The brutal murder of 22-year-old nursing student Laken Riley on the University of Georgia campus last week has sparked concerns among other students and women joggers who run alone.
Riley, a student at Augusta University, was allegedly murdered by 26-year-old Jose Ibarra, an illegal immigrant from Venezuela, while she was jogging along dirt trails near Lake Herrick in Athens in what UGA Police described as a “crime of opportunity.”
“It’s a mother’s worst nightmare,” Michelle, the mother of a female UGA student and a UGA alumnus, previously told Fox News Digital.
Michelle said she’s told her daughter countless times to be careful when she walks alone and to only go running with her Labrador retriever.
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“It shakes people to their core because it makes people realize there’s a dirty underbelly we don’t see,” she said. “My heart breaks. I’ve been praying for [Riley’s] mom every time she comes to mind.”
Numerous women have taken to social media to share safety tips for solo female joggers and share their own stories of scary encounters while running. Sarah Lyoness, a Chicago-based runner who is training for a marathon, produced a video sharing jogger safety tips that went viral on TikTok.
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“I used to live in Omaha, Nebraska, and there was a trail … away from a lot of traffic. You could see cornfields for miles, and so it was pretty empty. And if I would go early in the…
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