The Tragic Murder of Laken Riley

0:06 Welcome to Unspeakable, a true crime podcast where I tell stories of real crimes with real victims, whose cases are so shocking that many are left wondering how is this even real? I use my experiences in law enforcement corrections, and combined with my years as a criminal justice educator, dig deep into complex cases of evil acts, some so evil many feel they are unspeakable. Warning. Unspeakable as intended for mature audiences. If you are easily offended, then I'm not your girl. Listening discretion is advised. Hey, y'all, it's kJ You're back for another episode of Unspeakable. It's the first, well, I guess technically it's the second, but it's the first full episode of a case for twenty twenty five. And I promise y'all at my Ask Me Anything episode that I was going to give you a bang up one this go round. And I'm telling you, I don't think that I disappoint this week. I'm very proud of this episode.

1:20 I worked really, really hard on it, as I do all of them, but this one meant a lot to me, and so I hope that you will enjoy it. So I want you to come with me if you will to a place that I've been a time or two, but most notably, when it comes to mind, I'm thinking the good old SEC. Okay, that's right. It's football, and those Bulldogs always seem to make for a good game. I love watching football. If it's not for you, that's okay. But I just love football, and I like watching Georgia play. But there's more to Georgia than just football, obviously, And in recent months there's been a girl from there that I have done a lot of thinking about. I mean a lot. I have never met her, and I even though I haven't never met her, I know a whole lot about her. And you're gonna know about her soon, because I'm about to lay it all out there for you.

2:11 But does the name Laken Hope Riley Does that ring a bell for you? If it does, awesome. If it doesn't, I want you to know who she is, all right, I'm gonna fill you in lake and Riley was born on January tenth, two thousand and two, to the beaming parents Alison Phillips and William Riley in Marietta, Georgia, and she was raised in Woodstock, and she was adored by her parents from the time she took her her first breath, all right, Her parents were just just enthralled with her, as her other siblings as well, but just enthralled with her. And they knew that this girl was gonna be somebody someday. She was a good kid, and she grew up to be a very successful teenager. She loved to run. That was one of her favorite things to do. And by running, I mean like getting to the wide open and just getting you know, feet on the pavement and getting some distance in. She loved to run so much that she was part of the River Ridge High School cross country team, where she would eventually graduate from in twenty twenty. So this is a very recent case, recent history that I'm telling you about. Laken was smart and kind, compassionate, which is just a skill that I don't think can be taught.

3:26 Compassion is something that people have, and I think experience gives you that, and Lacn was a very compassionate and thoughtful person. But those words alone don't even begin to scratch the surface of this young lady. Laken was considered by her parents to be just a very caring daughter. She cared about them. She was a loving sister to her three siblings and good company to so many people, but especially the two children that she nannied for. These parents trusted her to take care of their children, and she did it with love. She loved her job, and her proudest accomplishment to date, though, was her unwavering faith in Jesus, which led her to participate in mission trips with her church. And she was a very devoted follower of Jesus. So Lacan had this gift.

4:19 Though. Lacan had a gift that she made everyone she came in contact with across the board. She made people feel seen and she made them feel comfortable, and that, again is something that not everybody has to make somebody feel seen. And I know what people mean by this when they describe her because I have a friend like that. Her name's Korsha, so Chrisha, you're probably not listening, I know, true crime in your thing, but if you know my friend Korsha, you know that she's one of those people. She makes you feel seen, you're heard, and even if she doesn't agree with you, she's listening, and she's taking in the things that you have, and she feels things that you feel. And this is why Lacan was ultimately working towards becoming a nurse, and it seemed to be a perfect fit for her personality. Lacn was twenty two years old when this case began, and she was old enough to live alone, obviously, but she still was young enough that she needed her mama, and she talked to her mama daily and sometimes multiple times a day. She was old enough to handle her business, but she still loved her mama, and she still needed her mama's guidance as she mitigated life at this young but old enough age.

5:26 And I can only imagine that her mama was a driving force in her life, providing her comfort and support for a young girl spreading her wings and trying to establish her place in this earth. But Lacn wasn't alone when she went to college. She wasn't alone on campus. She was a proud member of the Alpha cay Omega sorority, which tells you a whole lot about her in my opinion. I know that you're not supposed to judge a book by its cover, but any girl that's part of a sorority, it kind of gives you a feeling about that girl, or does me. Sorority girls tend to be high achieving and outgoing people, and as a general rule of thumb, I would say that that would be Laken to a tea when you're looking at her and you're reading about her.

6:10 So originally, she was studying as an undergrad student at the University of Georgia through the conclusion of the twenty twenty three spring semester, but she decided to transfer to Augustin University's College of Nursing before she graduated from Georgia. Wherever Laken attended, though it didn't matter as she was doing really well before the transfer. She didn't transfer because of grades or anything like that. She was even she made the dean's list. I remember that she made the dean's list for her good grades. So this wasn't a transfer because of problems. It was just a transfer because she really wanted to focus on that nursing path that she wanted to take. And the transfer was a good thing for her too because it didn't affect her housing situation.

6:52 The Augustin University's medical campus was located in Athens and it was just two and a half miles from the Universe City of Georgia's campus, so it didn't matter geographically that she made the transfer either. And it was perfect because she could continue living with her girlfriends while they all finished out their final year of college. And her roommates are some really just just great kids. Their names were Lily, Connolly, and Sophia. So they all had different degree paths, which I'll get into in a little bit, but Laken was on track to graduate with a Bachelors of Nursing degree in twenty twenty five. Where we are now, So on the morning of February twenty second, twenty twenty four, Laken got up early because she needed to do some homework.

7:38 She had some stuff that she needed to wrap up on her computer and she wanted to get all of that done before she went to class that day. So she had lived with these roommates that I mentioned for the past two years and they were like sisters to her. They were extremely close. They didn't just pass in the wind. Not these girls. They were devoted to each other as a sisterhood in this house. And they did not only did they live together, but they did everything together too, outside of their schooling and just where they lived. And I think it's cute because one thing I read was that they would do this thing where they'd have dinner together at night and they called it their family dinner, which I thought was just absolutely precious. They would have movie nights together and just really depended on one another for that love and support while they were at college and just a great group of girls enjoying being young and free. These girls, by the way, are all absolutely precious if you are inclined to look them up. But I will post pictures of everybody on patreons so you can get to know them. But I want you to know this isn't me being kind or generous either. All of these girls are beautiful, young ladies, well put together, classy, and I don't know why, but they look like they smell good. Y'all know what I'm talking about when I say that they look like they just smell good, and that they just have this beauty about them. Pretty makeup, curled hair, pearl earrings, type fashionabbull girls, and they just are well put together. Sofia was studying to be a teacher,

9:09 Lily was in college. I don't actually remember what she was studying, and shame on me for that, and Connelly was studying psychology. So they did have career paths that were admirable. If you ask me, Lily actually was in a medical pathway now that it jumps to my mind. She was in some type of medical pathway. So Laken was up early and Connolly was two. They were both in the living room around seven forty five that morning because all of the girls had classes that day. Lacan was in the living room. She had her iPad and she was taking some notes, she was doing some homework, and she was watching Netflix at the same time, which for the life of me, I can't understand. But the young people do it. They watched Netflix and they work. I guess I'm a single track minded person because I can't do it, but kudos to the younguns who can.

9:55 But Connolly had two classes that day, and Sophia had a very important test that she was getting ready for. She was scheduled to take what was called her gase Exam gacee GASE, and that was a requirement that anyone who wanted to be a teacher in Georgia had to take. So they were all very scheduled and regiment on what they had to do that day. So about forty five minutes that morning, Connolly and Laken discussed their plans what they were going to do that night, and also they talked about what they were going to be doing this coming up weekend because they just loved to hang out and have plans and spend a lot of time together. But first they all had to get their classes out of the way. So Laken had gotten up early and it was early enough because she wanted to go get a run in. Remember she was a runner, and she was going to do this before she went to class, but Connolly wouldn't be able to go with her that morning.

