Georgia
Man convicted of murder in killing of nursing student
ATHENS, Ga. (AP) — A Venezuelan man has been convicted of murder in the killing of Georgia nursing student Laken Riley, a case that fueled the national debate over immigration during this year’s presidential race.
Jose Ibarra was charged with murder and other crimes in Riley’s February death, and the guilty verdict was reached Wednesday by Athens-Clarke County Superior Court Judge H. Patrick Haggard. Ibarra, 26, had waived his right to a jury trial, meaning that Haggard alone heard and decided the case.
Riley’s family and roommates cried as the verdict was read. Ibarra didn’t visibly react.
The killing added fuel to the national debate over immigration when federal authorities said Ibarra illegally entered the U.S. in 2022 and was allowed to stay in the country while he pursued his immigration case.
The trial began Friday, and prosecutors called more than a dozen law enforcement officers, Riley’s roommates and a woman who lived in the same apartment as Ibarra. Defense attorneys called a police officer, a jogger and one of Ibarra’s neighbors on Tuesday and rested their case Wednesday morning.
Prosecutor Sheila Ross told the judge that Ibarra encountered Riley while she was running on the University of Georgia campus on Feb. 22 and killed her during a struggle. Riley, 22, was a student at Augusta University College of Nursing, which also has a campus in Athens, about 70 miles (115 kilometers) east of Atlanta.
Defense attorney Dustin Kirby said in his opening that Riley’s death was a tragedy and called the evidence in the case graphic and disturbing. But he said there was not sufficient evidence to prove that his client killed Riley.
Riley’s parents, roommates and other friends and family packed the courtroom throughout the trial.
Alabama
Family of teen killed in shooting sue Tuskegee University for wrongful death
TUSKEGEE, Ala. (AP) — The parents of an 18-year-old who was killed in a hail of gunfire at Tuskegee University filed a wrongful death lawsuit Tuesday, saying the school failed to provide adequate security measures that could have prevented the fatal shooting.
Tamika and Larry Johnson’s son, La’Tavion Johnson, 18, was shot and killed while attending a party to celebrate the end of the school’s 100th homecoming week outside a dormitory on campus in the early hours of Nov. 10. The flurry of gunfire sent students and visitors running. At least 16 people were injured.
Johnson was not a student, the local coroner said, but was on campus for the school’s annual festivities. Johnson’s family told AL.com that Johnson, who graduated high school earlier in the year, was shot as he pushed someone else out of the way of the gunfire.
“It’s an unfortunate tragedy that could have been avoided with appropriate policing and security measures on the campus,’’ Ted Mann, an attorney for the family, said in an email.
Mann pointed to another shooting in September 2023, when two visitors to the campus were shot and two students were hurt while trying to leave what campus officials described as an “unauthorized party,” the Montgomery Advertiser reported.
The lawsuit says the school “failed to undertake appropriate measures to protect residents, alumni, guests, visitors and students,” despite knowledge of unspecified prior “physical threats and acts of physical violence.”
The suit also names former university Police Chief Terrance Calloway, the school’s facility management company, and Jaquez Myrick, a 25-year-old man who was charged with illegal possession of a machine gun after he was arrested at the scene with a Glock that had been converted to an automatic weapon.
The lawsuit says the defendants allowed guests, including Myrick, to enter the campus without showing identification, and that vehicles were not inspected for firearms.
Jeremiah Williams, 20, who witnesses placed at the scene of the shooting, was charged Friday in federal court with illegal possession of a machine gun. Neither Williams nor Myrick has been accused of killing Johnson or injuring others. Both deny firing their weapons during the shooting.
At a news conference the day after the shooting, Tuskegee University president Dr. Mark Brown announced that Calloway would be replaced and that the school would no longer be open to the public. All students and faculty are now required to carry visible identification on campus, Brown said.
He said the school hired over 70 additional officers during homecoming week and pointed to security checks that were at all official school events. The checkpoints included metal detectors and pat-downs, Brown said.
Brown said the party where the shooting happened was not sanctioned by the school.
“We did not nor could we have planned for security at an event that was not approved in advance or sanctioned by the university,” Brown said. “Nonetheless, it happened on our campus, and we take full responsibility for allowing a thorough investigation and implementing corrective actions.”
Georgia
Man pleads guilty to killing a couple lured by a false offer to sell a classic car
McRAE-HELENA, Ga. (AP) — A man has pleaded guilty to murdering a Georgia couple found fatally shot nearly a decade ago after being lured to a rural county by a false offer to sell them a classic car.
Ronnie “Jay” Towns pleaded guilty Monday in Telfair County Superior Court to two counts of malice murder in the January 2015 killings of Bud and June Runion.
Superior Court Judge Sara Wall sentenced Towns to life in prison with no chance of parole, WMAZ-TV reported. Towns’s plea spared him from a possible death sentence if he had been convicted by a jury.
Investigators said the Runions traveled more than three hours from their home in Marietta outside Atlanta to Telfair County expecting to buy a 1966 Ford Mustang from someone who contacted 69-year-old Bud Runion in response to an ad on the website Craigslist. Instead, they were robbed and fatally shot. Authorities found their bodies beside a county road.
Towns was arrested a few days later and charged with armed robbery and murder. His case stalled after Georgia courts threw out Towns’ first indictment over problems with how the grand jury was selected. Towns was indicted for a second time in 2020, and the COVID-19 pandemic caused further delays.
“This has been an extremely long 10 years,” the judge said during Towns’ plea hearing.
New evidence in the Runions’ deaths surfaced unexpectedly last April, when someone using a magnet to fish for metal objects in a creek pulled up a .22-caliber rifle and a bag containing a cellphone as well as a pair of driver’s licenses and credit cards that belonged to the Runions.
