The man accused of beating Georgia college student Laken Riley to death appeared in a Georgia court Friday as he pleaded not guilty to murder and other charges.
Members of Riley’s friends and family wept as they sat in the gallery behind Jose Ibarra.
A judge told lawyers and the defendant that he planned for another hearing in early August, and hoped to set the case for trial in the fall. The 10-minute hearing was the first time Ibarra had appeared in court since his February arrest for the murder of Riley.
On the morning of February 22, the Augusta University College of Nursing student was reported missing on Thursday after she set off for a morning jog at the University of Georgia’s intramural fields near Athens, Georgia. When Riley failed to return home for several hours, her concerned roommate called the police around noon.
Less than 40 minutes later, search teams located Riley in an area behind Lake Herrick. She was unconscious, not breathing and had visible injuries, police said.
The Athens-Clarke County Coroner’s Office and Morgue said that a preliminary autopsy found she died from blunt force trauma to the head. Investigators narrowed down the time frame of the incident to happening between 9am and 1pm on February 22. UGA Police Chief Jeff Clark said the killing appeared to be a “solo act” and that the suspect and victim did not know each other prior to the alleged attack.
“This was a crime of opportunity where he saw an individual, and bad things happened,” Clark said in a press conference.
Police affidavits revealed gruesome details of Riley’s death including that her skull was disfigured and she’d been dragged to a secluded area.
Soon after his arrest, it was revealed that Ibarra had entered the country illegally. On September 8, 2022, Customs and Border Protection officials encountered Ibarra after he crossed the US’s southern border with Mexico near El Paso, Texas. He was “paroled and released for further processing”, officials said. He was released until his arrest on the murder charges - and has been held without bond since.
Ibarra’s brother, Diego Jose Ibarra, was also arrested for possessing a fraudulent green card, arrest records show.
Riley’s murder sparked national outrage, with many conservative politicians railing against the nation’s immigration policies and blaming them for the college student’s death.
“Laken Riley’s tragic death struck the hearts of Georgians everywhere and has sparked national outrage,” Georgia Governor Brian Kemp said in a post on X.
“Joe Biden’s failed policies have turned every state into a border state, and I’m demanding information from him so we can protect our people when the federal government won’t!”
After saying that Ibarra illegally entered the country, Tennessee Sen Marsha Blackburn wrote: “The disastrous policies and negligence of the Biden administration is putting American lives at risk!”