10:44 Both of the girls usually enjoyed running together and they did this often from anywhere from three to six times a week if their schedules allowed, But this morning it just didn't align and Connolly would not be able to go with Laken for the run. So after they talked for a little while, they went about their separate ways. Laken got ready for her morning run, Connolly and Sophia left her classes, and Lily had some errands that she needed to complete that morning. What the girls didn't know was while they lived in a very decent part of town, it was really close to campus. What they didn't know was that there was a predator on the loose that morning. How could they have possibly known this? They had no clue. He lived near the campus too, and he had started his day really early, much earlier than the girls did, about an hour or so before any of the girls I've just mentioned to you had even woken up that morning.

11:36 It was about six fifty two am when a male in dark slides like the shoes dark slides, black pants, and a black jacket began walking near campus and eventually he found himself walking around some campus apartments. These were not apartments or anything that Laken lived in. This is a completely separate living area. And when he was walking around these campus apartments, he specifically found himself around apartment one pin fourteen of building s. The buildings were labeled by letter, and this was a lower level apartment that a graduate student lived in. She was an Indian national and her name was Tasha. She was up early that morning as well because she needed to get her day started.

12:22 All of these people that are successful are early risers, and unfortunately, evil can be an early riser too. So she was sleepy eyed when she decided to get move in, and she decided to take a shower, and so she shuffled into her bathroom and she started running her water for her morning shower. Her apartment, though, was kind of in an area where it didn't get really good lighting as well as the inside seemed really dim and yellow lighting lit, if you know what I'm talking about, And so she preferred to open her blinds and her curtains to let in that bright morning sun. As she was getting ready, she pulled the strings to the blinds and she raised them up all the way. The light was just so happy to her and it was just too beautiful to not let it shine in. As she was getting started. And from the outside of the apartment, there were two large windows. Each window went to a separate room of her apartment. The right side window was her living room and the left side window was her bedroom.

13:25 So everything was kind of right there in close proximity and right there on that bottom level. So she got undressed and she jumped in her shower and she started to bathe when she thought that she heard something. She listened, and she knew that she had heard something, but she wasn't sure what it was. So she leaned out of her shower and she kind of looked and listened, but nothing she didn't hear anything, so she continued to shower, and then all of a sudden, she heard that sound again, and she knew that she had heard something this time. So confused mixed with a slight bit of alarm, she got out of the shower and she went to her front door because that's where the sound was coming from.

14:09 And as she approached her front door, she heard the doorknob and she saw it start jiggling. She was not expecting any visitors at six something in the morning, I can assure you, so she wasn't. She was more confused than alarmed, but certainly something was amiss here. So she leaned forward and she looked through her peephole, were to her shock, there was a man dressed in all black leaning into her door and twisting the knob, trying to get inside of her apartment. And just surprised by what she was seeing, she said, really loudly, excuse me. You know that voice that women we take whenever we're we feel a fence. Why are you touching my doorknob? Excuse you?

14:51 And when she said it out loud, the man immediately ducked down, so she knew this is not a mistake. He knows exactly what he's doing trying to get into my apartment. So she tore off running. She grabbed her phone and she dialed nine one one, I have the call. And in all transparency, it's really hard to understand because she has a really, really thick accent, and then if you combine that with the really poor quality of the nine to one to one call, it's just really hard to hear. So there's really no point in me playing it for you. But what she does say is that she explains to the operator exactly what's happening, and then she moved while she's talking to that operator, she moved into her living room, and sure enough, when she moved into her living room, she's talking to the operator, she's horrified to see that the man has now moved to her window and he's dressed in all black. He's got a hat, a black hat, he's got a hoodie pulled up over that, and he's like leaning and peeping into her window. So he had tried to come through the door.

15:48 She says, excuse me. He runs around to the side of the building and how he's blatantly looking in her window trying to see what's inside. And so the police immediately respond. They get there, but by the time they get there, the guy's gone. He's long gone. They don't see him anywhere. And this attempt to break in, y'all, was brazen, absolutely brazen. Let me tell you why I'm telling you this. Her apartment faces the parking lot, and the parking lot is just ten feet away from her front door. So anybody that was outside getting in their car, or anybody walking about would have seen him breaking in. It wasn't like in the dark corner in the back of the dark room or anything. It was right there, completely and utterly brazen. So this is being handled by police and they're trying to figure out who was this guy and why was he trying to break in? Thank God that woman was safe and that she had her doors locked. But meanwhile, Laken back at her house, Lican's getting dressed and she pulls on her typical running wear that she wears every time she goes running. She wears tight clothing while she's running for both compression and comfort.

16:56 Anyone who runs or is athletic knows that tight clothing is best for running. You don't want the chafage and you don't want your clothes just you know, blowing around and everything. So today she had on black running tights and they come above her belly button. She wears them really high above her belly button. She had on a running brawl a T shirt, and then she had on a black Lululemon fitted jacket and she paired that with her bright white Hoka tennis shoes. So not only was she fit a fit girl, but she looked cute and I like that. She looked well put together while she was on her run. So she pulled up her long, thick black hair into a ponytail, and she put on her new Garmin running watch that she had gotten for Christmas because her family knew how much she loved to run.

17:43 She grabbed her AirPods, she grabbed her cell phone, and then she was out the door. Now Lake, And I want to tell y'all, she's my height and roughly my weight. She's five foot four and she was like one hundred and forty pounds, so she's not a big tall girl. She's shorter than the average woman, which is five seven. And she just is a cute thing. She's cute. She's got these bright eyes, she's got darker eyebrows, pretty straight, white teeth, long black hair. She looks like to me and don't come at me if this doesn't describe you, But she looks to me like every nursing student. Cute as a button, ready to go, you know, go work the hospital. And lacoln was a good runner, y'all. She wasn't just out there barely doing her thing. No, she could run, and she could run long distances, and she was pretty fast. She was a fit girl. She and Connelly, by the way, had recently trained together for what was called the ASF Half Marathon that was in twenty twenty three, and they had a blast running it. I've got pictures of her holding her medal and just loved getting out there and getting that exercise. Lacan was a multitasker too, and she would often call her mom while she was running.

18:56 And I will say now that she's better than me, because if I'm running, y'all being chased, I want you to know that something's wrong. If I'm running, I don't like to run for the fun of it. It didn't fun for me to run. And number two, I can't talk and run at the same time. I have an option. I either have to focus on survival or coordination, but Laken had both. Okay, she could run and she could talk, which I think is awesome can she has the breath and the training to be able to do that. And it was a beautiful day that she was out for her run. It was windy, it was in the low seventies, just an absolutely beautiful day. So it was nine oh three that morning when Lake and walked out her front door, and she walked towards these intramural sports fields that were very popular in that area for runners and bikers to go and hang out. It's a well traveled area. It has paths that lead to and from and through and they had these paths that led into the woods, which, like I said, were frequented by a lot of places daily.

19:55 She was in a very, very open and well traveled area. So she walked to what was called the Millage Avenue Extension before she would pick up her pace and start really working on that jog exercise. The breeze through her hair, her endorphins flowing with every pomp of her heart. It was the perfect start to what was going to be a beautiful day. The sun was shining and I can just see her running and mulling over the things that she had to do, the tasks that she had to accomplish, working through her head everything because she was very organized and a very thoughtful person about the things that she was doing. All of this she's working out in her head as her feet or hitting the pavement. So by nine oh five, just two minutes later, that's from when she left the apartment, she was running southbound on that millage extension, just like she always did. She had her cell phone in her left hand, and she made her way down the road that long black ponytail, swinging side to side and just really enjoying herself. But within six minutes, six minutes of her beginning her run, her cell phone dialed nine to one one at exactly nine one one, nine to eleven in the morning. So the dispatcher answers her call, but no matter what the dispatcher says, Laken is not responding to anything that she's asking or saying.

