The suspect charged in the February murder of Augusta University nursing student Laken Riley is asking for a hearing to suppress a list of evidentiary items, including cellphones, a buccal swab and social media accounts.
Jose Ibarra, a 26-year-old illegal immigrant from Venezuela, is accused of attacking and killing Riley, 22, while she was out for a run along dirt trails on the University of Georgia campus in Athens on the morning of 22 February.
Specifically, Ibarra is asking to suppress "(a) two cellular devices believed by the State to belong to Defendant and the information contained within them; (b) genetic and physical information taken from the person of Defendant; (c) the contents of Defendant’s social media accounts, which include Snapchat, TikTok, Facebook, and Instagram; and (d) location data obtained from Google, Inc. In support of this motion," a court document filed on recently reads.
Ibarra's defense is arguing that the aforementioned items were unlawfully collected by law enforcement and that detectives entered his residence without a search warrant. He is asking for the evidence to be suppressed under the "fruit of the poisonous tree" doctrine, which makes certain evidence inadmissible if acquired through illegal measures.
In addition to his request to suppress evidence, Ibarra is also asking to exclude testimony from a witness who performed DNA testing during Riley's autopsy, alleging that the results "did not exclude Defendant, but also did not exclude another known individual associated with the case."
A Georgia grand jury in May indicted Ibarra on counts of malice murder, two counts of kidnapping with bodily injury, two counts of aggravated assault with intent to rape, two counts of aggravated battery, obstructing or hindering a person from making a 911 call, tampering with evidence and being a "peeping Tom."
The suspect is accused of causing Riley's death by inflicting blunt-force trauma to her head and "asphyxiating her in a manner unknown to jurors," the indictment states.
The suspect is also accused of going to a residence on UGA's campus, where he "peeped through" a window and "spied upon" a university staff member on the same day he allegedly killed Riley, the indictment alleges.