ATHENS, Ga. – ATHENS, Ga. – It’s not unusual for college students to jog along the dirt trails that weave around Lake Herrick and various intramural fields on the south part of the University of Georgia’s campus in Athens.
That’s what Laken Riley, a 22-year-old nursing student at Augusta University, set out to do on Thursday morning, as she did many mornings, but Riley didn’t come home this time.
Her roommate contacted campus police to report her missing, and within half an hour, authorities found Riley dead in a wooded area behind the lake with “visible injuries.”
That morning, 26-year-old Jose Antonio Ibarra, an illegal immigrant from Venezeula living in an apartment building that sits on the edge of the park where Riley was running, allegedly murdered the aspiring nurse in what UGA Police Chief Jeffrey Clark described as a “crime of opportunity.”
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Ibarra is now facing charges of malice murder, felony murder, aggravated battery, aggravated assault, false imprisonment, kidnapping, hindering a 911 call and concealing the death of another.
Riley died of blunt force trauma, Clark said during a Friday evening press conference announcing Ibarra’s quick arrest.
The scenic 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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