21:19 And then, moments later, even though the dispatcher continues to try to get someone to answer, there's a disconnect that Lacan hangs up. One line is heard during the call, and you would not know that this was words being spoken unless you listen to it probably one hundred times, and you really were able to focus and hone in on this section, and the one line that's heard right before it hangs up are the words yo tango, yo tango Spanish for I have or I have it. So, as is protocol, the dispatcher called back multiple times, but Laken never answered the calls. So meanwhile, while all of this is happening, roommate Lily returned from running her errands and she was surprised to see Lacan's car was still at the house. Lily had originally left around nine thirty and Laken was already gone for her run when Lily left.

22:19 The plan here was that Lily wanted to go have coffee with Laken whenever she got back, so she checked her location on her cell phone and saw, oh, she's still out for her run, and it showed her location in those woods, in the running path of the woods at nine point thirty. So Lily said, all right, well cool, she's running. I'll get back with her. I'm gonna go run one more errand, so Lily left out again and she went and ran her other errand she's just thinking to herself I'll call her back whenever I get home. Now, that's important. Why I'm telling you that, The reason she says to herself, I'll call her back whenever I get home later on is because there happened to be an AT and T cellular outage that day, and so Lily had AT and T. She was only able to make calls whenever she was connected to the Wi Fi, which would have been when she was back at the house, not while she was out driving around and running her errands.

23:07 So when Lily returned from her second round of running errands, the car was still at the house, and this kind of made Lily question, you know, why is it still here? So she again checked Lacan's location on her phone, and she found that she was still in the exact same spot in the woods. And this bothered Lily. It bothered her a lot. Actually, she knew that Laken didn't actually have AT and T. She knew that Lacan's phone should have been updating her location, and she also knew that Lacan had classed that day, and Lacan would never be late for class. She would have never extended her run to miss her class, and certainly not this long. So Lacan's Mom had also started calling Lakean around nine oh six that morning, but there was no answer, and after a while, because she normally spoke to her during her run, Mom became a long armed as well, and so Mom called the roommates. Lily was a little alarmed by this as well, and so they were kind of discussing where was Laken's whereabouts and where could she possibly be. So Lily started to look further into whether anyone had actually spoken to Laken after she went out for the run, and so this meant she called their roommates to check with them, but again that AT and T WiFi outage posed difficulties in doing so because both Lily and Connolly as well as Sophia actually all three of them had AT and T even though Laken did not. So Lily sent a text to Connolly and said, hey, is Laken

24:39 okay Lauren which I haven't mentioned Lauren yet. Lauren is Lake's sister. She also had called, but no one was able to get in touch with Laken, and they're all trying to call each other. So really alarmed by this. Once she had service, Connolly stepped out of class and she tried to call Lakean herself, but it rang and rang, there was no answer. But then the worry really became real because all the girls knew that Lakean would never miss class and that she was always on schedule, always, so in the meantime, Sophia had just completed that exam that she was scheduled to take and she was required to put her cell phone into a locker while she took her exams, So she pulled her cell phone out of the locker, and, unaware of the unfolding situation at hand, she just drove home where when she finally regained phone service on the house WiFi, that's whenever her phone did ding di ding starts giving her all of these updates.

25:35 And it was then that she realized both Connolly and Laken's sister had tried to get in touch with her because they couldn't find Laken. Well, she decided to go walk around the house and look for she couldn't find her anywhere. She then went outside, she looked around the property. Laken wasn't there, so then she too checked for Lacan's location on her cell phone, and her cell phone showed that Laken was in the woods. So real fast, I'm around teenagers a lot and young adults, and I thought it was absolutely, positively the most creepiest thing ever. Whenever my daughter would open her phone and she would go, oh, you know, so and so's at the mall, and I'm like, how do you know that?

26:15 Oh? I follow her? Like what do you mean? You follow her? Your stalker? You know, that's weird. But in today's time, it's just so normal. It's normalized that everyone shares their location and everybody knows where everybody is. Well, these roommates did it because they spent so much time together. They wanted to see where everybody where they were and wouldn't interrupt. Maybe if they're at the doctor's office or getting a massage or something, they would know where their friends were. So they all shared their locations with one another, the roommates. So by now Lily and Sophia were together and they decided they were just going to take matters into their own hands. She's been in the woods for hours. That doesn't make sense. We're going to just go physically go look for our friend. So Sophia grabbed her pup. Her pup's name was Champ. He looks like a black lab and they all go walking to the woods to the trail where they go to look for Laken. So as they're walking through these woods, Champ is sniffing really really hard.

27:09 When they get to a certain area, and he is sniffing like with intention, and he's kind of pulling, and he's staying in that area. He was absolutely fixated on something that was on the ground. Lots of leaves and things were in the area. So Sofia goes AND's like, what are you doing, dog, what are you looking at? And when she looks down, sure enough, guess what the dog was sniffing. It was an AirPod. They believed it to be Lacin's AirPod. So they thought it was Lacin's so much that they immediately just jumped into police mode themselves and they started the roommate started documenting, taking pictures of the AirPod where they found it, where on the trail. And I found that absolutely incredible that they had the forethought enough to not just pick it up, but to photograph it and that would become important. And then they went straight back after they found that and couldn't find Laken anywhere. They went straight back to the house and they called the police from the house again because there was no service on their phones, so Lily called nine one one and Connolly, who was still in class if you remember, she had stepped out and tried to call Laken, but Connolly was still in class. Sophia jumped in her car and ran and picked up Connolly and brought her back to the house and at that point all three roommates agreed to meet with the police at the woods to show them where they last see Lacn's location and to say she should be back by now. There's something wrong here. So Kenneth Maxwell, he's a University of Georgia police sergeant, he responded to the roommates and he was there within minutes. And when he got there, he took

28:41 these young girl's fears very seriously. He could tell that they were very upset and very nervous and that this was not just a run of the mill, Hey, I can't find my friend situation. So he asked to see Lily's phone, and he looked at the location to see exactly where he thought her phone was showing where lake his phone was showing location. He was very familiar with the area and he could tell pretty quickly the actual vicinity, even though it was just woods. He could tell because he was so familiar with the area where exactly, you know, he thought that the phone was locating from. So I want to tell you about Kenneth Maxwell real quick. You look at him, and he has got a very kind face.

29:24 I don't know how to explain it to you. Something about him looks very kind. He's a handsome man. He's got a brown beard, he's got a mustache, he's got a short kind of high and tight haircut. You see some grays starting to kind of peek through. And when speaking with him, he comes across as professional, caring and a very steady individual who will stay the course and take people's concerns seriously. So he drove to the back of the fields where the trails began, based on that screenshot that he got from Lily, and he directed some other off that had arrived at that time to go to the opposite side from where he would be starting, and they would search together and eventually meet up in the middle. So they searched for about twenty minutes for anything that may clue them into if something had happened to Laken or not, and they didn't find anything. Matter of fact, he even asked dispatch over his police radio.

30:20 At one point, hey, go ahead and check some local hospitals. See if there's you know, a Jane Doe or something at the hospital, or by name if she's at the hospitals. But while he's searching, he's also wearing a body cam, He asked dispatch. At some point he says, look, go ahead and call her phone for me. Keep calling it because if it's ringing, maybe it'll alert me to where the phone is. So they call, and they call, but they weren't hearing. He just wasn't hearing anything. He never heard a ring of buzzer, nothing, So in his body cam, it's just quiet. The only thing for twenty minutes that you hear, other than the occasion radio traffic, is the crunching of leaves as he's walking. You can just hear him crunching through the leaves, looking through the woods, and maybe every now and then you'll hear the occasional bird chirp.

31:12 It's quiet. But twenty one minutes after he started looking for Lacan, his steps shift from a decent walking pace to running, and his breathing becomes really hard. And here is some audio I have for you from his body cam as he realizes he sees Lacan's bloody and battered body laying on the ground. Oh shit, is the university? I found it, ma'am, ma'am, ma'am oh.

