ATHENS, Ga. – Georgia prosecutors on Monday said Jose Ibarra, accused of killing Augusta University nursing student Lak Riley on the University of Georgia campus in February, used a jailhouse phone call to his wife. held at the scene, according to a Fox News aide. Paul Morrow.
Ibarra, a 26-year-old Venezuelan national, is charged with 10 counts in connection with Riley’s killing on the morning of Feb. 22, when Riley went for her usual morning walk along the trails on the UGA campus near Lake Herrick. He will appear in an Athens courtroom on Tuesday for the third day of his murder trial.
On Monday, the second day of Ibarra’s trial, an Athens-Clarke County courtroom listened to a recorded jailhouse phone call between Ibarra and his wife, Liling Franco, that was played loudly and an FBI analyst. Translated by a fluent Spanish speaker.
“She said she thinks it’s crazy that they don’t have anyone else’s DNA, they only have hers. And she says she doesn’t understand how anyone can Can watch dying and not call. [sic] 911,” FBI analyst Abyss Ramirez testified in court Monday while translating calls for prosecutors.
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Jose Ibarra addresses a witness during his trial in Athens-Clarke County Superior Court, Monday, Nov. 18, 2024, in Athens, Ga. (Miguel Martinez/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP, Poll)
Morrow, a former executive officer of the New York Police Department’s Intelligence Operations and Analysis Bureau, said the call essentially places Ibarra at the scene of the crime.
“She very clearly doesn’t believe it. … She says, at one point, ‘Jose, I know you,’ a very … telling moment,” Morrow said of the call with Franco. I said.. “And then at one point … the real crushing statement is when she tells him, ‘I can’t believe someone could see someone dying and not call 911.’
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An exterior view of Jose Antonio Ibarra’s apartment on Saturday, February 24, 2024 in Athens, Georgia. Ibarra has been charged with Riley’s murder after she was found dead on a walking path on the University of Georgia campus earlier this week. (Mark Sims for Fox News Digital)
Morrow said he believed the phone call “referred to her telling him, I was there, I saw the body, but I didn’t call 911, and I didn’t.”
“The most interesting thing, I thought, was actually the most prosaic, which is the fact that [Riley] The fingernails are scratched — he had skin under the nails — from the fight of his life, and Jose got these injuries from that kind of fight,” Morrow said of the UGA Police Department bodycam footage played in court Monday. The citation said investigators showed signs of injury on Ibarra’s body.
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But Riley posed for a photo posted on Facebook. Riley, a nursing student at the University of Georgia, was found dead on February 22 near a lake on campus. An illegal immigrant has been charged with her murder. (But Rally/Facebook)
UGA PD Patrol Cp. Rafael Sian testified Monday that he questioned Ibarra on Feb. 23 — the day after Riley’s murder — about bruises on his hands and arms, which Ibarra attributed to normal scratches or bleeding from the cold February weather. cleaned as
Bodycam footage of This Morning Show officers’ first meeting with Ibarra on February 23. They initially arrived at the apartment around 8:30 a.m. on February 23 and questioned Jose’s brothers, Diego and Argens Ibarra, before obtaining a search warrant and leaving. inside the apartment.
WATCH: Police enter Jose Ibarra’s apartment:
The footage shows the officers walking in, shining a light on Jose, who was in bed at the time, and repeatedly yelling “Hula” in an attempt to wake him up. After about a minute, Jose gets out of bed and puts his hands up.
“This is speculation, but I suspect he was possibly highly intoxicated.[icated]Morrow said, noting that investigators linked a white plastic cup to the scene of Riley’s killing that smelled of alcohol. Security camera footage taken near the scene that morning showed A suspicious man was seen holding a white cup. Late on Monday, investigators found a similar white, plastic cup that smelled of alcohol, according to testimony from law enforcement.
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A general view of the area where Riley’s body was found on Saturday, February 24, 2024, near Lake Herrick on the campus of the University of Georgia in Athens, Georgia. Jose Antonio Ibarra has been charged with Riley’s murder after she was killed earlier. Saturday (Mark Sims for Fox News Digital)
The suspect is charged with a total of 10 counts, including one count of malicious murder, three counts of aggravated murder, one count of kidnapping, one count of aggravated assault with intent to rape, and aggravated battery. includes one count of obstructing a 911 call; , one count of tampering with evidence and one count of being a “peeping tom.” Ibarra pleaded not guilty to all counts.
Prosecutor Ross said Ibarra then came face-to-face with Riley on a routine morning run and assaulted him.
But Riley’s killing has gripped the nation as the border crisis continues. (Elijah Noelage/AFP via Getty Images)
“On February 22nd, Jose Ibarra was wearing a black hat, a hoodie-style jacket, and some black kitchen-style disposable gloves, and he was on the campus of the University of Georgia for women,” Ross said in his opening statement Friday. Went hunting.” .
Ibarra and his brother, also in the U.S. illegally from Venezuela, lived in an apartment building less than a half mile from the on-campus park where the rally was taking place.
The defendant’s attorney, Dustin Kirby, argued in his opening statement that the evidence did not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Ibarra killed Riley. He said it would require “gymnastics” for prosecutors to argue that Ibarra killed Riley with what he described as “circumstantial evidence.”
Jose Ibarra, who is accused of killing a Georgia nursing student earlier this year, listens through an interpreter as he speaks to his attorney Dustin Kirby, second left, during his arraignment in Athens-Clarke County Superior Court. , and Caitlin Beck, left, sits with 15, 2024, Athens, Ga. (Hyosub Shin/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP, Pool)
“If that is the case and the presumption of innocence is respected, there must not be enough evidence to convince you beyond a reasonable doubt that Mr. Ibarra is guilty of these crimes,” Kirby said. said on Monday.
UGA Police Chief Jeffrey Clark previously called the killing a “crime of opportunity” during a press conference in February.
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Jose Ibarra looks down as he listens through an interpreter during his arraignment in Athens-Clarke County Superior Court, Monday, Nov. 18, 2024, in Athens, Ga. (Miguel Martinez/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP, Polo)
Ibarra entered the United States illegally El Paso, Texas in September 2022 and released to the U.S. on parole, ICE and DHS sources previously told Fox News.
Diego Ibarra, who briefly worked in the UGA cafeteria before his arrest in February, is accused of green card fraud and ties to the Train de Aragua, a notorious Venezuelan gang in the U.S., federal court ruled. According to the documents of
On Friday afternoon, the defense arraigned Diego Ibarra and his younger brother, Argens Ibarra, to testify during Jose’s trial on Wednesday.
But Riley posed for a photo posted on Facebook. Raleigh, a nursing student at the University of Georgia, was found dead near a lake on campus on Thursday, February 22, 2024. (Alison Phillips/Facebook)
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ICE previously confirmed to Fox News Digital that it had arrested Jose Ibarra. New York Police Department A year after he entered the United States in August 2023, he was charged with “injury to a child under 17 years of age and violation of a motor vehicle license.”
Some criminal cases become “representative of something bigger than themselves,” Morrow said, and Riley’s case is one of them.
“It forced…threw these issues forward. All of a sudden, you had to talk about this stuff,” Morrow said, referring to the topic of illegal immigration.
The former NYPD officer also praised the UGA Police Department’s quick work to arrest the suspect just one day after Riley’s murder.
Adam Shaw of Fox News contributed to this report.
