Laken Riley’s mom sobs as she sees her daughter’s desperate last stand etched on accused killer’s arm
ATHENS, Ga. — Laken Riley’s mom sobbed in court Monday as photos were shown of her daughter’s desperate last stand etched on the arm of her accused killer — who slept like a baby after the slaying.
A photo was displayed of illegal migrant and Tren de Aragua gang member Jose Ibarra’s arm covered in scratches the day after the Georgia nursing student’s death — prompting Riley’s anguished mother, Allyson Phillips, to burst into tears as she sat in the courtroom gallery of the Athens, Ga., courthouse.
Ibarra later tried to downplay the markings, insisting to a police investigator, “It’s just a scratch” — as he and his roommates joked and laughed when cops first showed up to their house.
Prosecutors claimed during opening statements Friday that Riley, 22, “fought for her life” against the Venezuelan migrant for a staggering 18 minutes before she died and that Ibarra’s DNA was found under her fingernails.
Riley’s mom dissolved into tears again Monday when a cop analyzed her daughter’s heart-rate data while jogging — and during her murder.
Riley’s Garmin watch showed she halted her run that day at 9:10 a.m. and that her heart rate stopped beating at 9:28 a.m., an expert testified.
The courtroom was shown photos of Ibarra’s injuries during the testimony of University of Georgia police Sgt. Joshua Epps, who went to Ibarra’s home the day after the Feb. 22 slaying and found the suspect there.
Cops were led to the home after Ibarra’s brother was initially being eyed as a suspect based on descriptions of Riley’s killer.
Several photos of Jose Ibarra’s scratched-up arms, wrists and hands after the slaying were first shown Friday as prosecutors argued they are proof that he’s Riley’s killer.
Another university cop, Rafael Sayan, testified Monday about speaking to Ibarra the day after the murder about the injuries on his arm.
Cpl. Sayan said Ibarra tried to dismiss the markings by claiming they were “a scratch.”
Epps also described the relaxed demeanor of Ibarra and his roommates at the time — with Ibarra smoking a cigarette and he and his three roommates chatting and laughing despite all the officers that showed up.
“They thought it was amusing how many police cars we had,” Epps testified .
Later Monday morning, Ibarra’s roommate at the time, Rosebeli Flores-Bello, testified through a Spanish translator about how she woke up on the day of the murder around 10 or 11 a.m. and went to work — while Ibarra was sound asleep in bed.
Prosecutors say Ibarra first attacked Riley while she was on her morning jog just after 9 a.m., fatally beating and asphyxiating her when she refused to be sexually assaulted.
Flores-Bello’s testimony means that Ibarra was allegedly back home sleeping like a baby, possibly as soon as 30 minutes, after the slaying.
Ibarra’s wife eventually accused him of harboring something about Riley’s death, demanding to know, “What happened to that girl?” in a jailhouse call, an FBI employee testified.
The May 11 phone call that Ibarra made from jail to his wife, Layling Franco, in Spanish was played in court Monday and summarized in English by FBI staff specialist Abeisis Ramirez, who listened in on roughly 400 of the suspect’s calls from behind bars.
“Are you not going to tell the truth?” Franco told Ibarra, according to Ramirez.
“What happened to that girl?” the wife demanded to know.
Ibarra dismissively responded, “Layling, enough. Layling, enough,” Ramirez said.
The wife noted that it was “crazy” that investigators only found Ibarra’s DNA on Riley and that he didn’t call 911 if he saw someone dying, Ramirez testified.
Ibarra told his spouse he was at the University of Georgia campus that day looking for a job.
Riley’s mother, Allyson Phillips, also sobbed in court as the phone call was played.
Flores-Bello — who testified in shackles, as she has been jailed in a separate case for alleged immigration crimes — also identified Ibarra as the man seen in surveillance video taken from an apartment complex ditching a sweatshirt that had Riley’s blood on it. The video was from the day of the murder, at 9:44 a.m., or roughly 15 minutes after Riley’s death.
Athens-Clarke County Superior Court Judge Patrick Haggard instructed the media to refrain from photographing and filming Flores-Bello, so only her voice could be heard on the live-stream footage of the trial.
The woman who Ibarra is charged with trying to peep on before allegedly killing Laken also testified about being in the shower when she heard someone try to get inside her apartment that day.
Tejaswi Stamilmnai Saraswathi, 24, was a student at the university and living in an apartment in Athens when she heard someone “fidgeting” with her door the morning of Feb. 22 — about an hour before Riley’s death.
“I heard some fidgeting sounds on my front door. I was in the shower,” Saraswathis said. “When I went to see who it was, I saw through a peephole someone was trying to open [the door].”
She said the person fled when she asked who was there, but she saw the person wearing a black hood, black jacket, a hat and black gloves.
“I couldn’t see the face,” she said.
Saraswathi was so alarmed by the incident that she immediately called 911 around 8 a.m., saying, “Someone is trying to break inside my apartment.”
In addition to being accused of murder, Ibarra also faces a Peeping Tom charge for the Saraswathi break-in attempt.
Riley’s mother cried throughout her time in court Friday, including when graphic photos and videos were revealed of her daughter’s lifeless, bloodied body with brutal head injuries.
Phillips and many other family and loved ones packed nearly the entire courtroom for the second day of trial, which will be decided by the judge and not a jury.
The trial has been moving exceedingly quickly without the logistics that normally accompany jury trials. Prosecutors have already called 14 witnesses as of midday Monday.
The defense last week issued subpoenas for testimony from Ibarra’s two brothers, Diego and Argenis, who were his roommates in Athens. They are expected to testify Wednesday.