31:53 I mess immediately she just a look at you? What the thout paying for? Ma'am, ma'am she doubted not breathing. Potentially better back. Ye ten eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifty, sixteen, seventy eight. Twenty twenty one, twenty two, thirty four bucks nine twenty five, twenty nine thirty.

33:05 I'm like GKT Naples. She stepped one, two, three, four, five. Six, seven, eight nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteenth. Nineteen, twenty thirty one thirty two, twenty three, twenty four, twenty five, twenty six, twenty seven, twenty nine thirty that's what you exactly. Looked like, Bloomboards Romena the head. Her shirt has been removed above her. Breast eleventh, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteenth, nineteen pointy three two, twenty three, twenty four.

33:57 I thought, if you look at the painty, we're exactly where that was thinking at when. He said out loud, I'm not getting any pulse. She's stiff. I don't know about you, but my heart sank when you said that. The professionalism and the calm that this officer displayed for me and mine is just commendable. He jumped immediately into action for this young girl that he had never met a day in his life. That second officer that would eventually arrive, his name is Mason Bridges, and he would take over and continue CPR on LACN as the sirens of an ambulance and fire trucks come into earshot, and they both work intensely on LACN, not giving up, breathing, doing CPR and staying with it, taking turns, and even at one point Mason Bridges like whispers you'll hear him go come on, as he seemingly tried to summon some warmth and life back into her b come on right, And he didn't want to let her go.

35:02 He wanted her to work, He wanted her to breathe, he wanted her body to start working because it wasn't. And as Officer Bridges continues CPR, something you'll hear, or may have already heard, is a whistle that blows multiple times. That's Officer Maxwell blowing into this whistle. It's an alert whistle. So because they were so far off the beaten path, they were trying to alert the other helpers that were coming in first responders where they were, and so he continues to blow that whistle to try to alert them to their location. And so, using shears that the officers have on them, they ended up cutting off Laken's top so that they could better do CPR on her lifeless body.

35:45 The problem with her clothing was that it was very tightly bound and twisted whenever they came upon her. Her sports bra was actually now basically her outer laying of clothing. The way that she struggled with whatever had happened, all of her what should have been underlayers were now rolled up and had become her outer layers, and they had basically tightened around her upper arms where they were rolled up, where it almost like would have made it hard for her to move and fight. It was tight and strangling up at the top, and her arms at this point had become stiff, and so they decided to cut off her clothing in the hopes that maybe they could they could help her. They could put life back into her.

36:28 But honestly, once the body starts turning stiff, they probably already knew, but they didn't stop and they didn't give up, and once the firefighters arrived, they actually beat the ambulance. There. The men worked together. They followed that whistle. They found the officers, and they moved Lacan's body out of this divot that she was actually laying in so that they could more effectively administer CPR to her. So when they found her, she was laying slightly on her side. She had leaves all over her, and the leaves were just matted up. She had tangled hair, there was blood, it was all twisted up in there. And something that probably doesn't matter to a lot of people, but it matters to me, is that none of these officers, none of them took the time to put on gloves. They just dove in. They said, we're gonna help this girl. We're not gonna go back to the car to get gloves.

37:21 They just dropped down to their knees and they did what they had to do, and they did it with everything that they had. Another officer that arrived I told you about when you're listening to this body cam. It's nothing but heavy breathing as they all worked together. It's like they knew her personally, they fought so hard to save her. And then while they work on her, all of a sudden, this robotic voice starts breaking through all that breathing that you're hearing, and it begins to give commands, and you realize that it's an AED machine that they brought with them, and it's telling them to place the pads on her body, and it's helping to guide them on what to do to hopefully shock her heart back into a rhythm. Go ahead and listen for yourself. I thought this was very compelling audio.

38:10 Haven't been back of us A five pad the patients fair chest and show a five pad to patience. Have the patients fair chests as doll analyzing interrupted, Do not touch the patience analyzing but rhythm, do not touch the patience.

39:00 Yeah, are you listening to the effort? Guys? Are you listening to this? And they keep working and working and working. Eventually that AED says no shock begin CPR. AED advises keep working and working and working, and eventually the ambulance gets there, but it's of no use because Lacan was gone, And the truth of the matter is that lacan had been gone. She had been dead for hours. These men just refuse to give up on her until there was nothing more that they could possibly do. The officers had valiantly continued to work on her.

39:52 It was like they were just trying everything to just give her a chance. But when all of their efforts were exhausted and the officers backed away from the scene, there was one thing that really stood out in all of their minds as they stood there, just breathing hard, looking at this young woman lost. What they could tell is that whatever had happened to her had been intentional, and this young girl had fought ferociously for her life. She was just no match for whatever monster she had encountered, and now this was going to be a murder investigation. So when the homicide investigators arrived on the scene, they found that the scene was actually more spread out than what they originally thought, and they could paint a pretty good picture in their minds of likely what had happened.

40:44 Within reason, based on the scene that Lacoln was on the running trail, she encountered someone at some point a struggle ensued. That's why the AirPod that was found on the trail by her roommates must have been knocked from her ear or pulled from her ear when she first encountered with whatever it was she encountered. She dialed nine to one one, as the records already showed at the nine one one center, but she again was unable to speak for whatever reason, and then she was drug. She was either struck or drug or drug and then struck whatever order as she fought, I mean, she fought them whoever they were, and she was pulled sixty four feet eleven inches from the trail where she stopped running sixty four feet. There was a significant disturbance in the area where her body was. You could see the ground, and that was really important to investigators because there were absolutely no leaves in that one area compared to everywhere else there was leaves everywhere thick. I mean even heard when the officer was walking through in the crunching of the leaves.

41:46 Every area had leaves except this one spot, all the way down to the dirt. And as they looked around nearby, they found two bloody rocks. And I don't think people give justice to the size of these rocks. So I wanted to kind of give you a visual here. The rocks were about palm sized. Okay, it's not like a little bitty rock. They're palm sized. If I held my hand up, you know, it would be like a you know, a bigger than like a small gravel or bigger than a even an egg rock. It's a substantial rock that you would need your full palm to hold. And the rocks that they found, they found two of them, and they were jagged, but they were both covered in blood as well as there was a tree nearby, and that tree had blood on it, And so they came to the conclusion that these rocks must have been used to bash her head in with while she fought for her life.

42:43 Her hair, like I told you, it was tangled with leaves and blood, and there was dirt everywhere. It was so matted and bloody that it was hard to see while on seen exactly how many injuries are really what all types of injuries she had. And like I told you, they noted that her clothing was pulled up. Now, it was pulled up so far it completely exposed her breasts. When those officers first arrived on scene and tried to save her, her chest was out. It was that high up about where her shoulders were. But interestingly, her leggings were pulled down. They were pulled down below her belly button where she always wore them above her belly button, and her underwear, which was like this peach color, was protruding out on the right side. When they rolled her body over to do their investigation, the pants were down far enough that the upper area of her buttocks was showing when they flipped her over. Okay, so this wasn't just a slight roll down. They were pulled down farther than where they started above the belly button. They did find her cell phone and it lay about fifty feet from where her body lay. When they found that cell phone, the frame of the cell phone had blood on it, and on that blood was a very clear thumbprint in the blood. So while what happened seemed to be figured out, the who did it and why really start taking center stage.

44:14 Police became very interested in Lacan's watch that she was wearing because this Garmin watch held way more data than the average watch, including heart rate and pulse data. So their thinking was maybe the watch could possibly give us a time frame surrounding her death, the watch and all the other evidence that I've mentioned so far were sent to the crime lab while Lacan's body was sent for an autopsy. And so Lacan's autopsy was done by a doctor DeMarco. As DeMarco went through her body, it was washed and assessed. This is what was found in her autopsy. She had complex depressed skull fractures. This wasn't like she was punched in the head. Complex skull fractures. She had eight lacerations to her skull on the left side of her head. And these lacerations really looked like holes. You know, like a rock slamming into your head. It's such force that it cracks your skull. She had some small hemorrhaging to the right side of her head. Below her skin.

