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Laken Riley murder trial: Suspect Jose Ibarra sees evidence in UGA campus killing
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Laken Riley murder trial: Suspect Jose Ibarra sees evidence in UGA campus killing

The bench trial for the man accused of killing a nursing student on the UGA campus resumes Monday. Jose Ibarra faces multiple charges, including manslaughter, in connection with the death of a 22-year-old man Laken Riley.

The judge will be the one who will rule according to the case Ibarra waived his right to a jury trial.

It was an emotional day in court Friday as the state played body camera footage of the moment an officer discovered Laken Riley’s body in a wooded area on the UGA campus.

“Her encounter with him was long. Her fight with him was fierce,” special prosecutor Sheila Ross said in her opening statements Friday.

Riley’s roommates called the police on the morning of February 22 when she did not return home from her morning run.

“She would run a long time, but I knew she had class that day and I knew she wasn’t late or out of schedule,” said Connolly Huth, one of Riley’s roommates.

In her opening statement, Ross laid out the evidence she plans to present, including home surveillance video from Ibarra’s apartment complex that she said showed him throwing a jacket into a dumpster and wearing black gloves in the bushes, both with Riley’s DNA.

She said Snapchat images Ibarra took that morning show him wearing the same clothes as the man in the video.

She also said the watch Riley was wearing showed his heart stopped 18 minutes after he met Ibarra.

“She fought for her life. She fought for her dignity,” Ross said.

She previewed surveillance video that she claimed showed Ibarra glancing at another female student just hours before Riley’s death.

The defense argued that all this evidence does not clearly prove that Ibarra was behind Riley’s death.

“The evidence in this case is very good that Laken Riley was killed. The evidence that Jose Ibarra killed Laken Riley is circumstantial,” said defense attorney Dustin Kirby.

Ibarra pleaded not guilty. Prosecutors are seeking a life sentence without the possibility of parole.

Source: This is an original report by FOX 5 Atlanta’s Kim Leoffler. Contains references to previous reports by FOX 5 Atlanta.