Laken Riley Murder: Friends’ 911 Call Played at the Jose Ibarra Trial

The illegal immigrant accused of murdering University of Georgia nursing student Laken Riley sat in court on the first day of her trial Friday and heard the 911 call her friends made reporting her missing.

Jose Ibarra, 26, is accused of killing the 22-year-old in February after she was out jogging on campus in Athens, Georgia, where Ibarra was a resident.

The Venezuelan national was arrested the day after Riley’s body was found, and his immigration status thrust the case into the national spotlight, with immigration a key issue in the 2024 presidential election.

Prosecutors say Ibarra hit Riley in the head, choked her and intended to sexually assault her, but his attorney argues that the evidence is inconsistent, particularly in relation to the last charge.

As Ibarra’s trial began Friday, the court heard from Riley’s roommates, who called 911 the day she died.

“We were roommates, but the term roommates is an overgeneralization of our relationship,” Lilly Steiner said in court. “Our house was like a little family and we called each other family.

“We did everything together, we had family dinners, family TV nights and movie nights. Laken brought a sense of joy to our lives that has been missed ever since.”

What happened to Laken Riley?

Riley was a nursing student at Augusta University’s campus in Athens, Georgia. She had been a student at UGA until May 2023.

On the morning of February 22, 2024, the student went for a run around a lake on campus but did not return home.

Police responded to a missing persons call around noon that same day. Riley’s body was found about an hour later.

Prosecutors say she had been hit in the head several times with a rock. She had also suffocated. Officers said at the time that her cause of death was blunt force trauma.

University Police Chief Jeff Clark said Riley’s murder was a “crime of opportunity.”

Who Killed Laken Riley?

Prosecutors believe Jose Ibarra is Riley’s killer. Officers arrested him after tracking his movements through surveillance camera footage.

Ibarra was charged with malicious murder, felony murder, aggravated assault, aggravated assault, false imprisonment, kidnapping, obstructing a 911 call and concealing the death of another. In total, he faces 10 charges, which he denies.

The 26-year-old lived less than a mile from campus at the time, but his history in the United States quickly became a focal point of Riley’s case.

Ibarra arrived in the United States in September 2022 after crossing the southwest border illegally in El Paso, Texas. Immigration officials detained him but later released him while his case was pending.

The suspect was later arrested in New York in August 2023. It is not clear at what point between that date and February 2024 he arrived in Georgia.

Ibarra’s immigration status drew the attention of then-preferred Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, who blamed the Biden administration and its border policies for Riley’s death.

The case became one of a handful of deaths linked to illegal immigrants that were picked up by the GOP, which argued that criminals were pouring into the country over the “open” Southwest border.

While some, including Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor-Greene, called for the death penalty, prosecutors are now pursuing a life sentence without parole.

Ibarra waived his right to a jury trial earlier this week.

What we know about the Laken Riley 911 call

During the hearing in Athens on Friday, Riley’s former roommate Lilly Steiner testified, describing their campus home as more than just a group of roommates, but a family unit.

Steiner, 22, was the one who called 911 with her friends when they became concerned about Riley on Feb. 22, and prosecutors played the recording in court.

“We’re calling because our roommate was out running at 9, she usually runs…behind the academics house and we haven’t heard from her,” Steiner told the dispatcher. “We went to see where her last location was and all we found was an AirPod.”

The friends said they had tried to call Riley, but she did not answer. The dispatcher told them to go to the last known location to meet officers who were on their way around 10:00 p.m.

“She’s in 1st grade. She’s in nursing school and she doesn’t miss class,” said Sofia Magana, who was also on the call, explaining that Riley’s location hadn’t changed in about 3.5 hours.

Magana was later shown the single AirPod she had found looking for Riley and later turned over to police officers.

Later, the court heard a 911 call made just after 1 p.m. 9 in the morning, which contained no discernible speech.

“Can anyone hear me?” the dispatcher was heard asking as birds were heard chirping in the background on the other end of the line.