45:25 She had abrasions on her face, her neck, her torso and I don't mean like a little scuff, I mean she was tore up. Okay, she was scratched and cut basically all about her face, her neck, and her upper chest area. When they opened her eyes, she had petikia in both of her eyes. And petikia. I'm sure we all know this, but just in case you don't, those are those small dots that you get whenever pressure is applied at such force that like during strangulation, that the vessels, the blood vessel's burns in your eyes, and you can get petiki other places too, by the way, you can get it in your mouth, you can get it around the eyes. You can get a lot of places. So she had PETIITII in both eyes, which was believed to be from strangulation. They did a sexual assault kit on her, which interestingly came back negative. It was negative for DNA.

46:19 No semen was found anywhere on her clothing. What they did document, though, was that her underwear had been forcibly torn off. It wasn't an accidental movement of this underwear. Her cause of death was blunt force trauma with asphyxia, and then they put OS after it, and I was curious as to what that meant, so I looked it up, and that means asphyxia without specification, meaning they weren't sure if she was asphyxiated because she had like tons of pressure on her chest, or if she was strangled, but it was one or the other or a combination of both. That she could not expand her chest and she could not get any oxygen. Either way, she was deprived of oxygen to her brain so long that it killed her.

47:08 A person acting like an absolute freaking animal had bashed her head in and strangled the life out of Lacan Riley. But honey, make no question that Lacan didn't make it easy. She fought, she fought with everything she had. She just didn't win. And when you start getting smashed in the head with rocks, I guess i'd no wonder, no wonder. So from this point forward, I'm going to be telling you the story in chronological order, but in a way that will make sense to you, because I want to be clear that some things didn't quite happen like in this order. But it would be confusing for me to jump all over the place to explain this, so I'm going to put it into a chronicological order just for storytelling purposes. But a few things may have happened simontaneously or at different times. So immediately after Lacan was determined to be dead and the crime scene tape was put up, officers went to go see could they drum up some leads in the local vicinity or area. Maybe someone saw something, maybe there was cameras They didn't know, but they wanted to go see what they could. Drum up and near the crime scene, officers found that there were cameras on many of the apartments that were nearby that could possibly show suspect movement in and out of the area where Lacan was found. And true to their suspicions, cameras were located and the police were able to go review that footage.

48:37 In the meantime, while that was being done, data from the garm and watch that Lakean wore would hold a gold mine of information about her final moments. So in brief, she basically had a heart rate that was indicative of a normal run. When she started at nine oh eight am, her heart rate was one hundred and fiftyifty six beats per minute, and then at nine ten she literally stops dead in her tracks. They can tell this through the heart rate data. Within the next minute, which would have been at that nine to eleven am, that's when she called nine to one one. That call where where they heard nothing but yo tango. Obviously, based on the garment data, a struggle was taking place for her life. She couldn't speak, but she was fighting for her life. And I want you to understand this I don't want to gloss over and say she fought for her life. I want to be very specific for the next seventeen minutes. Seventeen minutes, her heart is still beating, and it's beating rapidly. She is in a fight for her life for seventeen minutes before it stops and it never beats again. Seventeen minutes. Y'all, this fight was long and it was fierce. What could you do in seventeen minutes. I really sat back on that, and I even googled tell me things I could do

50:08 in seventeen minutes to really put this into perspective. You could get a quick workout in. You could do some high interval training sessions. You could do a short yoga flow. You could go get a brisk run put in. But one thing that stood out to me, Well, there was a couple of things. You could do a light meal prep, you could clean a small area, you could read a chapter in a book. But one thing that really stood out to me said, listen to a podcast episode. You could tune into a short podcast episode while doing other tasks. So I know my podcast is usually about an hour long, but I want you to really think about that to this point, think about those first seventeen minutes because she was fighting for her life the entire time. That's incredible.

50:56 So using this timeline, police were able to look through that camera footage that was out and about with that relative time stamp, and what they found was fifteen minutes after Laken's heart stopped beating, you see a Hispanic male in black pants and what appears to be at first glance, a black sleeveless tank top with a black hat walk to the dumpster at this apartment complex and he's holding a black jacket. He walks up to the dumpster, he opens the front of it, and he tosses the jacket into the dumpster. Then he walks off to his left and there's an apartment there and there's some bushes that are planted right underneath a window right there of the lower story apartment, and he throws something into those bushes.

51:46 So when they enhanced a video still a picture basically of this suspect, it shows when they zoom in and enhance it's actually a black T shirt with white or gray sleeves that have a black symbol on it or these it was like these white stripes on the sleeves, and then there was a hat that this person had, and when they zoomed in, it was a hat that had the Adidas symbol on it and it had the wording in white of Adidas right below the symbol. So they felt pretty confident that this guy must have had something to do with Laken's demise. So a photo was released immediately and a bolo be on the lookout for was sent out. Pictures were sent around campus. If anyone sees or recognizes this man or this clothing, we need to know. So police then went to that dumpster and they went and they looked in those bushes to see what did that man dump in the dumpster, and then the bushes and in the dumpster, an officer looked in and there really wasn't much in the dumpster, just some random trash that was in there. But what they could see on top of that random trash was that black jacket.

52:57 So he jumped in and I watched the body cam video of this because I was just kind of, I don't know, I'm nosy and I'm curious. I wanted to know exactly what went down, and it's almost like just this this just gut like he just kind of says it. It's not prompted. Nobody asks him any questions, but he bends down and he grabs the jacket and he goes. And by the way, this officer didn't know anything about Lake, and really he just knew that a girl had been murdered. And he looks down and he says, ooh, does our victim have long brown hair? I hope she doesn't. And it's because when he looked at the jacket, there were long strands of brown hair that were tangled and wrapped around one of the buttons of the jacket. And everyone who knew what Lake looked like was like, ooh, yeah, she does. So then they walk over to the bushes and when they look in and I have photographs of all of this and some video on Patreon for you, they find three black disposable kitchen gloves in the in the bushes. So obviously they pull that out and they take it into EVA and they send it up to the crime lab. Well about this same time, which mind you, it's now Friday, that Friday, around eight thirty am. Okay, so Laken went for her run on a Thursday. Then everything went through the night and now it's the next morning that Friday, it's about eight thirty in the morning when the police are out and they're looking for anyone that might match the relative description of who they believe was this attacker, and they encounter a man who identified

54:27 himself as Diego Ibarra, and he was walking near campus and he was wearing, amazingly what appeared to be the exact same hat of the murder suspect that was released in the bolow. Surely, someone's not that dumb, you know, go wear this hat to commit a murder and then wear it the next day. Surely you're not that stupid. Well, when the officers encounter him and they're looking at him, the hat also had what the officer at the time thought was dirt on the brim, and it seemed like to him a person that had fought and struggled with Lakean in that fight where all the dirt and stuff was, it would make sense that the wear the hat was grabbed on the brim, that the dirt would have transferred there.

55:13 It just seemed to make sense as to what was going on. Coincidence maybe, but very interesting when it was happening. So they stop him and they wanted to speak with him and question him, but immediately there was a problem of a language barrier, because he really only spoke Spanish. He was not fluent in English by any stretch of the imagination. Another issue that they had is whenever they asked him, let me see your ID, he hands them a green card. But very quickly they pick up on the fact that this thing's got to be fake. The reason they thought it was fake was because it had two different dates of birth on it in different locations. Well, a green card's not going to get that wrong. So they just felt like, we need to check this out a little bit further. So they go back to his residence with him for some more questioning. But that communication, that language issue just is not letting this happen. He speaks Spanish, the officers do not, So they called in other officers that do speak Spanish, and they come to translate.

