After her killer was found guilty on Wednesday, Laken Riley’s stepfather, John Phillips, read one of her last diary entries to her future husband with emotion.
Jose Ibarra, an illegal immigrant from Venezuela, was found guilty on all ten counts of killing Riley outside the University of Georgia campus on February 22 by Athens-Clarke County Superior Court Judge H. Patrick Haggard. He was given a life sentence without the possibility of parole. Phillips recounted the words Riley penned in her Jan. 17, 2023, post, in which she pledged to be a caring, God-fearing future wife and mother to her future family, as the family begged for Ibarra to serve a life sentence without the possibility of parole.
I believe the following passage from her most recent diary entry, dated 12/17/23, captures it best: As ridiculous as it makes me to write this, my former small group leader suggested it to my future husband, so here I am, Phillips read. I want my future spouse to know that I’m thinking of him and that I’m working hard every day to improve my existing relationships in order to be the greatest wife I can be for him and our children in the future. I’m concentrating on God and his definition of a true, Christian life in order to best exhibit those qualities. I pray that you understand that I have complete faith and trust in God, knowing that He has personally fashioned this connection. I pray that we will keep exalting the Lord, making him the center of our lives, and that we will raise our future family to be devout Christians.
I thank God for you before I even knew you, and I pray that He is the one who is singing in our relationship because it is a gift from Him. Her stepfather read, “I can’t wait to love you for the rest of our lives in the best way I know how.” I hope you understand the significance of our love and our aspirations for our relationship. I pray that our faith in God and in each other will overcome any difficulties we encounter. I hope our relationship endures forever, Laken, your future wife. that our lovely Laken was your honor. Just a small portion of what was cruelly and tragically taken from her and us that day is represented by your honor.
Observe:
Riley was kidnapped while jogging in September 2022 by the convicted killer, who broke in illegally and killed her by causing blunt force trauma on her skull with an inanimate instrument. Malice murder, felony murder, kidnapping with bodily injury, aggravated assault with purpose to rape, aggravated violence, delaying or hindering a 9-1-1 call, tampering with evidence, and being a peeping tom were among the charges the judge found Ibarra guilty of.
Due to a shortage of incarceration capacity at the time, Ibarra was released on parole after Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) verified that he had entered the nation unlawfully through an entryway near El Paso, Texas. According to ICE, he was later taken into custody for allegedly engaging in a way that would have caused harm to a minor under the age of 17 in New York City.
In September 2023, four months before to Riley’s death, his ex-roommate Rosbeli Elisber Flores-Bello said at a court on Monday that she and Ibarra had taken a humanitarian flight from New York City to Athens, Georgia.
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