Georgia nursing student Laken Riley's alleged killer indicted on 10 charges

May 8 (UPI) -- The man accused of killing 22-year-old Georgia student Laken Riley in February was indicted Tuesday by a grand jury in Clarke County on 10 charges, according to court documents.

Jose Antonio Ibarra, 26, now faces multiple charges including rape, malice and three felony murder charges, aggravated battery and assault, kidnapping, hindering a 911 call and concealing the death of another.

It also alleges Ibarra had been a "peeping Tom" by allegedly spying on a UGA faculty member. He has yet to enter a plea of guilt or innocence.

Ibarra was later arrested in Georgia after being given citations for shoplifting and failing to appear for his court date. Officials said Ibarra, a native of Venezuela, had entered the United States illegally in 2022 through El Paso, Texas, before moving to Georgia.

Police had first identified Ibarra as a suspect in late February after Riley was found dead after going for a jog the morning of Feb. 22 at the Augusta University College of Nursing's Athens campus.

Police had called it a "crime of opportunity, where (Ibarra) saw an individual and bad things happened."

But the rape charge is new. The indictment says Ibarra tried to rape Riley "by pulling up articles of her clothing, with the intent to have carnal knowledge of her forcibly and against her will."

Asphyxiation and blunt-force trauma were ultimately the cause of Riley's death, with Ibarra "seriously disfiguring her head by striking her head multiple times with a rock."

Republicans have used Riley's death to criticize President Joe Biden's administration on border and immigration policy. Her death by an illegal migrant has been politicized by those on the right and her own father expressed concerns.

"I think it's being used politically to get those votes," her father, Jason Riley, had told NBC News.

In March, U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., wearing a red MAGA hat during Biden's wide-ranging state of the union speech, had openly yelled and gestured toward the president during a part of his speech and put pressure on him to say Riley's name, which he did.

"It makes me angry," Riley's father had previously said. "I feel like, you know, they're just using my daughter's name for that."

In March, the House passed a measure -- the Laken Riley Act -- that passed the lower chamber 251-170 and would require any migrant who commits burglary or theft to be detained.