The 22-year-old nursing student, Laken Riley, was murdered by 26-year-old Jose Antonio Ibarra, an undocumented migrant from Venezuela. He entered the US illegally in September 2022 near El Paso, Texas, was detained by immigration authorities, but allowed to go free as his case was processed. Yes, allowed to roam the country "free" and free to disappear into migrant enclaves. He was also free to murder a young white woman. This case has become a symbol of the ills of illegal immigration. Coverage of the main events are accurately reported in the extract below from Abc.net.au, with the usual caveat added that there is no evidence that illegals commit crime at a greater rate than local criminals. This is false by definition, since entering the country as illegals, is an offence; it is what the word "illegal means. The establishment would like to call them "lovely, poor disadvantaged rocket scientists." No-one invading a country should have been left free to roam the countryside to kill. Communist China does not allow this, and would solve any illegals problem quickly.
"The circumstances of Laken Riley's death are both shocking and depressingly familiar.
A young woman going about her life, in this case jogging in broad daylight on a university campus, is overpowered and murdered by a male attacker apparently intent on raping her.
An autopsy would later indicate the 22-year-old nursing student died from repeated blows to the head and asphyxiation.
It's every woman's worst nightmare.
And what does it say about the pervasive fear of violence against women that, within half an hour of trying to reach her daughter, Riley's mother appeared to be panicking?
A chilling timelineIt's early on February 22 when Laken Riley texts her mum.
"Good morning, about to go for a run if you're free to talk," she writes at 8.55am.
The two were in the habit of chatting when Riley was out pounding the trails.
Riley's mother doesn't immediately answer the text, or a follow-up call at 9:03am.
Around that time, CCTV captures Riley jogging along a paved walkway on a university campus in Athens, Georgia.
She passes by several people out walking.
Around 9:06am she's seen veering left into fields.
Just minutes later, she's attacked.
At 9:11am, the SOS function on her phone is activated, but the emergency dispatcher can't discern anyone on the line.
Riley's mother, meanwhile, is trying to contact her daughter.
"You're making me nervous, not answering when you're out running," she texts at 9:58am. "Are you OK?"
Riley wasn't OK at 9:58am.
Data retrieved from her phone indicated her heart had stopped beating exactly half an hour earlier.
When Riley didn't return from her run, her roommates reported her missing.
At 12:38pm, her body was found by a police officer searching a wooded area near the jogging trail.
"Ma'am, ma'am", the officer, breathing heavily, can be heard saying in bodycam footage shown in court.
"I need EMS immediately. Ma'am, ma'am, ma'am. She's down, she's not breathing!"
The physical evidence suggests Riley endured a protracted struggle with her attacker.
The man who would later be sentenced for her murder had multiple scratch marks on his arms when apprehended by police the next day.
His DNA was found under Riley's fingernails.
A Republican rallying cryThe timeline of Riley's murder was established in court proceedings that were broadcast, in part, on live TV.
The media attention was not just a result of the senseless, brutal murder of a young woman in a place she should have felt safe. It was also a result of who did it.
The man now sentenced over the killing is an undocumented migrant from Venezuela, 26-year-old Jose Antonio Ibarra.
Ibarra entered the US illegally in September 2022 near El Paso, Texas.
He was detained by immigration authorities but allowed to go free as his case was processed.
Ibarra headed for New York before moving to Georgia, where his brother was living.
Ibarra's travel from New York to Georgia was paid for under a process known as re-ticketing. It saw the state, which at the time was dealing with a huge influx of migrants, fork out to move them elsewhere.
When Ibarra killed Riley early this year, the presidential campaign was picking up pace.
Georgia is a swing state which Joe Biden won by fewer than 12,000 votes in 2020, and Republicans were hopeful of taking it back (they did).
They campaigned heavily on the issue of illegal immigration, arguing the Biden administration had failed to control the southern border.
Illegal immigrants, they argued, were taking jobs, receiving taxpayer funded benefits and committing crimes.
Two weeks after her death, Majorie Taylor Greene, a Republican congresswoman from Georgia and fierce Trump loyalist, goaded Biden into saying Riley's name during his State of the Union address.
The president did say her name, but managed to mangle it, calling her Lincoln, not Laken.
Biden also referred to the man who killed her as "an illegal", raising the ire of the progressive wing of his party.
The botched moment would later seem like a bad omen for the Democrats' handling of the issue of illegal migration during the campaign.
Political advertisingLaken Riley's name, and those of other women and girls allegedly killed by illegal immigrants, featured prominently in Donald Trump's campaign.
Relatives of the victims appeared with him at events, and in campaign ads. They included the mother of 12-year-old Joceyln Nungaray, whose body was dumped in a Texas creek, allegedly by two men who'd entered the US illegally."