A Venezuelan man has been convicted of murder in the killing of the Georgia nursing student Laken Riley, a case that fueled the national debate over US immigration during this year’s presidential race.
José Ibarra was charged with murder and other crimes in Riley’s February death, and the guilty verdict was reached on Wednesday by the Athens-Clarke county superior court Judge H Patrick Haggard. Ibarra, 26, had waived his right to a jury trial, meaning that Haggard alone heard and decided the case.
Riley’s family and roommates cried as the verdict was read. Ibarra did not visibly react.
The killing added fuel to the national debate over immigration when federal authorities said Ibarra illegally entered the US in 2022 and was allowed to stay in the country while he pursued his immigration case.
The trial began last 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 neighbors on Tuesday and rested their case on Wednesday morning.
Prosecutor Sheila Ross told the judge that Ibarra encountered Riley while she was running on the University of Georgia campus on 22 February 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 (113km) east of Atlanta.
Defense attorney Dustin Kirby said in his opening that Riley’s death was a tragedy and called the evidence in the case graphic and disturbing. But he said there was not sufficient evidence to prove that his client killed Riley.
Riley’s parents, roommates and other friends and family packed the courtroom throughout the trial.
