The illegal immigrant suspected of murdering 22-year-old nursing student Laken Riley has been formally indicted for the crime and other offenses committed in Georgia. Riley’s gruesome case made national headlines amid ongoing discussions about the crisis at the southern border.
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The grand jury indicted Jose Ibarra, a 26-year-old Venezuela national, who had entered the country illegally in September 2022 in El Paso, Texas. He faces charges of malice murder and felony murder in connection with Riley’s death:
The indictment was returned on Tuesday and alleges that Ibarra killed the Augusta University student by “inflicting blunt force trauma to her head and by asphyxiating her” and seriously disfigured her head by striking her “multiple times” with a rock.
Additional charges in the 10-count indictment include aggravated battery, kidnapping with bodily injury, aggravated assault with intent to rape, obstructing or hindering a person making an emergency telephone call and tampering with evidence. The latter charge alleged that he “knowingly concealed” evidence — a jacket and gloves — involving the offense of malice murder.
He was also charged with a peeping tom offense. The indictment alleges that on the same day as Riley’s murder, he spied through the window of a different person who lived in an apartment on campus.
Ibarra was arrested on Feb. 23 and initially charged with malice murder, felony murder, aggravated battery, aggravated assault, false imprisonment, kidnapping, hindering a 911 call and concealing the death of another. He was denied bond and is being held at the Clarke County Jail.
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Riley was found deceased on Augusta University’s campus on Feb 22 after she did not return home after jogging. It is believed that Ibarra killed her by “inflicting blunt force trauma to her head and by asphyxiating her.” He is alleged to have struck her “multiple times” using a rock.
Riley’s death prompted a national outcry against the Biden administration’s ineffective immigration policies that allow folks like Ibarra to enter the country in violation of the law. The nursing student’s father has spoken out on multiple occasions about his daughter’s death at the hands of an illegal immigrant:
Appearing on NBC’s “TODAY,” Jason Riley expressed disappointment that the issue has become a hot topic politically but also pointed out that Ibarra should not have been here in the first place.
“We have no idea if that would have changed anything, but he’s here illegally,” Jason Riley said. “That he might not have been here had we had secure borders…”
“I understand them wanting to come here for a better life,” he said of migrants, “but when you have gang members and people who can commit violent crimes, especially against women, I think we can stop some of that.”
Former President Donald Trump ripped President Joe Biden for failing to prevent folks like Ibarra from making it into the country. He slammed the president for his failure to discuss Riley by name during the State of the Union address, and expressed his sympathy for her family. ,Trump said during an interview with Breitbart News:
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Her parents are great people. They lost an angel. They lost a person they loved more than anybody else. She was the top in her class and everything she ever did. She wanted to be a nurse and maybe would have ended up being a doctor.
The furor over Riley’s murder prompted House Republicans to introduce various pieces of legislation aimed at cracking down on the border crisis, an action the Biden administration and Democrats in the legislature have resisted.