56:10 These officers' names were Officer Bridges and officers say in. Both of them were native Spanish speakers too, and I want to be very clear about that. These were not people who took a class. They're native Spanish speakers. And so when they start talking to this Diego guy, he says, I have some other brothers and family sleeping inside the house. There was a total of five people that lived in this apartment. So while speaking to him, they're trying to get a search warrant cut for this apartment. When while they're waiting, the suspect's brother, his name is Arhinis, he comes out and he's holding a garbage bag in his hand. So the officers start talking to him and have a few questions for him, and at some point he gives them consent to enter the home. He's like, sure, you can go in. And so for people who would jump all over this, once someone gives you consent, you don't quite need the warrant. They let you walk in. So his whole argument was that there were beans on the stove and he was really worried about these beans and they're gonna burn down the apartment. I've got a stove, you know, We've got to go check on this food.

57:15 We got to check on this food. So the officers kind of pushed the door open, and you can tell they don't. These are not your native Spanish speakers, and they're going ola ala ala, And when you watch the body cam, no one responds and it's it's a very small apartment. You'd think you could see what was going on here, Ola Olla. And then suddenly, where it looks like this is an empty apartment, two people pop up from under these sheets on this bed, and I don't know, y'all. It was alarming to me that people could be that hidden in this bed, because if they had a gun, you would have been dead, all right. But either way, they come, they wake them up and they're like, come on, we need you to come outside. So every the apartment ends up going outside. These are the people in the house.

58:03 There was a guy named Jose Ibarra, and they called him Victor. He was the guy that was asleep in the bed. There was Diego Ibarro which he went by El Gocho. He was the brother of Jose. And I was curious about what el Gocho meant, so I of course went to someone that I love and trust who's from there, from Venezuela, and he told me that there's a region of Venezuela where people are born. It's like this mountainous area of southwest Venezuela. And he said that those people in that area are considered to be like of the more naive side or the nicer side, and so el Gocho is the term used for those people, if you want to know. I was just curious, and so Diego. By the way, ol Gocho that's the one that was originally detained for the hat. And he also had a tear drop tattoo under his eye, which I find to be so classy. And of course every one knows what the meaning behind that is supposed to be that you've killed someone or attempted to kill someone. La ti Da the other person rosa belly flores Bello. They called her La gorda, and I thought this was kind of funny. But that means like fatty or chubby, but it's a term of endearment, type of chubby. Like it's not calling her fat, it's like chubby or whatever. So my buddy, again, that's from Venezuela. He told me that culturally speaking, people from their culture say that like kindly, so like they might cost somebody baldy or chubby, but

59:34 it's not being ugly, it's just the way that they do it. Arhanaz Ibarra went by Manny. That was the kid that came out, the younger brother with the trash bag and then there was another one named Juan Carlos Diaz Hernandez. They called him Carlito, which is basically Carlos in Spanish. So all of these people are in that one apartment. So they look over the police look over Diego's body and nothing is really seen whenever they're looking him, o they look over all the other people in the house. There's no scratches, there's no nothing on any of these people until they get to Jose. Now, Jose, I want to let you know. I think is a nice looking guy, nothing amazing, nothing to call home about. But he's not ugly.

1:00:17 He's a nice looking guy. He's got a black beard, he kept it, kind of shorter, brown eyes, he's got the average man's haircut, with his bangs a little bit fuller, and they're styled up almost into like a little faux hawk in the front, but more muted. It's not like he's going for the mohawk look. And what they found was that he had a bunch of little, tiny scratches on him that were interesting to them. So they wanted to photograph him. And the more they looked and the closer they checked, the more they noticed on Jose. So the officer looking him over played football back in his high school days, and he said that the cuts on Jose reminded him of what happens whenever opponent's fingernails kind of dig again during football play. The wounds were obviously new because they were still wet kind of in nature, and they were sporadic kind of all over his body, but this included his arms, his wrists, and his neck, so this upper area. And so the officers were taking pictures of him, and they're looking through the home, and wouldn't you know that they located some black gloves in the kitchen in a drawer that seemed to match the ones that were found in the bushes that were dumped by this believed assailant of Lake and Riley. Well trail cameras were also found to have been put out by Georgia PD for security reasons, and they were being reviewed when the connection was made that the peeping tom call

1:01:49 from early in the morning the same day of Lacan's death was the same man believed to be linked to Lacan Riley. The clothing matched when they were comparing videos of the guy at the apartment complex and the guy at the apartment complex where the Indian woman lived, including the hat. I mean it was a match. This is the same guy terrorizing women. So when looking around during questioning of Jose, the officers found that the two apartments next to Jose's apartment both had security cameras. One of them was a still camera and one of them shot video. So they now believed Jose to be their murder suspect, and they decided to review the footage from those apartments that were next door to where Jose was. So in that footage when they finally pull it, what they find is Jose comes out of his apartment later the day of the murder. Laken would have already been dead, and he's wearing different clothing than the previous forty minutes when he was seen on that same camera coming in. So when he forty minutes prior, he was in the all black attire. Whenever he comes back out that afternoon, he's wearing a red shirt and black shorts. And then he walks to a different dumpster, not the one I told you about before where the black jacket was found. This is a different dumpster and he has a bag in his hand. So police run to that dumpster and they

1:03:20 look in to go grab whatever was in that bag, but it had already been dumped, so they came back empty handed. But when they searched the apartment of Jose, there was no bloody clothing found, and there was also no clothing that they knew he was wearing earlier in the day, all of that black clothing. So what point here in telling you this is that what wasn't there spoke volumes just as much as what should have been there. Why would your clothing be missing? And so you put two and two together, and you know that he went and he threw away clothing in that bag in that dumpster. So during the apartment search, like I told you, they found those black gloves that match the ones they found in the bushes, and they took Jose's cell phone. He actually had two. I'm not even gonna go into why I think that is right now, but he had two and they took those to be analyzed. Diego, his brother who was wearing the hat who was originally stopped, also had a booksack on and so they took that book sack.

1:04:20 During this warrant execution that they got through whenever they were able to go search the apartment and Inside that booksack they found a lighter, these leather and cloth gloves, cologne, white sunglasses, amongst some other stuff. But the reason they took the bag is because guess what in the video where the suspect is walking into the woods to kill Lake and Riley, the suspect had that exact bag on him. By the way, I told you there was cologne in there. Are you curious as to what the scent of a potential killer what they wear? Because I was curious, so I zoomed in and it's Le Grande Forever. So if you're wearing that, look out. So back at the lab, some light was being shed forensically on the evidence that had been collected. That bloody thumb print was lifted from Lacan's foam. And wouldn't you know that the police had fingerprinted everyone in the home of Jose Ibarra, and that fingerprint came back to be a match of Jose's left thumb, And they checked, like I said, against everybody, but it came back fifteen points of comparison showed that that was his thumbprint, and another senior examiner looked it over to and confirmed that that was in fact his thumbprint. They also found three types of DNA on all of the evidence that was submitted. So the three types of DNA, just so you know, they had traditional DNA, another one called ystr and true Allele. I'm telling you this because the traditional DNA which was found on the jacket, on

1:05:53 the rocks, and on the tree, all of those items had both Lacan's DNA and and Jose's DNA. The tree and the rocks actually only had Lakens, but the jacket had both of theirs. Let me be clear on that the hair that was found on the jacket was confirmed to be lacans and it was not cut. It was forcibly removed from the head. The wyes TR fingernail. The wyes TR DNA was found under Lakan's fingernails. She had none under her left hand, but her right hand she did have DNA. So the wiest TR was really good to do because whenever you have mixed DNA samples, this is the type that can separate it because we know males only have Y chromosomes and it's easier to separate if you have male and female, you can use this type.

