Man convicted of Laken Riley’s murder sentenced to life without parole

ATHENS, Ga. — The Venezuelan man convicted of the murder of Georgian 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 death in February, and the guilty verdict was handed down Wednesday by Athens-Clarke County Superior Court Judge H. Patrick Haggard. Ibarra, 26, had waived his right to a jury trial, meaning Haggard heard and decided the case alone.

Haggard found Ibarra guilty of all ten charges against him: one count of malice murder; three murder charges; and one count each of kidnapping occasioning actual bodily harm, aggravated assault with intent to rape, aggravated battery, obstructing an emergency call, tampering with evidence 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, attended Augusta University College of Nursing, which also has a campus in Athens, about 70 miles east of Atlanta.

Prosecutors decided not to seek the death penalty before the trial.

Riley’s family and friends tearfully remembered her and asked Haggard to sentence Ibarra to the maximum sentence. 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 respect for Laeken or for human life. We ask that the same be done for him,” she told the judge.

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

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

Ibarra did not respond when an interpreter relayed their words to him, but at times appeared to look at the speakers.

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

Prosecutor Sheila Ross asked the judge for the maximum sentence and said Riley’s family will never have to worry about Ibarra’s release.

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

Haggard ultimately gave Ibarra the maximum sentence he could impose, which included 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 entered the U.S. illegally in 2022 and was allowed to remain in the country while pursuing his immigration case. President-elect Donald Trump and other Republicans blamed Riley’s death on the policies of Democratic President Joe Biden.

Trump applauded the verdict in a social media post, writing: “We love you, Laeken, 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 something like this cannot happen again!”

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

The evidence shows that Ibarra killed Riley “because she didn’t want him to rape her.”

Ross said Ibarra’s DNA was found under Riley’s fingernails and that her DNA and Ibarra’s were found on a jacket that police found in a trash can at his apartment complex. A man seen on security footage throwing away that jacket was identified by his brother and another roommate as Ibarra, 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 clothing had shifted due to an attempted assault rather than dragging, Ross said.

Surveillance footage showed a man wearing clothes that appeared to match those seen in a selfie Ibarra took on his phone earlier that morning as he walked around outside a female graduate student’s apartment. That student told police someone tried to enter while she was in the shower and peered through her window.

Ibarra was “hunting for women” and when he couldn’t get into the apartment, he turned to the running paths in search of a victim, Ross said.

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

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

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

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

During their questioning of witnesses and during Beck’s closing, the lawyers tried to cast doubt on Jose Ibarra’s guilt by suggesting that his brother, Diego, could not be ruled out 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 neighbors on Tuesday and rested their case on Wednesday morning.