The murder trial for Jose Ibarra, the suspect accused of killing 22-year-old nursing student Laken Riley on the University of Georgia’s campus, is scheduled to begin in mid-November, according to Athens-Clarke County Superior Court Judge H. Patrick Haggard. Jury selection is expected to start on November 13, with the trial commencing on November 18.
During a hearing on Friday morning, Ibarra appeared in court as his defense team filed a motion to move the trial out of Athens-Clarke County. They argued that finding an impartial jury locally would be impossible due to extensive media coverage of the case.
Judge Haggard gave prosecutors ten days to respond to the motion and expressed a desire to hold a motions hearing in late September or early October. Both the defense and prosecution agreed to the proposed schedule, with prosecutors aiming to complete the trial before Thanksgiving.
Ibarra, 26, was indicted in May by an Athens-Clarke County grand jury on charges of malice murder, felony murder, and other offenses. He has pleaded not guilty.
Riley, a student at Augusta University, was found dead on February 22 in a wooded area of the Athens campus after failing to return from a run. The indictment alleges that Ibarra inflicted blunt force trauma to her head and asphyxiated her, disfiguring her head by striking her multiple times with a rock.
The ten-count indictment against Ibarra includes charges of aggravated battery, kidnapping with bodily injury, aggravated assault with intent to rape, obstructing a person making an emergency call, and tampering with evidence. He is also accused of a peeping tom offense, allegedly spying through a window on the same day as Riley’s murder.
In a separate motion, the defense sought to sever the peeping tom charge from the indictment, arguing it pertains to a different alleged victim and would cause significant prejudice.
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Ibarra, who has been held at the Clarke County Jail without bond since his arrest on February 23, is a migrant from Venezuela who reportedly entered the U.S. illegally in 2022. Authorities believe he did not know Riley and that her death was a “crime of opportunity,” which has fueled calls for immigration reform among some conservatives.
