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Join Telegram ChannelATHENS, Ga. – Georgia prosecutors on Monday placed Jose Ibarra, the suspect accused of murdering Augusta University nursing student Laken Riley on the University of Georgia campus in February, at the scene using a prison phone call to his wife, according to a Fox News contributor. Paul Mauro.
Ibarra, a 26-year-old Venezuelan national, is charged with 10 counts in connection with Riley's murder that occurred on the morning of February 22, while Riley was out for her usual morning jog along the UGA campus trails, near Herrick Lake. He will appear in an Athens courtroom on Tuesday for the third day of his murder trial.
On Monday, the second day of Ibarra's trial, an Athens-Clarke County courtroom heard a recorded jail phone call between Ibarra and his wife, Layling Franco, that was played aloud and translated by a FBI analyst who spoke fluent Spanish.
“She said she thinks it's crazy that they don't have anyone else's DNA. They only have hers. And she says she doesn't understand how anyone can see someone die without calling him. [sic] 911,” FBI analyst Abeisis Ramirez testified in court Monday, while translating the prosecution’s call.
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Jose Ibarra pays attention to a witness during his trial in Athens-Clarke County Superior Court Monday, Nov. 18, 2024, in Athens, Georgia. (Miguel Martinez/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP, Pool)
Mauro, a former executive with the New York Police Department's Office of Intelligence Operations and Analysis, said the call essentially places Ibarra at the scene of the crime.
“She very clearly doesn't believe him. … She says, at one point, 'José, I know you,' a very … telling moment,” Mauro said of the call with Franco. “And then at one point…the real crushing statement is when she tells him, 'I can't believe anyone can watch someone die without calling 911.'
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Exterior view of Jose Antonio Ibarra's apartment in Athens, Ga., Saturday, Feb. 24, 2024. Ibarra was charged with the murder of Laken Riley after she was found dead along a walking path on the campus of the University of Georgia earlier this week. (Mark Sims for Fox News Digital)
Mauro said he thought the phone call appeared “to be a reference to the fact that he told her I was there, I saw the body, but I didn't call 911 and I don't I didn't do it.”
“The most interesting thing, in my opinion, was actually the most prosaic, was the fact that [Riley] “She had scrapes on her fingernails – she had skin under her fingernails – from a fight for her life, and José suffered injuries from that kind of fight,” Mauro said, referring to the body camera footage of the UGA Police Department broadcasts in court Monday, which showed investigators examining Ibarra's body for signs of injuries.
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Laken Riley poses for a photo posted on Facebook. Riley, a nursing student at the University of Georgia, was found dead near a lake on campus on February 22. An illegal immigrant has been charged with his murder. (Laken Riley/Facebook)
UGA PD Patrol Cp. Rafael Sayan testified Monday that he questioned Ibarra on Feb. 23 — the day after Riley's murder — about injuries to his hands and arms, which Ibarra mostly dismissed as general scratches or bleeding from the February cold. .
Body camera footage from this morning shows the officers' first encounter with Ibarra on February 23. They first arrived at the apartment around 8:30 a.m. on February 23 and questioned José's brothers, Diego and Argenis Ibarra, before obtaining a search warrant and leaving. inside the apartment.
WATCH: POLICE ENTER JOSÉ IBARRA’S APARTMENT:
The footage shows police officers going inside, shining a light on Jose, who was in bed at the time, and repeatedly saying “Hola” in an attempt to wake him up. After about a minute, José stands up and raises his hands.
“This is just speculation, but I suspect he was probably very intoxicated.[icated]” Mauro said, noting that investigators linked a white plastic cup containing an alcohol-smelling liquid to the scene of Riley's murder. A male suspect was seen holding a white cup in video camera footage. security taken near the crime scene late that morning, investigators found a similar white plastic cup that smelled of alcohol on Feb. 22, according to law enforcement testimony Monday.
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A general view of the area where Laken Riley's body was found near Herrick Lake on the University of Georgia campus in Athens, Ga. on Saturday, Feb. 24, 2024. Jose Antonio Ibarra was charged with Riley's murder after she was killed earlier this week. (Mark Sims for Fox News Digital)
The suspect is charged with a total of 10 counts, including one count of malicious murder, three counts of felony murder, one count of kidnapping, one count of aggravated assault with intent to rape, one count of battery aggravated and one count of obstructing a 911 call., one count of tampering with evidence and one count of “voyeur”. Ibarra has pleaded not guilty to all charges.
Prosecutor Ross said Ibarra then encountered Riley on her typical morning run and attacked her.
The killing of Laken Riley has shaken the country as the border crisis continues. (ELIJAH NOUVELAGE/AFP via Getty Images)
“On February 22, Jose Ibarra donned a black hat, a hooded jacket, and black disposable kitchen-style gloves, and he set out in search of women on the University of Georgia campus,” Ross said in his opening speech on Friday. .
Ibarra and his brothers, also from Venezuela illegally in the United States, lived in an apartment building less than a half-mile from the campus park where Riley ran.
The defendant's attorney, Dustin Kirby, argued in his opening statement that the evidence would not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Ibarra killed Riley. He said it would take “gymnastics” for the prosecution to argue that Ibarra killed Riley with what he described as “circumstantial evidence.”
Jose Ibarra, accused of murdering a Georgia nursing student earlier this year, listens through an interpreter as he sits with his attorneys Dustin Kirby, second from left, and Kaitlyn Beck, at left, during his trial in Athens-Clarke County Superior Court, Friday, November 11. .15, 2024, in Athens, Georgia. (Hyosub Shin/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP, Pool)
“If this happens and the presumption of innocence is respected, there should not be sufficient evidence to convince you beyond a reasonable doubt that Mr. Ibarra is guilty of the crimes charged against him,” said Kirby Monday.
UGA Police Chief Jeffrey Clark previously called the killing a “crime of opportunity” during a press conference in February.
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Jose Ibarra looks down as he listens through an interpreter during his trial in Athens-Clarke County Superior Court Monday, Nov. 18, 2024, in Athens, Georgia. (Miguel Martinez/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP, Poolv)
Ibarra entered the United States illegally via El Paso, Texas, in September 2022 and was released to the United States via parole, ICE and DHS sources previously told Fox News.
Diego Ibarra, who worked briefly in a UGA cafeteria before his arrest in February, is accused of green card fraud and had ties to a known Venezuelan gang in the United States called Tren de Aragua, documents show of the federal court.
On Friday afternoon, the defense subpoenaed Diego Ibarra and their younger brother, Argenis Ibarra, to testify at Jose's trial on Wednesday.
Laken Riley poses for a photo posted on Facebook. Riley, a nursing student at the University of Georgia, was found dead near a lake on campus on Thursday, February 22, 2024. (Allyson Phillips/Facebook)
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ICE previously confirmed to Fox News Digital that José Ibarra was arrested by the New York Police Department a year after entering the United States in August 2023 and being “charged with acting in a manner to injure a child under 17 and a driver's license violation.”
Mauro said some criminal cases become “representative of something bigger than themselves,” and Riley’s case is one of them.
“It pushed these issues forward. All of a sudden we had to talk about these kinds of things,” Mauro said, referring to the subject of illegal immigration.
The former NYPD officer also praised the UGA Police Department's quick work in apprehending the suspect in connection with Riley's murder, just one day after he was killed.
Adam Shaw of Fox News contributed to this report.