ATHENS — Hours before the killing of nursing student Laken Riley, the man charged in her death posted photos of himself on social media.
In those images, Jose Ibarra is wearing a black-and-white shirt, a black Adidas hat and a blue jacket. That’s significant, an FBI agent testified, because a security camera captured video of a similarly dressed man discarding into a dumpster a blue jacket that, when tested, contained Riley’s DNA.
Agent Jaime Hipkiss took the witness stand Monday, the second day of Ibarra’s trial.
Ibarra, a Venezuelan who authorities say entered the country illegally in 2022, is charged with felony murder, malice murder, kidnapping with bodily injury, aggravated assault with intent to rape, aggravated battery, hindering a 911 call and tampering with evidence. He has pleaded not guilty to those charges.
The prosecution spent much of Monday trying to prove to Superior Court Judge H. Patrick Haggard, who will render a verdict in the case, that Ibarra and the man in the video footage are one and the same.
Credit: Miguel Martinez-Jimenez
Credit: Miguel Martinez-Jimenez
Hipkiss said Ibarra’s DNA was found on the jacket, along with Riley’s.
Using cellphone records, WhatsApp communications and social media posts, Hipkiss put together a timeline of Ibarra’s movements the night before and the morning of Riley’s Feb. 22 killing on a running trail near the intramural fields on the University of Georgia campus.
He said Ibarra made a purchase at a liquor store close to his apartment and stayed up into the wee hours of the morning. The defendant posted photos on Snapchat around 4:30 a.m. and 5:30 a.m. Cellphone data shows Ibarra left his residence at 6:52 a.m., according to FBI agent James Berni.
Special prosecutor Sheila Ross called a UGA graduate student to the stand to testify that someone had tried to get into her apartment just after 7:30 a.m. while she was in the shower. When she looked through her peephole, she said, she saw a person dressed in dark clothing, wearing a hat and hood and black gloves. Investigators contend that person was Ibarra. The student called 911. Police say Ibarra left before officers arrived.
Another woman testified she was running that morning on the trails near the intramural fields when she saw a man who made her feel uneasy around 8:24 a.m. He was standing off the gravel trail, near a retention pond. She testified that she quickened her pace.
The woman said she never made eye contact with the man and couldn’t identify him, but that he was wearing a hat and navy jacket.
It was about 9 a.m. when Riley went out for a jog.
Data from her Garmin watch shows she was running at a fast pace at 9:09 a.m., according to testimony by Wesley Durkit, a UGA police IT analyst. A minute later, Riley came to a complete stop and called 911. When a police dispatcher asked what her emergency was, Riley didn’t answer. Investigators say Ibarra interrupted the call.
The Garmin watch tracked Riley’s heartbeat until 9:28 a.m., the time prosecutors say she died.
At 9:44 a.m., the security video captures a man at a dumpster located about 500 yards from where Riley’s body was found. The recording showed that man was wearing a flat-billed black Adidas hat. Rosebeli Flores-Bello, who lived with the defendant and two of the defendant’s brothers at the time of Riley’s killing, testified Monday that the man in the dumpster video is Jose Ibarra.
Cellphone data indicates Ibarra returned to his apartment at 9:50 a.m., testified FBI agent Berni. The data shows that Riley’s Garmin watch and a Samsung device police say belonged to Ibarra were in close proximity to each other from 9:10 a.m. until about 9:32.
”I would say that they (were) very close,” Berni said.
University of Georgia police Sgt. Joshua Epps told the judge that the morning after Riley’s killing officers spotted Diego Ibarra, Jose Ibarra’s brother, wearing what looked to be the same Adidas hat at the Cielo Azulyk apartment complex and stopped to question him.
Epps was called to the complex that day. Speaking to Diego Ibarra, Epps said, he noticed dirt on the brim of the cap. That made him suspicious, “because I was on scene when we located Laken the day prior. She did have a lot of dirt, mulch — things like that — on her body,” Epps said. “I felt like dirt could have been transferred to the hat.”
Diego complied with officers’ request to look at his arms and torso to check for injuries that might have been received in an attack on Riley.
Epps said they found none.
When officers checked the apartment, they encountered Jose Ibarra. Epps testified he saw scratches on Jose Ibarra’s arms and wrists, red marks on his knuckles and what appeared to be bruising on the palm of his left hand.
“I asked him how he received those scratches, and he didn’t give me a clear answer at all,” testified UGA police officer Rafael Sayan, who acted as an interpreter that day for the Ibarras, who speak Spanish.
Testimony in the trial will resume Tuesday.
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