Student death on University of Georgia campus shakes Athens, Woodstock

Editor’s note: This article has been updated to include details of immigration charges against the murder suspect’s brother.

ATHENS — Laken Hope Riley, an avid cross-country runner making her way through nursing school, set out on a morning run Thursday at the sprawling University of Georgia campus.

On Friday authorities charged a male suspect with murder after the 22-year-old student didn’t return from her run and her body was found Thursday in a wooded area near UGA’s intramural fields.

The man, 26-year-old Jose Antonio Ibarra, lives in Athens, but is not a U.S. citizen, and did not appear to know Riley, according to police.

“I think this was a crime of opportunity where he saw an individual and bad things happened,” UGA police Chief Jeffrey Clark said late Friday.

Credit: Jason Getz

Credit: Jason Getz

It was the first suspected homicide on the grounds of Georgia’s flagship university in more than a decade, sending shockwaves and an outpouring of grief in Athens and her hometown of Woodstock.

Groups of students dropped flowers off at Riley’s sorority, Alpha Chi Omega. So many that a local flower shop owner said Friday she was running out of flowers.

“When you kind of go through something like that, you can oftentimes feel really alone, so we want them to know people are there for you,” said UGA sophomore Matthew Aliff, who came into the shop, Flowerland, to buy a bouquet.

Credit: Olivia Wakim

Riley was a nursing student at Augusta University’s nursing program in Athens and made the fall 2023 dean’s list. She was an undergraduate student at UGA until the spring of 2023.

She graduated in 2020 from River Ridge High School in Woodstock, where she was a member of the track team.

On social media, Riley’s family celebrated her milestones. Pictures show her first day of her senior year in high school, making gingerbread houses at the holidays, and running the 2023 AthHalf Marathon in Athens, finishing a few minutes over two hours. In a video from August, Riley walked across a stage to applause and donned her white coat during the Augusta University nursing program’s white coat ceremony.

ExploreUGA death: Laken Riley’s family, friends post social media tributes

Keith Hooper, coach of River Ridge High’s cross country team, said Riley ran for the team for four years and competed in the Georgia High School Association’s state finals several times.

“She was an unselfish individual who relinquished her opportunity to run finals her senior year because she thought she was not 100% fit,” Hooper wrote in an email to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

“She will always accompany us as we run,” Hooper wrote.

A group of neighbors outside the Rileys’ Woodstock home on Friday afternoon said the family would like their privacy at this time.

Police taped off the wooded area where Riley’s body was found shortly after noon Thursday near a lake. Authorities said the deceased student had “visible injuries.”

Early Friday afternoon, officers from various agencies, including UGA police, Athens-Clarke County, the Georgia State Patrol and GBI, were at the Cielo Azulak apartment complex on South Milledge Avenue about a mile away from the crime scene. A UGA spokesman at the time said campus police were questioning a person of interest.

An AJC reporter at the scene saw an ambulance leave the complex, but it was unclear who was inside. The reporter also saw GBI agents going through trash in a dumpster at the gas station across the street.

Video cameras helped lead to Ibarra’s arrest, Clark, UGA’s police chief, said at a press conference late Friday at the Tate Student Center. Investigators believe Riley died from blunt force trauma.

Others were questioned in the case, but only Ibarra will be charged, Clark said. Ibarra has a criminal history, he added, but it does not include violence.

“This was an individual who woke up with bad intentions on that day,” Clark said.

Ibarra has been charged with malice murder, felony murder, aggravated battery, aggravated assault, false imprisonment, kidnapping, hindering a 911 call, and concealing a death.

Later Friday, federal prosecutors announced they had charged Ibarra’s brother, Diego Ibarra, with possessing a fraudulent U.S. permanent resident card. Both men are from Venezuela, the Justice Department said in a press release, which did not disclose Jose Antonio Ibarra’s immigration status.

Homeland Security Investigations became aware of Diego Ibarra’s undocumented presence in the U.S. on Friday when an Athens-Clarke County police officer approached him because he matched the description of a suspect in the homicide investigation. Diego Ibarra presented the officer with a U.S. green card that was fake, according to the Justice Department.

Credit: Jason Getz

Word of the student’s death Thursday spread just hours after news that another student died on campus late Wednesday, adding to students’ jitters. No foul play is suspected in the earlier death of the male student.

“There is no connection to the death yesterday and today’s death. There is no connection at all,” Clark told reporters Thursday night.

Classes on campus were canceled Thursday evening and Friday, but are expected to resume Monday.

UGA President Jere Morehead met Thursday afternoon with members of the victim’s sorority. It isn’t the first time the sorority has experienced tragedy. Two AXO members were among four UGA students killed in a car crash in 2016.

Homicide cases are rare for UGA campus police. Clark told reporters that it had been 20 years since there was a homicide on UGA’s campus. It was not immediately clear to which case Clark was referring.

In 2001, UGA law student Tara Louise Baker was found dead in her burning off-campus residence. The homicide remains unsolved, according to the GBI. In 2003, the body of Kelvin McDuffie, a University of Georgia student, was found in a remote part of Athens-Clarke County. That homicide is also unsolved.

UGA reported no murders in recent years at its main campus or non-campus properties associated with the school. There also have been no manslaughter incidents in 2020, 2021 or 2022, the most recent years for which federal Clery Act crime statistics are available.

Credit: Fletcher Page

In a tribute posted to Instagram, Augusta’s College of Nursing described Riley as “a bright and dedicated student” whose “compassion and care” was evidenced in her desire to be a nurse. “We know that she would have been a wonderful nurse, and her passing is a loss for the profession and the communities she would have graciously served.”

The University of Georgia has planned a moment of silence before all home sporting events, including men’s and women’s basketball games, this weekend.

Two student Greek organizations, Alpha Chi Omega and Kappa Sigma, are jointly hosting a vigil on Monday at 3 p.m. at Tate Plaza on campus.

Anyone with information that could help investigators was asked to contact UGA police at 706-542-2200.

— Staff reporters Taylor Croft and Shaddi Abusaid contributed to this report.