1:06:45 There was an issue though with this DNA and I wanted to tell you this. I know I'm not really a forensic podcast, but I wanted to tell you this because it was interesting. The issue became that the DNA samples they took they took from all of the brothers, and since all of the brothers were related, meaning that they would all share the same paternal line, that would have been a problem because they would all share that same paternal DNA. However, there could have been a differentiation if there happened to be some type of like gene mutation. But it turns out science would actually help out Diego Ebarro, the one that was wearing the hat. It actually helped him because Diego had a gene mutation that the killer could not have had, so it actually excluded him from being the person that killed Blake and Riley. With that left Jose and Arhemis as the potential paternal DNA you know, people that they could check against. And that is where they did the true Allele test, which is where they checked the gloves, the jacket, the fingernails, some other items that haven't gotten to yet. And they did this genotyping that is derived the true a little. It's done through a computer software that can unmix DNA, and the hole in the gloves that they found in the bushes had blood and that blood came back to Lacan's. Lacin's blood

1:08:19 was also on the hat. The true Allele DNA testing excluded rhemis as a possible donor to the DNA that was under Lacin's nails. And so who does that leave? It leaves Jose. Jose was a match to the tune by the way of ten billion times more probable than a coincidental match to an unrelated person in the population. Just so you know, the DNA was pointing directly I accidentally just threw my pencil while I'm talking to you, was pointing directly at Jose. So the cell phone of Jose became really interesting to me as well here, So let's talk for second. All of the data was extracted and analyzed from his cell phone. And what if I told you that vanity and a grandiose opinion of oneself really came in to play here. He actually did law enforcement a favor because of his narcissism and love of himself.

1:09:20 The morning of the murder of Lake and Riley, Jose was up taking selfies being hot, being a hot daddy. He posted these pictures to Snapchat and some other some other applications. At four thirty AM, he posts one of the pictures and guess what he's wearing, That black Adidas hat that the suspect was wearing. And by the way, you know it's the same hat too, because the suspect had a blue sticker on the top of the black hat. So does Jose and his super fine mmm lips poutin picture, he's like looking down, he's got his air pods in and you only see his nose in his mouth and his beard like this this amateur attempt at a cool photo.

1:10:04 Totally cool guy. The second picture, because you know one just wasn't enough of yourself. The second selfie he took was posted at five point thirty seven am. And now in that photo he's added some clothing. He has on a black jacket with a black hoodie pulled up over a black Adida's hat, and it amazingly is identical to the killer and the peeping tom right down to the facial hair. Wow, it's like comical if it wasn't tragic. A third picture was posted too, because you know, guys, you just can't have enough pictures of yourself if you think you're that fine. And the third photo, he's got the same bag, the one that was confiscated from Diego and was the one that the killer wore. He's got that in the photo too. He was so into his own looks, but he literally made a digital footprint in the very clothing and then locked in time frames for police.

1:11:06 So I applaud you, sir, well done, Well done, Jesus. So if you look at an aerial view of the scene too, everything that happened from where Laken was attacked and killed to where Jose's apartment is to where the dumpster is, all of that is within about five hundred yards circumference, I mean. And what's interesting is that Jose's cell phone was tracking his whereabouts that morning. So the case came together really nicely. And here I'm going to wrap it up for you and put it in a pretty bow. On Thursday, February twenty second, at six fifty two am. That mail in those dark slides, that jacket.

1:11:49 He's also carrying a white cup that police had found at the crime scene, which I thought was pretty interesting. He's carrying this white styrofoam cup and he's drinking out of it. As he's walking towards the Millage Bridge extension, he passes through a bus stop area, which was on camera because a lot of students like to take you that bus stop to take a ride to school. He passes through there and then he keeps walking and you can track him on camera going to that apartment one fourteen building s that lower level where he slowly and quietly creeps open the screen door and then starts wiggling the doorknob trying to open it. He can't get it open, and he quietly closes it back and he walks off.

1:12:30 But something they didn't know was that between seven oh one and seven fifty seven am, which was about seventy minutes before Lakean is going to be murdered, jose Ibarra went back to that apartment of that woman he was trying to break into six different times. He was he was going to get into that apartment, and he's on camera trying to open the door twice. She heard him both times she was right. And they have this thing they collect called Reuben data that they can collect from a Samsung phone, and the FBI analyzed that data and at the time of the peeping tom incident. His cell phone, Jose's cell phone. You wouldn't believe this. It's right there at that apartment. Just he should have taken a selfie then while he was picking the damn lock. So, during the initial investigation of the crime scene, like I told you, police did find a white styrofoam cup on the trail as they were responding to Laken's scene. And it caught police officers attention for no other reason other than the trail was typically very clean and nice and neat, and the cup was just discarded on that trail. And that cup was found between the apartment of the Indian student and Lacan's body. So, and a student officer had collected that and he opened it and he smelled it and there was alcohol inside, and it just seemed so out of place that on a gut instinct, he bagged it and he sent it into evidence. And guess what they tested straw for DNA And guess whose DNA was on

1:14:03 that straw? Jose, what are the chances he was out drinking that morning as he attempted to break into an apartment and then he went on a running trail hunting for a woman to victimize. He tossed that cup as he walked the path, and that's when he came up on Lake and Riley, and he decided he was going to take her for his own. And she knew she was in danger from the get go. Her gut told her that she enacted that SOS function on her phone. Both Jose and Laken's digital profiles show that their cell phone data overlaps at the time of her murder. Jose grabbed her. He pulled her sixty four feet eleven inches off of the trail to isolate her from anyone else seeing her, and she fought the entire time. While he's pulling her, he snatches her phone, and you hear him say, yo, tango, I have it. I have it, meaning you no longer have it. I took it from you. He took that cell phone, and Lacan thought and she scratched, and she ripped at his clothing, and she clawed, and she did anything and everything she could to get away from him.

1:15:11 During that struggle, her hair was ripped from her head and she swung her fists wildly. She dug her feet into the soil as he dragged her, and she fought for seventeen minutes until he was realizing that he was getting his ass handed to him, and he picked up a rock and he bashed her brains in. He then strangled her in whatever fashion you choose to believe, busting those blood vessels in her eyes. She even had busted blood vessels in her mouth. He used all of that pressure to take the air away from her and to silence her forever. And then Lacan's heart stopped and he quit.

1:15:51 He was done trying two worked over by Lacan. He didn't get what he wanted. It wasn't fun anymore when you have to fight somebody, and he just dropped her there and walked away from her body, went home, dumped his jacket and his gloves, then walked into his apartment, changed his clothes, dumped the rest of his clothing into the dumpster that was emptied before the police knew who he was, and then he returned back to his apartment, where he took off that hat he had been wearing, which by the way, was his brother Diego's, took some selfies, and then he went to sleep. Jose Ybara was arrested and charged with Lacan Riley's murder, and I want to tell y'all something. During Jose's interrogation, I shit you not, he was smiling and laughing, as if this was just another day. He murdered Lake and Riley without a doubt and couldn't have cared less. But why why is what most people want to know. And while there was no seamen found, I want you to know in my heart, I do believe that rape was the ultimate goal of this attack. Why else would you be doing this? Her clothes, by the way, were removed in two different directions. Tight running tights, tight clothing designed to not move during athletics.

1:17:25 Three layers were moved. Why would tights be down and her underwear torn, and then her brawl, her shirt and her jacket be rolled up and twisted above her breasts. This is not accidental. This isn't an accidental situation from dragging. Clothing doesn't shift in two different directions when you're being dragged sixty four feet in one direction, and certainly not every single layer when you're fighting. It wasn't dead weight rolling her clothing. Laken refused to be a rape victim. Fought but for her life, and she was fighting for her dignity, and she would rather die than give into his demands, and that's exactly what she did. She stood on business and she was not giving in to him.

1:18:11 She thought she gave it her all, but her five foot four inch one hundred and forty pound body was just no match for Jose Ibarra. He bashed her head in with those rocks, and once he killed her, he had no use for her any longer. It wasn't fun anymore for him. He wanted her alive, and he wanted her scared while he hopefully would be able to defile her and it would all be against her will. But he never got that pleasure. Lake and Riley scrapped with Jose so fiercely that he had to use a primitive tool to silence her. Now, this is probably where you expect me to end this episode, but you're wrong, because I want you to know a little bit more about this killer, not to give him any attention at all, but for the fact that at what I'm i about to tell you affects us all. It doesn't matter your race, your creed, your sexual orientation, your politics, or your religion, None of that matters. And what I'm about to tell you this is about us, Me and you. Jose at Bara wasn't supposed to even be here. He was here illegally, and do not get it twisted. I want you to know right now, this is not political in any way.

