Murder of Laken Riley: The trial of an illegal immigrant begins after a legal move

Jose Ibarra, the suspect in the February murder of Augusta University student Laken Riley on the University of Georgia campus, will appear in court Friday on charges the beginning of his trial.

Ibarra, a 26-year-old illegal immigrant from Venezuela, allegedly attacked and killed Riley, a 22-year-old nursing student, while she was jogging along trails near Lake Herrick on the UGA campus the morning of February 22.

On Tuesday, Athens-Clarke County Judge Patrick Haggard granted Ibarra’s request for a bench trial on a jury trial, meaning evidence will only be presented to Haggard in court instead of a selected jury.

“He’s fast-tracking himself to life without parole,” Georgia-based criminal defense attorney Philip Holloway previously told Fox News Digital. “It will definitely speed things up.”

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Evidence to be presented at Ibarra’s trial includes: fingerprints, DNAcell phone records, as well as a jacket and gloves recovered from a dumpster outside Ibarra’s apartment complex and a “peeping tom” incident reported on the UGA campus the same morning Riley was killed.

Ibarra and his brothers too illegal in the United States from Venezuela, lived in an apartment complex less than a half mile from the campus park where Riley ran.

Ibarra allegedly killed the aspiring nurse in what UGA Police Chief Jeffrey Clark described as a “crime of opportunity.”

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In May, a Georgia grand jury indicted Ibarra on charges of malice murder, two counts of kidnapping with bodily harm, two counts of aggravated assault with intent to rape, two counts of aggravated battery, hindering or hindering a person from calling 911 making phone calls, tampering with evidence and being a ‘voyeur’.

Peeping Tom’s charges stem from another incident on February 22 in which the suspect allegedly went to a residence on the UGA campus in Athens and “peeped through” a window and “spyed” on a university employee, the complaint said.

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Ibarra entered the United States illegally El Paso, Texas, in September 2022 and was released on parole to the US, ICE and DHS sources previously told Fox News.

His older brother, Diego Ibarra, who briefly worked at a UGA cafeteria before his arrest in February, is accused of green card fraud and had ties to a known Venezuelan gang in the U.S. called Tren de Aragua, according to federal documents court.

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ICE previously confirmed to Fox News Digital that Jose Ibarra had been arrested by the New York Police Department a year after he entered the US in August 2023 and “was charged with acting in a manner likely to injure a child under 17 years of age and a motorcycle license violation.”

Fox News’ Adam Shaw contributed to this report.