Ibarra filmed throwing away bloody clothes after Laken Riley murder

A day after nursing student Laken Riley’s body was found on the University of Georgia campus, UGA Police Chief Jeff Clark told the public that a suspect had been arrested and charged with murder based on “strong” evidence.

Among that evidence was a bloodstained jacket that was discovered in a dumpster at the apartment complex where Jose Antonio Ibarra lived. Classic City News has learned.

Authorities also found video footage showing Ibarra walking out of a wooded area near where the 22-year-old victim’s body was found and throwing the jacket into the dumpster. He also had scratches on his arms that suggested he had been involved in a fight.

At a news conference announcing Ibarra’s arrest, the UGA police chief said the breakthrough in the case was the result of “expert” police work, which members of the Athens-Clarke County Police Department interpreted as a nod to their colleague, Senior Constable Zach Davis.

Davis’ instincts and initiative are what led to the suspect’s arrest less than 24 hours after Riley’s body was found.

Events began to unfold around noon on Feb. 22 when a concerned friend called UGA police to report that Riley had not returned from her morning run on the university’s intramural fields.

Officers searched the area and located the 22-year-old student’s body along a running trail near Herrick Lake in the Oconee Forest Park area of ​​the UGA campus.

Riley had been fatally bludgeoned and the partial removal of his clothing suggested that sexual assault had been the killer’s motive.

As authorities desperately searched for clues, officers from the Athens-Clarke County Police Department helped by following up on an incident that occurred earlier in the day.

According to reports, UGA officers responded to a call at 7:57 a.m. from a resident of the University Village family housing complex on Rogers Road who reported a man was acting suspiciously and possibly trying to break into an apartment.

Although police were unable to locate the man, they viewed footage from the campus surveillance camera system that showed the man walking toward the area where Riley’s body would later be found, making him a person of interest in the murder investigation.

A major breakthrough came less than 10 hours after the investigation began.

ACCPD officers had been assisting by searching for evidence along South Milledge Avenue, including University Village, when SPO Davis decided to check out a neighboring property, Argo Apartments on Milledge. While searching through a dumpster, Davis recovered a jacket that had blood on it.

The next day, after sunrise, an officer observed Diego Ibarra peering out from outside an apartment, apparently to check for police activity.

At the time, he was arrested because he looked like the man who threw the jacket in the dumpster.

During Diego’s interrogation, police learned that he had a brother with whom he lived.

Investigators then turned their attention to the brother, José Ibarra, who had scratches on his arms, as if he had been injured in a fight.

He was taken into custody for questioning, and hours later, the UGA police chief announced in a nationally televised news conference that Jose Ibarra had been charged with the murder of Laken Riley.