Jose Ibarra, accused of killing a Georgia nursing student earlier this year, listens through an interpreter during his trial in Athens-Clarke County Superior Court, Friday, Nov. 15, 2024, in Athens, Ga. (Hyosub Shin/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP, Pool)

Athens, Ga. – A Venezuelan man “went hunting for females on the University of Georgia campus” earlier this year and ended up killed nursing student Laken Riley after a struggle, a prosecutor said Friday. A defense attorney said the evidence is circumstantial and does not prove his client is guilty.

Jose Ibarra, who entered the United States illegally two years ago, is charged with murder and other crimes in Riley’s killing in February, which helped fuel the immigration debate during this year’s presidential campaign. Ibarra waived his right to a jury trialmeaning his case will be heard and decided by Athens-Clarke County Superior Court Judge H. Patrick Haggard.

Prosecutor Sheila Ross told the judge that Ibarra encountered Riley, a 22-year-old student at Augusta University College of Nursing, while she was out running on February 22.

“When Laken Riley refused to be his rape victim, he repeatedly smashed her skull with a rock,” Ross said, adding that the evidence will show Riley was “fighting for her life, for her dignity.”

As a result of that fight, Ibarra’s DNA remained under her fingernails, Ross said. Riley called 911 and in a struggle over her phone, Ibarra’s thumbprint was left on the screen, she said.

The forensic evidence is sufficient to prove Ibarra’s guilt, but digital and video evidence will also show Ibarra killed Riley, prosecutors said.

Defense attorney Dustin Kirby called the evidence in the case graphic and disturbing, but he said none of it proves his client killed Riley.

“The evidence in this case is very strong that Laken Riley was murdered,” he said. “The evidence that Jose Ibarra killed Laken Riley is circumstantial evidence. The evidence that someone intended or certainly committed sexual assault is speculation.”

The killing fueled the national debate over immigration when federal authorities said Ibarra illegally entered the United States in 2022 and was allowed to stay to pursue his immigration case.

Republicans, including President-elect Donald Trump, blamed Democratic President Joe Biden border policy for her death. Speaking about border security during his State of the Union address weeks after the murder, Biden said mentioned Riley by name.

Riley’s mother, Allyson Phillips, and other family members filled the courtroom Friday. Phillips put her face in her hands and cried often, especially when pictures of her daughter were shown and during testimony about what happened to her.

Ibarra sat at the defense table in a checkered shirt with his hands and feet shackled. He wore headphones to hear a Spanish-language interpreter and appeared attentive, occasionally looking up when images or video were shown and occasionally looking down at his lap.

During his opening statement, Ross laid out a timeline for the judge using the doorbell and surveillance cameras as well as data from Riley’s phone and watch to piece together her final moments.

Riley left home at 9:03 and headed for forest trails where she often ran. The data from her watch shows that she at 9:10 a.m. was running at a fast pace when something happened that made her “stop dead in her tracks,” and she called 911 at 9.11.

A 911 dispatcher answered but no one answered when she repeatedly sought an answer, and then the caller ended the call. The chairman immediately called back, but no one answered.

“Her encounter with him was long. Her fight with him was fierce,” Ross said, noting that Riley’s watch data showed her heart still beating at 9:28 a.m.

Ross also played security camera video showing a man she said is Ibarra at 9:44 a.m. in a parking lot at his apartment complex. The man threw something into a recycling bin and appeared to throw something into nearby bushes. In the trash, officers found a dark hooded jacket with blood on it that turned out to be Riley’s and long dark hair stuck to a button. In the bushes they found disposable black kitchen gloves, one of which had a hole in the tip of the thumb.

Another video from about 35 minutes later shows what appeared to be the same man dressed in different clothes walking towards a bin with a bag and then returning empty-handed. That dumpster was emptied before the police could search it.

One of Riley’s three roommates testified that she became concerned when Riley did not return from a run. The four friends used a phone app to track each other’s whereabouts, and Lilly Steiner testified that she became more concerned when she saw that Riley’s phone showed her in the same location for a long time.

Riley often talked to her mother on the phone while she ran, and her mother also became concerned that morning when her daughter did not answer her calls.

Steiner and another roommate, Sofia Magana, went to the path where the phone app indicated Riley was. They found what they thought was one of Riley’s AirPods on the trail and returned home to call the police.

One of the officers who responded found Riley’s body partially covered by leaves, 64 feet from the trail. Although her shirt and underwear had been pulled up, Ross said there was no evidence Riley had been sexually assaulted.

Before Ross played Maxwell’s body camera video in court, she warned Riley’s family that video of her dead body would be shown. Riley’s mother left the courtroom, but other family members and friends remained in the courtroom, some of them crying or covering their faces.

Ibarra is charged with one count of first degree murder, three counts of aggravated murder and one count each of kidnapping, aggravated assault, aggravated assault, obstructing an emergency call, tampering with evidence and being a peeping tom.

Prosecutors say that on the day Riley was killed, Ibarra peered into the window of an apartment in a university building, which is the basis for the peeping Tom charge.

Prosecutor Sheila Ross speaks before Superior Court Judge H. Patrick Haggard during the trial of Jose Ibarra, accused of killing a Georgia nursing student earlier this year, in Athens-Clarke County Superior Court Friday, Nov. 15, 2024, in Athens. , Ga. (Hyosub Shin/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP, Pool)

Jose Ibarra, right, accused of killing a Georgia nursing student earlier this year, listens through an interpreter as he sits with his attorneys Dustin Kirby, second left, and Kaitlyn Beck, left, during his trial at the Athens-Clarke County Superior Court, Friday, November 15, 2024 in Athens, Ga. (Hyosub Shin/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP, Pool)

CORRECTS IDENTIFICATION OF LAKEN RILEY’S FAMILY – Allyson Phillips, second from left, mother of Laken Riley, reacts as John Phillips, stepfather of Laken Riley, comforts her during the trial of Jose Ibarra, accused of killing the Georgia nursing student earlier this year, in Athens -Clarke County Superior Court, Friday, November 15, 2024, in Athens, Ga. (Hyosub Shin/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP, Pool)

CORRECTS IDENTIFICATION OF LAKEN RILEY’S FAMILY – Allyson Phillips, second from left, mother of Laken Riley, reacts as John Phillips, stepfather of Laken Riley, comforts her during the trial of Jose Ibarra, accused of killing the Georgia nursing student earlier this year, in Athens -Clarke County Superior Court, Friday, November 15, 2024, in Athens, Ga. (Hyosub Shin/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP, Pool)

Superior Court Judge H. Patrick Haggard listens during the trial of Jose Ibarra, accused of killing a Georgia nursing student earlier this year, in Athens-Clarke County Superior Court, Friday, Nov. 15, 2024, in Athens, Ga. (Hyosub Shin /Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP, Pool)

Lilly Steiner, roommate of Laken Riley, testifies during the trial of Jose Ibarra, accused of killing the Georgia nursing student earlier this year in Athens-Clarke County Superior Court, Friday, Nov. 15, 2024, in Athens, Ga. (Hyosub Shin) /Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP, Pool)

Jason Riley, left, father of Laken Riley, attends the trial of Jose Ibarra, accused of killing the Georgia nursing student earlier this year in Athens-Clarke County Superior Court, Friday, Nov. 15, 2024, in Athens, Ga. (Hyosub Shin/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP, Pool)

Jose Ibarra, accused of killing a Georgia nursing student earlier this year, listens through an interpreter as he sits with his attorney Dustin Kirby, left, during his trial in Athens-Clarke County Superior Court, Friday, Nov. 15, 2024, in Athens , Ga. (Hyosub Shin/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP, Pool)