The Venezuelan man convicted of killing Georgia nursing student Laken Riley has been sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Jose Ibarra was accused of murder and other crimes in Riley’s February death, and the guilty verdict was handed down Wednesday by Athens-Clarke County Superior Court Judge H. Patrick Haggard. Ibarra, 26, had waived his right to a jury trialthat is, Haggard alone heard and decided the case.

Haggard found Ibarra guilty of all 10 counts against him: one count of malicious murder; three counts of murder; and one count each of kidnapping with bodily injury, aggravated assault with intent to rape, aggravated assault, obstructing an emergency call, tampering with evidence and being a peeping Tom.

Riley’s family and friends tearfully remembered her and asked the judge to sentence Ibarra to the maximum sentence. Her mother called him a “monster” and her father called him “a really bad person”.

Ibarra did not react when an interpreter relayed their words to him.

Before announcing the verdict, Haggard said that as he listened to closing arguments, he jotted down two things the attorneys had said on a notebook. He noted that prosecutor Sheila Ross called the evidence “overwhelming and powerful” and that defense attorney Kaitlyn Beck reminded him that he was “required to put my emotions aside” in making his decision.

Riley kills added fuel to the national debate on immigration, when federal authorities said Ibarra entered the U.S. illegally in 2022 and was allowed to remain in the country while pursuing his immigration case. But no mention was made of Ibarra’s immigration status during the trial.

“Laken Riley herself has given you all the evidence you need” to find Ibarra guilty on all counts, Ross told the judge during her closing. She added that the physical evidence is sufficient and corroborated by forensic, digital and video evidence to “tie this very strong knot from which this defendant cannot escape. There is no way out for him.”

The evidence shows that Ibarra killed Riley “because she wouldn’t let him rape her.”

Ross said Ibarra’s DNA was found under Riley’s fingernails, and her and Ibarra’s DNA were found on a jacket police found in a trash can at his apartment complex . A man seen on security footage throwing that jacket away was identified as Ibarra by his brother and another roommate, she said.

Riley was wearing “tight running clothes designed not to move,” Ross said. When her body was found, the waist of her running tights had been pulled down and her jacket, shirt and sports bra had been pulled up, evidence that her clothes had been replaced by an attempted sexual assault, not by dragging. Ross said.

Surveillance video shows a man wearing clothes that appear to match those seen in a selfie Ibarra took on his phone earlier that morning, lingering outside a graduate student’s apartment. That student told police someone tried to break in through the front door while she was in the shower and looked through the window.

Ibarra was “prowling around and hunting females,” and when he couldn’t get into the apartment, he turned to jogging paths in search of a victim, Ross said.

Defense attorney Kaitlyn Beck told the judge that the evidence was circumstantial and did not conclusively prove Ibarra’s guilt.

“Because the evidence is open to multiple interpretations, it is not beyond a reasonable doubt,” she said.

Beck sought to question a DNA testing method used to test some of the evidence. She noted that when a fingerprint found on Riley’s phone was entered into a database, Ibarra did not come back as a match and that a specialist visually matched the prints.

She said there was “doubt based on what was tested and what was not tested” because investigators had not tested some of the evidence they collected.

Throughout the testimony and in Beck’s closing, defense attorneys tried to cast doubt on Jose Ibarra’s guilt by suggesting that his brother, Diego, could not be ruled out as a suspect.

The trial began Friday, and prosecutors called more than a dozen law enforcement officers, Riley’s roommates and a woman who lived in the same apartment as Ibarra. Defense attorneys called a police officer, a jogger and one of Ibarra’s neighbors Tuesday and rested their case Wednesday morning.

ROSSI he told the judge that Ibarra encountered Riley while she was jogging on the University of Georgia campus on February 22 and killed her during a struggle. Riley, 22, was a student at Augusta University’s College of Nursing, which also has a campus in Athens, about 70 miles (115 kilometers) east of Atlanta.

Defense attorney Dustin Kirby said in his opening that Riley’s death was a tragedy and called the evidence in the case graphic and disturbing. But he said there was not enough evidence to prove his client killed Riley.

Riley’s parents, roommates and other friends and family packed the courtroom throughout the trial.