Laken Riley murder: Illegal immigrant suspect in Georgia college student slaying asks to hide certain evidence
FIRST ON FOX – Jose Ibarra, the suspect charged in the February murder of Augusta University nursing student Laken Riley, is asking for a hearing to suppress a list of evidentiary items, including cellphones, a buccal swab and social media accounts.
Ibarra, a 26-year-old illegal immigrant from Venezuela, is accused of attacking and killing Riley, 22, while she was out for a run along dirt trails on the University of Georgia campus in Athens on the morning of Feb. 22.
Specifically, Ibarra is asking to suppress "(a) two cellular devices believed by the State to belong to Defendant and the information contained within them; (b) genetic and physical information taken from the person of Defendant; (c) the contents of Defendant’s social media accounts, which include Snapchat, TikTok, Facebook, and Instagram; and (d) location data obtained from Google, Inc. In support of this motion," a court document filed on Thursday reads.
Ibarra's defense is arguing that the aforementioned items were unlawfully collected by law enforcement and that detectives entered his residence without a search warrant. He is asking for the evidence to be suppressed under the "fruit of the poisonous tree" doctrine, which makes certain evidence inadmissible if acquired through illegal measures.
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Ibarra's defense further states in court documents filed Thursday that the suspect was "detained without reasonable suspicion that he had committed any offense on February 23, 2024."
In addition to his request to suppress evidence, Ibarra is also asking to exclude testimony from a witness who performed DNA testing during Riley's autopsy, alleging that the results "did not exclude Defendant, but also did not exclude another known individual associated with the case."
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"Due to the complexity of the mixture used in testing, the testing was analyzed by using TrueAllele Casework Software. Results of this analysis were reported by [Ashley Hinkle, forensic biologist for the Georgia Bureau of Investigation] on April 3, 2024. Those results gave various probabilities of whether or not the sample in question was more or less likely to be a particular individual or a coincidental match," court documents state.
A Georgia grand jury in May indicted Ibarra on counts of malice murder, two counts of kidnapping with bodily injury, two counts of aggravated assault with intent to rape, two counts of aggravated battery, obstructing or hindering a person from making a 911 call, tampering with evidence and being a "peeping Tom."
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The suspect is accused of causing Riley's death by inflicting blunt-force trauma to her head and "asphyxiating her in a manner unknown to jurors," the indictment states.
The suspect is also accused of going to a residence on UGA's campus, where he "peeped through" a window and "spied upon" a university staff member on the same day he allegedly killed Riley, the indictment alleges.
Ibarra and his brothers, also in the United States illegally from Venezuela, lived in an apartment building that sits on the edge of the on-campus park where Riley was running, allegedly murdered the aspiring nurse in what UGA Police Chief Jeffrey Clark described as a "crime of opportunity."
The quiet, wooded loop Riley ran that morning is easily accessible from behind Ibarra’s apartment complex. It is a five-minute walk from Ibarra’s door to the approximate scene where Riley was found dead.
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The 26-year-old suspect illegally crossed into the United States through El Paso, Texas, in September 2022 and was released into the U.S. via parole, ICE and DHS sources previously told Fox News. His older brother, Diego Ibarra, is charged with green card fraud and had ties to a known Venezuelan gang in the U.S., according to federal court documents.
UGA said in a February statement following Riley's death that the school has invested $16 million "over the last eight years to hire more police officers, install more security cameras, enhance lighting, establish a nightly rideshare program, and create a UGASafe app."
Since February, the school has committed more than $7.3 million to more safety measures, including a 20% increase to UGA's police budget, emergency blue lights, and a university-focused rideshare program.
Ibarra's trial is scheduled to take place in November.