Athens-Clarke County Superior Court Judge H. Patrick Haggard found illegal alien Jose Antonio Ibarra, 26, guilty of murdering Augusta University student Laken Riley.
Ibarra waived his right to a jury trial. He did not testify.
Haggard found Ibarra guilty on all charges: “three counts of felony murder and counts of malice murder, kidnapping with bodily injury, aggravated assault with intent to rape and ‘peeping Tom.'”
Prosecutors said Ibarra, a 26-year-old illegal immigrant from Venezuela, attacked and killed Riley, a 22-year-old Augusta University nursing student, while she was jogging along trails near Lake Herrick on the University of Georgia campus in Athens the morning of Feb. 22.”Laken Riley herself has given you all the evidence you need alone to find this man guilty of every single count in this indictment,” prosecutor Sheila Ross said in her closing statement on Wednesday. “She did fight, and it is a direct result of that fight that gives you all the physical evidence you need to convict him.””He killed her because she would not let him rape her,” Ross added.
The defense tried to pin the murder of Ibarra’s brother Diego, who faces charges of green card fraud when he showed the police a fake ID in February. Argenis, the other brother, is “on an immigration hold.”
Ibarra crossed into America in September 2022. Officials released him “into the U.S. via parole.”
CLICK HERE FOR FULL VERSION OF THIS STORY