Jose Ibarra Murder Trial Day 3: Laken Riley's family sees surveillance video

ATHENS, Ga. - The state rested their case late Tuesday afternoon after multiple days of testimony in the trial of Jose Ibarra, the man accused of murdering nursing student Laken Riley on the campus of the University of Georgia. The defense began presenting its case, but quickly ran into snags.

Ibarra, 26, is charged with murder, kidnapping, and other crimes in connection with Riley's death in February. He has waived his right to a jury trial, meaning Athens-Clarke County Superior Court Judge H. Patrick Haggard will be the one to rule in the case.

Prosecutors have argued that Ibarra went "hunting for females" on campus before attacking a killing Riley while she was out on a run on the morning of Feb. 22. Ibarra's defense has called the evidence that Ibarra killed the 22-year-old nursing student "circumstantial."

Ibarra has pleaded not guilty. Prosecutors are seeking a life sentence without the possibility of parole.

Laken Riley's last text messages

Georgia nursing student Laken Riley texted and called her mom as she headed out for a run to see whether she had time to chat — but then didn’t respond to her mother’s calls or increasingly frantic text messages.

Riley called her mother at 9:03 a.m. on Feb. 22, and by the time her mother called back about 20 minutes later, the student had encountered Jose Ibarra on a wooded running trail at the University of Georgia, according to trial testimony. Prosecutors said Ibarra killed Riley after a struggle, and data from Riley’s smartwatch shows her heart stopped beating at 9:28 a.m.

After Riley failed to answer the phone, her mother, Allyson Phillips, texted her several times, casually at first but then with increasing concern, according to data pulled from Riley’s phone.

At 9:37 a.m., her mother texted, "Call me when you can." Phillips called twice, and when her calls went unanswered, she texted her daughter at 9:58 a.m., "You’re making me nervous not answering while you’re out running. Are you OK?" Phillips texted again at 11:47 a.m., writing, "Please call me. I’m worried sick about you." She and other family members continued to call Riley.

Phillips cried in court as the text messages were read aloud by Georgia police Sgt. Sophie Raboud, who examined data from Riley’s phone. Raboud also testified about video from surveillance cameras near the wooded trail, and Phillips and some other family members and friends cried as video played showing Riley running on the trail the morning of her death.

Laken Riley's autopsy

Georgia Bureau of Investigation Special Agent Lucas Breyer testified about reviewing the body camera video from the officer who found Riley’s body in the woods. He testified that her clothes were "heavily manipulated," describing the waistband of her running tights as having been pulled down some and her jacket, shirt and sports bra having been pulled way up.

Dr. Michelle DiMarco, a GBI medical examiner, conducted the autopsy of Riley’s body and testified that Riley had injuries, including scrapes, bruises and cuts, to her head, neck, torso, abdomen, left hand and left leg. Her injuries included eight cuts to her head, including one that fractured her skull, DiMarco said.

Prosecutors have said that Ibarra hit Riley in the head with a rock and DiMarco said the injuries "could be consistent with a rock." A GBI specialist testified Riley’s DNA was found on two rocks at the scene. The DNA specialist also said that Riley’s DNA and Ibarra’s DNA were both found on a jacket that was retrieved from a trash bin at Ibarra’s apartment complex.

Prosecutor Sheila Ross said during her opening statement that Ibarra had gone out "hunting for females" that morning in February and that he killed Riley after a struggle when she "refused to be his rape victim." Law enforcement officers have testified there was no evidence that Riley was sexually assaulted.

Jose Ibarra will not testify

Judge H. Patrick Haggard asked Jose Ibarra, through a translator, whether he wanted to testify in his own defense.

He declined.

Instead, the defense planned to call Ibarra's brother, Diego, to testify. Throughout the trial, they asked prosecution witnesses questions that seemed to be designed to create doubt about Jose Ibarra’s guilt by suggesting that his brother, Diego, could not be excluded as a suspect.

Diego Ibarra pleaded guilty in July to federal charges of possessing a fraudulent green card and is in federal immigration detention awaiting sentencing. Dressed in orange jail scrubs and with his wrists and ankles chained, he entered the courtroom and took the stand Tuesday afternoon.

