Prosecutors in the Laken Riley case are fighting back against the murder suspect's attempt to suppress certain evidence, including a video they say shows the defendant abandoned key evidence shortly after the nursing student was killed.
Jose Ibarra, 26, a Venezuelan immigrant, pleaded not guilty in May to 10 charges in connection with the murder of Riley, 22, who was killed Feb. 22 while out on a morning run on the campus of the University of Georgia in Athens.
Ibarra in August requested a hearing that could block the introduction of a trove of evidence he claims police illegally obtained when they entered his apartment without a search warrant, including his cell phone, cheek swabs and social media accounts.
In a new complaint filed this week, prosecutors argued they had grounds to enter Ibarra's property because they had two videos that matched the suspect's description of Ibarra. Fox News reported.
The first involves Ibarra allegedly spying on university employees from the window of an on-campus apartment on the day Riley was killed. “Video related to the peeping Tom incident was taken near and around the 'S' residential building in University Village,” the lawsuit states.
Prosecutors said the second video was taken near Ibarra's Athens apartment.
“The other video was taken in a trash area at an apartment complex adjacent to the University of Georgia campus and less than a half mile from where Laken Riley was killed.”
Dumpster footage “shows a Latino male disposing of Laken Riley's bloody jacket, with her long dark hair, and bloody gloves less than 30 minutes after her murder and within a half-mile of her body,” the lawsuit states.
“The dumpster video further showed the Latino male wearing a black baseball cap with a white Adidas logo and white writing underneath it, and a sticker on the brim of the hat,” the prosecutor said.
Less than 12 hours later, a sergeant with the Athens-Clarke County Sheriff's Office said he encountered a man wearing an “exactly the same” hat near the apartment.
According to Fox News, officers spoke with a man who identified himself as Jose Ibarra's brother, Diego.
Diego Ibarra was detained until another officer who speaks fluent Spanish arrived on the scene.
At the time, authorities believed there was a good chance that evidence of Riley's murder was inside the apartment where Jose and Diego Ibarra shared their home with a third brother.
The prosecution argued that police could not waste time seeking a warrant but decided they needed to act quickly “for fear of the destruction of further evidence and to secure the apartment pending the application of a search warrant.”
“In this case, it defies common sense and is patently unreasonable to require police officers to remain outside the defendant's apartment while the officers obtained a search warrant and unidentified individuals inside continued to destroy evidence of the murder,” the prosecutor added.
Fox noted that prosecutors also rejected Ibarra's request to exclude testimony from a witness who conducted a DNA test during Riley's autopsy.
Prosecutors argued that DNA evidence in the case came from Riley's fingernails, a discarded bloody glove, a black Adidas baseball cap and a blue jacket.
They say all of these materials “report concordance statistics that will assist a jury in determining whether a defendant is guilty or not guilty of the crimes charged in the indictment.”
Ibarra also appears to have been identified by fingerprints left on Riley's cell phone.
