Jose Ibarra, a 26-year-old Venezuelan migrant in the United States illegally, has been convicted on charges of malice murder and felony murder in the death of Laken Riley and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
The 22-year-old student was killed the morning of Feb. 22 in the woods at the University of Georgia, where she was struck in the head with a rock and asphyxiated during an attempted sexual assault. Ibarra waived his right to a jury trial and elected to have a bench trial, where the judge was the sole person responsible for a verdict and sentencing.
Ibarra was seen on police video with scratches during questioning by campus police, and another video spotted him disposing of a jacket that was believed to have her blood on it.
His former roommate and trial witness, Rosbeli Flores Bello, identified him in the video throwing away a jacket in a dumpster. She also confirmed that he received a taxpayer-funded flight from New York to Atlanta in September 2023.
The defense attempted to claim the evidence was “circumstantial” and did not link him to the crime despite witness testimony and digital forensics showing his cellphone linked close to Riley’s cellphone location.
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Riley’s murder created a political firestorm of criticism of the Biden-Harris administration’s immigration policies. In the month following her death, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) confronted President Joe Biden during his State of the Union address when she demanded he say the student’s name. During the address, he did say Riley’s name in a garbled pronunciation.
Her case led to more attention to other women across the country being murdered by violent migrants illegally coming across the border.