But then one of Jose Ibarra’s defense attorneys, John Donnelly, told the judge that he’d just found out Diego Ibarra has a new attorney for his immigration case. He said he spoke to the attorney by phone and the attorney was two hours away but said he would advise his client not to testify.

Donnelly said he could call another immigration detainee who could testify about statements Diego Ibarra had made while in detention. But the judge said that could run into hearsay concerns.

Since it was already late in the day, he decided to let the lawyers work things out overnight and to resume the trial Wednesday morning.

Defense attorneys called three other witnesses before trying to put Diego Ibarra on the stand. One was a woman who lived next door to the Ibarras. Stephanie Slaton testified that the evening of the day Riley was killed, Diego Ibarra asked her what was going on because there were a lot of police around.

Slaton testified that she told him someone had been killed nearby and urged him to tell police anything he knew. She said he spoke into a translation app on his phone and showed her the screen, which said, "If you tell them, I will tell them you did it and then I will kill you, too."

But under questioning by Ross, Slaton said Diego Ibarra never told her he or his brother had killed Riley. She also acknowledged she’d been drinking that day and that she had been involved in an intimate relationship with Diego Ibarra and had been angry at him because she thought he was also involved with another woman.

A police officer called to testify by the defense said he found a pile of discarded clothing near the Ibarra’s apartment complex the day after the killing but that it looked like it had been there a while. The defense also called a man who’d been out running the day Riley was killed and saw a suspicious man but described him as being taller and skinnier than Jose Ibarra.

Jose Ibarra murder trial reignites illegal immigration debate

Laken Riley's killing added fuel to the national debate over immigration when federal authorities said Ibarra illegally entered the U.S. in 2022 and was allowed to stay in the country while he pursued his immigration case.

Previous testimony in the Jose Ibarra murder trial

In court on Monday, an FBI agent testified that Ibarra took selfies of himself early on the day Riley was killed. In the photos, Ibarra is wearing a black Adidas baseball cap and a dark hooded jacket.

A few hours before Riley's murder, a man in a black Adidas baseball cap was captured on surveillance video at the door of a first-floor apartment in a University of Georgia housing complex. A female graduate student who lived there testified Monday that she heard her doorknob jiggling while she was in the shower. As she looked through the peephole, the person ducked and walked away, but then she saw the same person peering into her window, she said.

Police officers, using a grainy screenshot from the surveillance video, approached a man wearing a black Adidas cap the day after the killing. That turned out to be Diego Ibarra, one of Jose Ibarra’s brothers.

After the two brothers were found and questioned, University of Georgia Police Officer Joshua Epps testified that he observed recent scratches on Jose Ibarra’s arms but none on Diego’s. Epps also noted dirt on Diego’s hat, which he said could have been transferred from Riley’s body.

When asked why his knuckles were red, Jose Ibarra told them it was because of the cold but didn’t really explain the scratches on his arms, one of the officers who helped with questioning the brothers said.

One of the Ibarra brothers' former roommates also took the stand Monday and testified how the two frequently shared clothing. He positively identified the man in one of the surveillance videos as Jose.

Flores Bello, another witness, also identified the man in the video by the dumpster as Jose Ibarra. She also said she had previously seen him wearing the dark hooded jacket and thought it was strange he was throwing it away.

Jail phone call played in court

Prosecutors also played a recording of a jail phone call from May between Ibarra and his wife, Layling Franco. FBI specialist Abeisis Ramirez, who translated the call from Spanish, testified that Ibarra told Franco that he had been at the University of Georgia looking for work, and that his wife repeatedly said she was fed up and that she wanted him to tell the truth.

Franco "continues to ask, ‘What happened with the girl?’" and said Ibarra "must know something," Ramirez said. He responds: "Layling, enough." Ramirez said Franco told Ibarra that it’s crazy that police only found his DNA.

Ibarra is charged with one count of malice murder, three counts of felony murder and one count each of kidnapping, aggravated assault, aggravated battery, hindering an emergency telephone call, tampering with evidence and being a peeping Tom.

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