Laken Riley case: Bench trial set to begin for murder suspect

(ATHENS, Ga.) — A bench trial is set to begin Friday for the suspect accused of murdering 22-year-old nursing student Laken Riley on the University of Georgia’s campus.

The suspect, Jose Ibarra, waived his right to a jury trial this week. Judge H. Patrick Haggard granted the defense’s motion for the bench trial on Tuesday, a day before jury selection had been scheduled to begin.

The case will now be presented in the Athens-Clarke County courtroom to Haggard, who will render a verdict.

Ibarra, 26, faces a minimum sentence of life in prison with the possibility of parole if convicted. He has pleaded not guilty to malice murder, felony murder and other offenses.

Police have said they believe Ibarra — a migrant from Venezuela who officials said illegally entered the U.S. in 2022 — did not know Riley and that this was a “crime of opportunity.”

Riley’s brutal death became a rallying cry for immigration reform from many conservatives, including President-elect Donald Trump. Trump mentioned her by name as recently as Nov. 3 when he campaigned in Macon, Georgia, in a final pitch to voters in the battleground state.

Riley, a student at Augusta University, was found dead in a wooded area on the Athens campus on Feb. 22 after she didn’t return from a run. The indictment alleges Ibarra killed her by “inflicting blunt force trauma to her head and by asphyxiating her” and seriously disfigured her head by striking her “multiple times” with a rock.

Additional charges in the 10-count indictment include aggravated battery, kidnapping with bodily injury, aggravated assault with intent to rape, obstructing or hindering a person making an emergency telephone call and tampering with evidence. The latter charge alleged that he “knowingly concealed” evidence — a jacket and gloves — involving the offense of malice murder.

Ibarra was also charged with a peeping tom offense. The indictment alleges that on the same day as Riley’s murder, he spied through the window of a different person who lived in an apartment on campus. The judge last month denied a motion seeking to sever that charge from the case.

Haggard also denied the defense’s motion for a change of venue in the high-profile case.

Ibarra has been held without bond at the Clarke County Jail since his arrest on Feb. 23.

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