Man convicted of murder in killing of nursing student
ATHENS, Ga. (AP) — A Venezuelan man has been convicted of murder in the killing of Georgia nursing student Laken Riley, a case that fueled the national debate over immigration during this year’s presidential race.
Jose Ibarra was charged with murder and other crimes in Riley’s February death, and the guilty verdict was reached Wednesday by Athens-Clarke County Superior Court Judge H. Patrick Haggard. Ibarra, 26, had waived his right to a jury trial, meaning that Haggard alone heard and decided the case.
Riley’s family and roommates cried as the verdict was read. Ibarra didn’t visibly react.
The killing added fuel to the national debate over immigration when federal authorities said Ibarra illegally entered the U.S. in 2022 and was allowed to stay in the country while he pursued his immigration case.
The trial began Friday, and prosecutors called more than a dozen law enforcement officers, Riley’s roommates and a woman who lived in the same apartment as Ibarra. Defense attorneys called a police officer, a jogger and one of Ibarra’s neighbors on Tuesday and rested their case Wednesday morning.
Prosecutor Sheila Ross told the judge that Ibarra encountered Riley while she was running on the University of Georgia campus on Feb. 22 and killed her during a struggle. Riley, 22, was a student at Augusta University College of Nursing, which also has a campus in Athens, about 70 miles (115 kilometers) east of Atlanta.
Defense attorney Dustin Kirby said in his opening that Riley’s death was a tragedy and called the evidence in the case graphic and disturbing. But he said there was not sufficient evidence to prove that his client killed Riley.
Riley’s parents, roommates and other friends and family packed the courtroom throughout the trial.
Alabama
Family of teen killed in shooting sue Tuskegee University for wrongful death
TUSKEGEE, Ala. (AP) — The parents of an 18-year-old who was killed in a hail of gunfire at Tuskegee University filed a wrongful death lawsuit Tuesday, saying the school failed to provide adequate security measures that could have prevented the fatal shooting.
Tamika and Larry Johnson’s son, La’Tavion Johnson, 18, was shot and killed while attending a party to celebrate the end of the school’s 100th homecoming week outside a dormitory on campus in the early hours of Nov. 10. The flurry of gunfire sent students and visitors running. At least 16 people were injured.
Johnson was not a student, the local coroner said, but was on campus for the school’s annual festivities. Johnson’s family told AL.com that Johnson, who graduated high school earlier in the year, was shot as he pushed someone else out of the way of the gunfire.
“It’s an unfortunate tragedy that could have been avoided with appropriate policing and security measures on the campus,’’ Ted Mann, an attorney for the family, said in an email.
Mann pointed to another shooting in September 2023, when two visitors to the campus were shot and two students were hurt while trying to leave what campus officials described as an “unauthorized party,” the Montgomery Advertiser reported.
The lawsuit says the school “failed to undertake appropriate measures to protect residents, alumni, guests, visitors and students,” despite knowledge of unspecified prior “physical threats and acts of physical violence.”
The suit also names former university Police Chief Terrance Calloway, the school’s facility management company, and Jaquez Myrick, a 25-year-old man who was charged with illegal possession of a machine gun after he was arrested at the scene with a Glock that had been converted to an automatic weapon.
The lawsuit says the defendants allowed guests, including Myrick, to enter the campus without showing identification, and that vehicles were not inspected for firearms.
Jeremiah Williams, 20, who witnesses placed at the scene of the shooting, was charged Friday in federal court with illegal possession of a machine gun. Neither Williams nor Myrick has been accused of killing Johnson or injuring others. Both deny firing their weapons during the shooting.
At a news conference the day after the shooting, Tuskegee University president Dr. Mark Brown announced that Calloway would be replaced and that the school would no longer be open to the public. All students and faculty are now required to carry visible identification on campus, Brown said.
He said the school hired over 70 additional officers during homecoming week and pointed to security checks that were at all official school events. The checkpoints included metal detectors and pat-downs, Brown said.
Brown said the party where the shooting happened was not sanctioned by the school.
“We did not nor could we have planned for security at an event that was not approved in advance or sanctioned by the university,” Brown said. “Nonetheless, it happened on our campus, and we take full responsibility for allowing a thorough investigation and implementing corrective actions.”
Georgia
Man pleads guilty to killing a couple lured by a false offer to sell a classic car
McRAE-HELENA, Ga. (AP) — A man has pleaded guilty to murdering a Georgia couple found fatally shot nearly a decade ago after being lured to a rural county by a false offer to sell them a classic car.
Ronnie “Jay” Towns pleaded guilty Monday in Telfair County Superior Court to two counts of malice murder in the January 2015 killings of Bud and June Runion.
Superior Court Judge Sara Wall sentenced Towns to life in prison with no chance of parole, WMAZ-TV reported. Towns’s plea spared him from a possible death sentence if he had been convicted by a jury.
Investigators said the Runions traveled more than three hours from their home in Marietta outside Atlanta to Telfair County expecting to buy a 1966 Ford Mustang from someone who contacted 69-year-old Bud Runion in response to an ad on the website Craigslist. Instead, they were robbed and fatally shot. Authorities found their bodies beside a county road.
Towns was arrested a few days later and charged with armed robbery and murder. His case stalled after Georgia courts threw out Towns’ first indictment over problems with how the grand jury was selected. Towns was indicted for a second time in 2020, and the COVID-19 pandemic caused further delays.
“This has been an extremely long 10 years,” the judge said during Towns’ plea hearing.
New evidence in the Runions’ deaths surfaced unexpectedly last April, when someone using a magnet to fish for metal objects in a creek pulled up a .22-caliber rifle and a bag containing a cellphone as well as a pair of driver’s licenses and credit cards that belonged to the Runions.
