Editor’s note: Defendant Jose Antonio Ibarra pleaded not guilty in this case on May 31.
The man accused of killing nursing student Laken Riley in February was indicted Wednesday on charges of murder and aggravated assault with intent to rape as well as for an earlier incident in which he allegedly peeped into the window of a student.
Jose Antonio Ibarra, 26, was indicted on 10 counts in all: malice murder, three counts of felony murder, kidnapping with bodily injury, aggravated assault with intent to rape, aggravated battery, obstructing a person making an emergency call, tampering with evidence and peeping Tom, according to the indictment.
Riley, a 22-year-old Augusta University College of Nursing student, was killed on February 22 while out for a run on the University of Georgia’s campus.
Ibarra struck Riley in the head with a rock multiple times and asphyxiated her, according to the indictment. In addition, he was charged under Georgia’s “peeping Tom” law for allegedly going to a University of Georgia apartment building on the same day as the murder, looking through the window and spying on a student, the indictment states.
Ibarra was arrested a day later and had been charged with felony murder, false imprisonment and kidnapping and concealing the death of another, according to jail records.
The public defender’s office representing Ibarra declined to comment on the indictment.
Ibarra, of Athens, Georgia, is an undocumented immigrant from Venezuela who was not a university student. Investigators said there was no evidence they knew each other, and police described the killing as a “very isolated incident.”
The killing and suspect’s immigration status renewed debate on the country’s immigration policies at the highest level. President Joe Biden held up a pin with Riley’s name on it at the State of the Union address in March.
“Laken Riley, an innocent young woman who was killed by an illegal. That’s right, but how many thousands of people are killed by legals?” Biden said. “To her parents, I say, my heart goes out to you, having lost children myself, I understand.”
He later told MSNBC he should have used the term “undocumented” rather than “illegal.”
Spurred by the killing, Georgia officials signed into law immigration enforcement legislation last week. The law requires local and state law officials to verify the immigration status of those over the age of 18 who have been arrested, those in detention or those who an “officer has probable cause to believe” have committed a crime.
Many researchers crunching the numbers have found there’s no connection between immigration and crime. Some have even found that immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than people born in the US.
