Georgia Nursing Student Laken Riley She was running, texting and calling her mom to see if she had time to talk. But he didn’t respond to his mother’s calls or increasingly frantic text messages.
Riley called his mother at 9:03 a.m. on Feb. 22, and when his mother called back about 20 minutes later, the student Jose Ibarra on a wooded trail at the University of Georgia, according to trial testimony. Prosecutors said Ibarra killed Riley after a struggle and data from Riley’s smartwatch showed her heart stopped beating at 9:28 a.m.
After Riley failed to answer her phone, her mother, Allyson Phillips, texted her several times, at first casually, but then became increasingly concerned, according to data taken from Riley’s phone.
At 9:37 a.m., my mother texted me, “Call me when you can.” Phillips called twice and, when she didn’t answer, texted her daughter at 9:58 a.m. “I’m anxious because you’re out and not answering the phone. “Are you okay?” Phillips texted again at 11:47 a.m. “Please call me. I’m worried about you.” She and other family members continued to call Riley.
Phillips cried as the text messages were read aloud in court by a Georgia police sergeant. Sophie Raboud, who examined Riley’s phone data, reports CBS News producer Jarred Eggleston. Raboud also testified about surveillance camera footage near a wooded trail, while Phillips and other family members and friends cried as video was played showing Riley running on the trail the morning she died.
Shin Hyo-seop / AP
Ibarra, 26, was charged with murder and other crimes in Riley’s death last February, and his trial began Friday. he is pleaded not guilty.
He waived his right to a jury trial. That means the case will be decided solely by Athens-Clarke County Superior Court Judge H. Patrick Haggard. The case could go to a judge by the end of Tuesday.
The murder ignited a national debate over immigration as federal authorities announced that Ibarra had entered the country illegally in 2022 and had been allowed to remain in the country while his immigration case was pending. Riley, 22, was a student at Augusta University College of Nursing, which has a campus in Athens, about 70 miles east of Atlanta.
Surveillance video also showed a man who prosecutors say is Ibarra walking around the apartment complex, and a female graduate student said someone tried to enter her apartment and looked in her window early the morning of Riley’s murder. The man went up to the apartment door six times over roughly an hour and opened the exterior screen door twice, Raboud testified.
Georgia Bureau of Investigation Special Agent Lucas Breyer testified about reviewing body camera footage of officers who found Riley’s body in the woods. He testified that her clothing had been “heavily tampered with,” explaining that the waistband of her running tights had been partially pulled down and her jacket, shirt and sports bra had been pulled up.
CBS News’ Eggleston reported that some of the crime scene testimony was so horrific that Riley’s family left the courtroom.
Prosecutor Sheila Ross said in her opening statement that Ibarra had gone “woman hunting” that morning in February and killed Riley after a struggle when he “refused to be a rape victim.” Law enforcement officials testified there was no evidence Riley had been sexually assaulted.
Defense attorney Dustin Kirby said in his opening statement that Riley’s death was a tragedy and that the evidence in the case was graphic and shocking. But he said there wasn’t enough evidence to prove his client killed Riley.
Ross told the judge Monday that he expects to finish calling witnesses on Tuesday, and the defense said witnesses could take up to half a day. Prosecutors have already called nearly two dozen witnesses during the first two days of testimony Friday and Monday. These included law enforcement officers, Riley’s roommate, and a woman who lived in the same apartment as Ibarra.
On Monday, prosecutors Recording phone calls in prison Between Ibarra and his wife Layling Franco since May. FBI expert Abasis Ramirez, who interpreted the call into Spanish, testified that Ibarra told Franco that he had gone to the University of Georgia to look for a job and that his wife had repeatedly told him she was tired and wanted him to tell the truth.
Franco kept asking, ‘What happened to that girl?’ Ibarra needed to know something, Ramirez said. He answers: “It’s enough to just lay it down.” Ramirez said Franco told Ibarra it was crazy that police only found his DNA.
Riley’s parents, roommates, other friends and family filled the courtroom Friday, Monday and Tuesday.
Republican lawmakers, including President-elect Donald Trump, criticized the Democratic Party. President Joe Biden’s Border Policy For her death. Biden mentioned Riley’s name while talking about border security in his State of the Union address weeks after the killing.
FBI Director Christopher Wray proposed it last March. Unusually extensive comments About Riley’s murder.
“I just want to tell you how heartbroken I am,” he told a group gathered at the University of Georgia, as well as family, friends, classmates and faculty who were mourning Laken’s death. “We were saddened to see the peace shattered by Laken’s murder and the arrest of Venezuelan nationals who entered the country illegally in 2022.”
He said the FBI was “doing everything it can to bring justice to Laken.”
