“When Laken Riley refused to be his rape victim, he smashed her skull with a rock multiple times,” Ross said, adding that the evidence would show that Riley “fought for her life, for her dignity”.

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

This forensic evidence is enough to prove Ibarra’s guilt, but the digital and video evidence also proves that Ibarra killed Riley, the prosecutor said.

Defense attorney Dustin Kirby called the evidence in the case graphic and disturbing, but he said there was no evidence his client killed Riley.

“The evidence in this case is very strong: Laken Riley was murdered,” he said. “The evidence that Jose Ibarra killed Laken Riley is circumstantial.”

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

Republicans, including President-elect Donald Trump, blamed his death on Democratic President Joe Biden’s border policies. While speaking about border security during his State of the Union address a few weeks after the killing, Biden mentioned Riley’s name.

Riley’s mother, Allyson Phillips, and other family members filled the courtroom Friday morning but did not return after lunch. Phillips put his face in his hands and cried frequently, especially when photos of his daughter were shown and during descriptions of what had happened to her.

Ibarra, dressed in a plaid shirt and dark pants and with his feet shackled, wore headphones to hear a Spanish-language interpreter. He seemed attentive, sometimes looking up when photos or videos were shown and other times looking down at his lap.

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

Riley left the house at 9:03 a.m. and headed toward wooded trails where she often ran. Data from her watch shows that at 9:10 a.m., she was running at a fast pace when something happened that made her “stop dead in her tracks.” She called 911 at 9:11 a.m.

A 911 dispatcher responded, but no one answered as she repeatedly searched for a response, then the caller ended the call. The dispatcher immediately called back, but no one answered.

“His meeting with him was long. Her fight with him was fierce,” Ross said, noting that data from Riley’s watch showed his heart was still beating as late as 9:28 a.m.

Ross also released security camera video showing a man she said was Ibarra at 9:44 a.m. in a parking lot at her apartment complex. The man threw something into a recycling bin, then appeared to throw something into nearby bushes. In the recycling bin, officers found a dark hooded jacket with blood that turned out to be Riley’s on it and strands of long black hair hanging from a button. In the bushes, they found disposable black oven mitts, one of which had a hole in the end of the thumb.

Another video about 35 minutes later shows what appears to be the same man wearing different clothes and walking toward a trash can with a bag, then returning empty-handed. This trash can was emptied before the police could search it.

One of Riley’s three roommates testified that she became worried when Riley didn’t return from an errand. The four friends used a phone app to track each other’s locations, and Lilly Steiner testified that she became more concerned when she saw that Riley’s phone showed her in the same location for an extended period of time.

Riley often talked to her mother on the phone while she was running, and her mother also became concerned that morning when her daughter didn’t answer her calls.

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

One of the responding officers found Riley’s body partially covered in leaves, 64 feet (nearly 20 meters) from the trail. Although her shirt was pulled up and her underwear was visible above the lowered waistband of her running tights, Ross said there was no evidence that Riley had been sexually assaulted.

Police arrested Ibarra the day after the murder.

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

Ibarra is charged with one count of malicious murder, three counts of felony murder and one count each of kidnapping, aggravated assault, aggravated battery, obstructing an emergency telephone call, of tampering with evidence and being a voyeur.

Prosecutors say that on the day of Riley’s murder, Ibarra looked through an apartment window in a university residential building, providing the basis for the voyeur charge.