By Joe Johnson
Evidence linking murder defendant Jose Ibarra to the death of Laken Riley includes video of him disposing of bloody clothing soon after the nursing student was slain on the University of Georgia campus, according to prosecution motions filed in court last week.
The documents confirm what had been reported over two months ago by Classic City News in a story that cited law enforcement sources.
Prosecutors say the “video was taken at the dumpster of the apartment complex that abuts UGA property and is less than half a mile from where Riley was murdered, and that it depicts “a Latino male disposing of a bloody jacket with long dark hair on it and bloody gloves less than 30 minutes after the murder of Laken Riley and within a half mile from her body."
Law enforcement sources had told CCN in July that the Latino male was Ibarra.
The prosecution motion further states that “the dumpster video shows the Latino male was wearing a black baseball cap with a white adidas logo, white script underneath the logo, and a sticker on the bill of the hat.”
The hat in the video is significant because, the motion states, less than 12 hours after the man in the video is seen disposing of the bloody jacket and gloves, an Athens-Clarke County police officer who was patrolling Ibarra's apartment complex "saw a Latino male who was wearing the 'identical' hat that was seen in the dumpster video."
That male was not Jose Ibarra, law enforcement sources said, but was his brother who lived with him at the complex, Diego Ibarra.
Jose was arrested after questioning during which police saw scratches on his arm, as though he had been in a fight, according to sources. They said that the injuries were consistent with Riley resisting the sexual assault.
Read the original Classic City News story here:https://www.classiccitynews.com/post/ibarra-caught-on-video-disposing-of-bloody-clothing-after-laken-riley-murder
An indictment alleges that during a sexual assault, the 26-year-old illegal migrant from Venezuela
killed Riley by bludgeoning her head with a rock and strangling her.
The indictment charges Ibarra with malice murder, three counts of felony murder, kidnapping, aggravated assault with intent to commit rape, aggravated battery, interference with a 911 emergency call, tampering with evidence, and peeping Tom.
The peeping charge stems from Ibarra allegedly peering through the window of an apartment at University Village, a student housing complex next door to where Ibarra lived at Argo Apartments on South Milledge Avenue. That incident happened earlier in the morning of Riley’s murder.
Clarke County Superior Court Judge H. Patrick Haggard has scheduled Ibarra to stand trial beginning on November 18.
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