give com­fort with your sen­tence,” Ross said.

Hag­gard ul­ti­mate­ly gave Ibar­ra the max­i­mum sen­tence he could im­pose, in­clud­ing life in prison with­out the pos­si­bil­i­ty of pa­role on the mal­ice mur­der count.

Ri­ley’s killing added fu­el to the na­tion­al de­bate over im­mi­gra­tion when fed­er­al au­thor­i­ties said Ibar­ra il­le­gal­ly en­tered the U.S. in 2022 and was al­lowed to stay in the coun­try while he pur­sued his im­mi­gra­tion case. Pres­i­dent-elect Don­ald Trump and oth­er Re­pub­li­cans blamed Ri­ley’s death on the poli­cies of De­mo­c­rat Joe Biden.

Trump ap­plaud­ed the ver­dict in a so­cial me­dia post, writ­ing, “We love you, Lak­en, and our hearts will al­ways be with you. It is time to se­cure our Bor­der, and re­move these crim­i­nals and thugs from our Coun­try, so noth­ing like this can hap­pen again!”

“Lak­en Ri­ley her­self has giv­en you all the ev­i­dence you need” to find Ibar­ra guilty on all counts, Ross told the judge dur­ing her clos­ing. She added that the phys­i­cal ev­i­dence was suf­fi­cient and cor­rob­o­rat­ed by foren­sic, dig­i­tal and video ev­i­dence to “twist this very pow­er­ful knot that this de­fen­dant can­not get out of. There is no way out for him.”

The ev­i­dence shows that Ibar­ra killed Ri­ley “be­cause she would not let him rape her.”

Ross said Ibar­ra’s DNA was found un­der Ri­ley’s fin­ger­nails and her DNA and Ibar­ra’s were found on a jack­et that po­lice found in a trash bin in his apart­ment com­plex. A man seen in se­cu­ri­ty footage throw­ing that jack­et away was iden­ti­fied as Ibar­ra by his broth­er and an­oth­er room­mate, she said.

Ri­ley was wear­ing “tight run­ning clothes that are de­signed not to move,” Ross said. When her body was found, the waist­band of her run­ning tights was pulled down and her jack­et, shirt and sports bra were pulled up, ev­i­dence that her clothes were dis­placed by an at­tempt­ed sex­u­al as­sault not by drag­ging, Ross said.

Sur­veil­lance video showed a man wear­ing clothes that ap­peared to match those seen in a self­ie Ibar­ra snapped on his phone ear­li­er that morn­ing, lin­ger­ing out­side the apart­ment of a fe­male grad­u­ate stu­dent. That stu­dent told po­lice some­one tried to get in the front door while she was in the show­er and peered through her win­dow.

Ibar­ra was “out prowl­ing and hunt­ing fe­males” and when he couldn’t get in the apart­ment, he turned to the run­ning trails look­ing for a vic­tim, Ross said.

De­fense at­tor­ney Kait­lyn Beck told the judge that the ev­i­dence was cir­cum­stan­tial and did not de­fin­i­tive­ly prove Ibar­ra’s guilt.

“Be­cause the ev­i­dence is sub­ject to more than one in­ter­pre­ta­tion, it is not be­yond a rea­son­able doubt,” she said.

Beck tried to cast doubt on a method of DNA test­ing used to test some of the ev­i­dence. She not­ed that when a fin­ger­print found on Ri­ley’s phone was en­tered in­to a data­base, Ibar­ra didn’t come back as a match and a spe­cial­ist vi­su­al­ly matched the prints.

Beck said there was “doubt based on what was test­ed and on what was not test­ed” be­cause in­ves­ti­ga­tors did not test some of the ev­i­dence they had gath­ered.

Through­out their ques­tion­ing of wit­ness­es and in Beck’s clos­ing, de­fense at­tor­neys tried to cre­ate doubt about Jose Ibar­ra’s guilt by sug­gest­ing that his broth­er, Diego, could not be ex­clud­ed as a sus­pect.

The tri­al be­gan Fri­day, and pros­e­cu­tors called more than a dozen law en­force­ment of­fi­cers, Ri­ley’s room­mates and a woman who lived in the same apart­ment as Ibar­ra. De­fense at­tor­neys called a po­lice of­fi­cer, a jog­ger and one of Ibar­ra’s neigh­bours on Tues­day and rest­ed their case Wednes­day morn­ing. —ATHENS, Ga. (AP)

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Sto­ry by KATE BRUM­BACK | As­so­ci­at­ed Press


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