Migrant Gets Life Sentence for Killing Laken Riley in Case Seized On by Trump

The sentencing came hours after a judge issued a guilty verdict. The case became a flashpoint in the bitter national debate over immigration policy.

A 26-year-old migrant from Venezuela was convicted on Wednesday of murdering Laken Riley, a Georgia nursing student whose killing has been repeatedly cited by President-elect Donald J. Trump in his push for the mass deportation of millions of undocumented people.

Ms. Riley, 22, was attacked in February while running on a trail on the University of Georgia campus in Athens. A day later, the authorities charged Jose Antonio Ibarra, a migrant who had entered the country illegally, in connection with the killing.

Mr. Ibarra faced numerous charges, including malice murder and aggravated assault with the intent to rape.

Judge H. Patrick Haggard of State Superior Court in Athens-Clarke County found him guilty and sentenced him to life in prison without the possibility of parole after a four-day bench trial. Judge Haggard announced the verdict just minutes after lawyers concluded their arguments, repeating a prosecutor’s earlier statement that the “evidence was overwhelming and powerful.”

The judge, rather than a jury, decided the case at the request of Mr. Ibarra’s lawyers after they tried unsuccessfully to move the case out of Athens. On Wednesday, lawyers for Mr. Ibarra said that their decision to seek a bench trial was based on concerns that a jury in Athens could not review the evidence dispassionately.

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For months, Ms. Riley’s name had been invoked by conservatives, who argued that her death had been the result of a failure by the Biden administration to secure the nation’s borders. On the campaign trail, Mr. Trump called Mr. Ibarra a “monster.” Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, Republican of Georgia, heckled President Biden about the case during his State of the Union address, goading him into addressing it.

In a post on social media on Wednesday afternoon, Mr. Trump wrote in part, “We love you, Laken, and our hearts will always be with you. It is time to secure our border, and remove these criminals and thugs from our country, so nothing like this can happen again!”

During the trial, prosecutors largely skirted issues related to Mr. Ibarra’s immigration status. Instead, they zeroed in on Feb. 22, portraying him as a predator who was out that morning hunting for women and Ms. Riley as a victim who happened to cross his path.

Prosecutors described a harrowing struggle as Ms. Riley tried to fend off her attacker, sinking her fingernails into his arms and neck, leaving deep scratches. Then, prosecutors said that Mr. Ibarra dragged her off the running trail, where he strangled her and hit her over the head with a rock — using it “like it was a hammer,” Sheila Ross, the special prosecutor leading the case, said in her closing arguments.

“The evidence in this case,” she added, “has spoken loud and clear that he is Laken Riley’s killer.”

Mr. Ibarra’s lawyers argued that the evidence against him was circumstantial and inconclusive, and that his brother, Diego Ibarra, with whom he shared an apartment in Athens, could have been the culprit. His lawyers contended that Diego Ibarra was taller and more athletic than his brother.

“Jose was short, he was chubby,” Kaitlyn Beck, one of the defense lawyers, said in her closing arguments.

“She was fast, she could have outrun him,” Ms. Beck added, referring to Ms. Riley. “But there’s another suspect in this case who is taller, who is more physically fit.”

Prosecutors relied on technology, including cellphone data and tracking data from a running watch, to provide a detailed accounting of the attack and the frantic search as Ms. Riley’s roommates and the authorities tried to find her that morning.

Ms. Riley had set out for a run shortly after 9 a.m., listening to music and running at a fast clip. But about 10 minutes later, she activated the emergency function on her iPhone, calling 911. The line was silent for nearly a minute before a man could be heard saying “Yo tengo,” or “I have,” in Spanish, according to a recording enhanced by investigators.

By 9:28 a.m., Ms. Riley’s smartwatch no longer detected her heartbeat.

She and her roommates shared their phone locations with one another, and they used that information to try to find her.

Her body was found around 12:30 p.m. by a campus police officer. She had been dragged about 65 feet from the trail, where she had been covered with leaves.

Investigators connected Mr. Ibarra to the attack through a thumbprint that was found on Ms. Riley’s phone screen and a doorbell camera at an apartment complex near the scene that recorded a man who looked like Mr. Ibarra tossing a jacket in a dumpster. The jacket had long, dark hair and blood stains on it.

Mr. Ibarra’s lawyers argued that it could have been his brother who had thrown the jacket away, and that Mr. Ibarra was not the sole person to use the cellphone that investigators relied on to place him near the scene.

Prosecutors said that DNA evidence found underneath Ms. Riley’s fingernails proved that Mr. Ibarra had been her attacker.

During the trial, Ms. Ross said that Mr. Ibarra had set out that morning to prey on women. He was also found guilty on Wednesday of a “Peeping Tom” charge that stemmed from his skulking outside of another woman’s home before he moved on to the trail where he encountered Ms. Riley.

The killing deeply unsettled Athens, the home of the University of Georgia’s main campus. But the case was quickly elevated after Mr. Ibarra’s arrest, when elected officials focused on his immigration status and past interactions with law enforcement.

Mr. Ibarra was apprehended by Border Patrol agents when he entered the country in 2022 near El Paso, according to federal officials. Like many migrants, he was released with temporary permission to stay in the country, and he headed at first to New York. He moved to Athens last year because his brother lived there, according to testimony during the trial.

He had previously been arrested in New York for driving a scooter without a license and with a child who was not wearing a helmet, and again in connection with a shoplifting case in Georgia.

Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia, a Republican, said the outcome delivered a measure of justice. “Open border policies failed Laken Riley, and today’s verdict is a reminder that the safety of our communities must remain our No. 1 priority,” he said in a statement.

In court on Wednesday afternoon, relatives and friends of Ms. Riley stood before Judge Haggard, one after another, sharing the anguish that has enveloped their lives in the months since the attack.

“Jose Ibarra took no pity on my scared, panicked and struggling child,” said Allyson Phillips, her mother. “There is no end to the pain, suffering and loss that we have experienced.”

Our Coverage of U.S. Immigration

• Broken Border Fuels Big Profits: Some staffing firms have long exploited undocumented migrants for corporate America, building an unseen engine of the on-demand economy.
• Trump’s Crackdown: President-elect Donald Trump has criticized the Biden administration for what he calls its lax handling of the border — but it has left him with tools he can use to shut down the border.
• Undocumented Spouses: A federal judge struck down a new Biden administration program that sought to provide a path to U.S. citizenship for hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants married to American citizens.
• Trump’s Immigration Raids: Five years ago, the raids upended life for immigrant families in poultry towns, but the industry still runs on their work.
• A Broken System: President Biden’s legacy on immigration will largely be limited to his success in lowering border crossings. But his approach has drawn criticism, and some of his actions have moved the problem deeper into the country.