The Venezuelan immigrant accused of murdering Georgia student Laken Riley in February pleaded not guilty of the charges pressed against him. He was indicted in early May and faces 10 charges, among them felony murder, malice murder, kidnapping with bodily injury and aggravated assault with intent to rape.
Prosecutors in the case are looking for Ibarra to be sentenced to life without parole, which would rule out the death penalty, according to documents seen by Fox News.
Riley, a nursing student at the Augusta University College of Nursing, disappeared after going for a jog on February 22. She was later found dead as a result of "blunt force trauma," police said.
University Police Chief Jeff Clark said that it didn't look like Ibarra new Riley and that the killing was a "crime of opportunity where he saw an individual and bad things happened." According to the grand jury's indictment, Ibarra tried to rape Riley before "inflicting blunt-force trauma to her head and "asphyxiating her in a manner unknown to jurors."
He has also been accused of going to an apartment in the University of Georgia premises and "peeping through" a window and "spying upon" a university staff member on the same day he killed riley.
Ibarra's status as an undocumented migrant was a salient factor in the case, with presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump using it to criticize president Joe Biden's border policies.
Moreover, state Republicans introduced shortly after a bill requiring, among other things, that all people taken to a jail in the state have their migratory status checked.
Governor Brian Kemp said that the bill "became one of our top priorities following the senseless death of Laken Riley at the hands of someone in this country illegally who had already been arrested even after crossing the border." The bill was approved by the Georgia legislature and signed into law in early May.
"If you enter our country illegally and proceed to commit further crime in our communities, we will not allow your crimes to go unanswered," Kemp added at the bill signing event. According to HB1105, sheriff's offices face losing state funding if they don't comply with the bill.
Advocates say the law will improve public safety, while detractors warn it could further erode trust between law enforcement and the state's large Latino community.
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