1:19:30 What I'm telling you. I don't need to use my platform in that manner, nor do you want to hear it. No one cares about someone else's politics. Please understand me, this is not political what I'm telling you. You're smart enough to make your own decisions on what is acceptable and what isn't. However, I do wish to educate and inform you in a strictly factual way in hopes that maybe you will understand why it matters so much that he was here illegally. There are people who need to escape the horrors of countries that are falling apart, no doubt, and my heart is absolutely with those people, good people who just want a fair shot at life. And my heart lay with those people. However, there is a dark side of that, in the fact that criminals love to blend in with good people. It doesn't matter where they are or who they are. Criminals love to blend in with good people, and jose Abara is a text bookcase of this. So let me give you a little history, and I come with receipts if you want to question it.

1:20:44 In the last five years, there has been a loophole in our laws that was found and is being abused at an exorbitant rate. A spokesperson for ICE confirmed that US Customs and Border Protection had previously arrested Jose in September of twenty twenty two when he illegally crossed over the Mexican border neur El Paso, and he entered the US. After his arrest, he was quote paroled and released for further processing. Now listen this, I want to explain it.

1:21:24 This parole in this instance isn't what you think. It's not because he was a criminal. In this regard. Paroled here means that he was basically released early in our country until the courts could process and deal with his illegal entry. So the obvious next question people have is, but why would they release him in our country rather than send him back out of our country? If that's the issue. And this is where education in terms of crime matters. This is where the thinkers have got to put on their thinking cap. Jose Yabara is a Venezuelan national, not Mexican. The reason I am telling you this is because Venezuela is considered to be in political unrest and they're currently sanctioned by the US, meaning that it's recognized that that country is problematic to its citizens. And it's true, there's good people trying to escape a horrible situation. Now, if Jose and others like him were to knock on the port of entry without making entry yet, okay, if they went in and not so to speak, and said, hey, please let us in. We are trying to escape a bad situation, the police would then detain them and keep them for processing, which would take a long time. But if Venezuelan citizens enter the US illegally, all they have to do is claim that they are seeking asylum because

1:22:57 they are being persecuted basically by the venezuel And government. This would officially make them a siles that are seeking refuge, which changes the process dramatically. So basically, if they cross illegally rather than come legal way, once they're inside of the US, they're going to be considered assiles, and the US then doesn't turn them away. We also don't detain them like they would if they tried to come in the other way because of their declared status. So what typically happens is this, and if you want to come at me, you can come at me. But people that know what I'm talking about know what I'm talking about.

1:23:38 And I have friends that are from Venezuela. I have Mexican friends, and all of them, if they're worth their salt, will validate and verify what I am telling you. So if you want to come at me, that's fine, but I'm going to stand on business about what I'm going to say. What typically happens is that Mexicans and Venezuelans will cross together in groups. Mexico currently is not sanctioned by the US, so that means that Mexicans have to run because they won't be able to get this status. So what they do is they come across together, they kind of like shake hands and say, you know, good luck to you. The Mexicans get time to run so that they can get away, and then the Venezuelans, okay, they're going to have a phone with them that doesn't have a SIM card, but it still can dial nine one to one, and once they cross the border, the Venezuelans can then dial nine to one one and say help, I'm an assile from Venezuela. Border Patrol literally goes and picks them up. They pick them up and then they cut them loose into the US. Pending their application status.

1:24:47 They become a protected person. There is no background info, there's no criminal check, there's no nothing knowing this, okay, And it was important for me to tell you this because of the next thing I'm about to tell you about. Jose came in illegally in twenty twenty two. He got a little bit comfortable once he was here. And in August of twenty twenty three, jose Yabarrow was arrested by New York police and he was charged with acting in a manner to injure a child less than seventeen, as well as motor vehicle license violation. But he was released by police before Border Patrol could issue a detainer to hold him. And there's a reason I'm telling you this.

1:25:34 It's not by chance that jose Ybarro was in New York City, y'all. Hear me out. New York constantly boasts free housing, free food, et cetera. Until assiles can get on their feet. It's a common place in New York for illegals to get all of the help. Of course, he went there. He's gonna get housing and food and all sorts of assistance. There's also something else that's going on in New York and where crime breeds more crime. I'm gonna shine a light on it, and if you want to hear it, here you go. There is a breeding round of illegal activity in places like New York, and they're called rent accounts. Basically, what happens is someone is who's here legally gets an account at a business.

1:26:22 I'm gonna say Uber, but I would like to disclaimer. I'm not saying Uber does this. I am not saying that Uber is involved in this in any way, shape or form. This is just an example allegedly for educational purposes, but it is absolutely not true. How's that, Okay? Legal people could get an account, for example, like an Uber account, and people who are in the US can that are awaiting their status okay, that are here or are here illegally, can then rent those legal accounts with these with these companies and so they can work basically under a legal persons account to make money. The money then goes into the illegal person's bank account. The legal person takes their cut and then they give the rest of the money to the illegal. That way, if you're here illegally, you can keep all of the benefits that are being given to you from your assili status, but you can still make extra money that's not reported to the government. Think about it. Even people who are not here as assilis can do this. The illegals can rent the accounts and this is truth. If you don't like it, I can't help you, but I want you to be aware of why criminal activity must be stopped because it breeds more criminal activity. So Jose was in New York, like I mentioned, and he left New York. Why because he doesn't want to pay for his crime. There's no extradition from New York.

1:27:46 At other states do this too. There's no extradition except sometimes with their with neighboring states. So it's very common for illegal people if they get in trouble, then they can jump over to states and then there's no extra So if they get in trouble there, they won't be sent back to where they were and they can basically start what I like to call the ID game. Okay, they start this new ID game. They give fake names to the police. Let's say they get pulled over, they give a fake name to the police, They're probably gonna get summoned instead of arrested. Why because they're gonna say, oh, I don't have an ID, or they're gonna give you know, fake info. It could be a real name. But because they're not documented citizens, whenever you go to run their ID, you're not gonna find anything. Why because they're not in the database. So they get let go with a ticket written to a fake name. Because it's so frickin' normal now, it's not being there's no accountability here. I can't get away with that as an American citizen. Why can people who are not? Why can they get away with it? Okay, So Jose gets in trouble in New York, he leaves, he goes to Georgia, where he and his brother were.

1:28:57 Then you know they're here illegally. They were issued citations for shoplifting from a Walmart in Athens, Georgia. So they're still committing crimes now in other states. Of course, Ibarra never showed up in court for it. Why would he? I mean, what you're gonna do me? You wanna come find me? No, they're not. And so, for example, my Louisiana people, here's another little insight for you. We have these insurance laws in Louisiana where you must have insurance to drive a vehicle on the road. Well, illegals cannot get a license plate in Louisiana. Why because we require that they have a form of ID. So what do they do. They go to Texas or they go to Mississippi to get a license plate because those states don't require an ID. Then they come back to Louisiana. We can give a ticket in Louisiana, but we can't toe the vehicle because Texas and Mississippi laws don't have that requirement for the insurance. They're playing us again against our own laws. You know what I'm saying. They're just playing us against our own laws. So if you think that this case doesn't affect you personally, let me give you a brief little story here as well. A friend of mine pulled a guy over who claimed that he didn't have an ID and blah blah blah blah blah. And so my friend was just gonna give him a ticket.

1:30:21 But then, just on a hunch, just a mere hunch, he said no, we're going to go to jail. He went above and beyond and he took this guy who could not give an ID, and he brought him to jail. And we have what's called a rapid aphist machine or a rapid id fingerprinting machine. And do you know that when they fingerprinted that son of a gun? He was wanted for murder. But because people are so quick to just issue citations, this doesn't usually happen. But he was wanted for murder, and thank god he was found. Our SR team went, SRT team went and took him back into custody after his family had just bailed him out a little while prior. I mean, it's insanity. My point here is just to get your wheels turning and hope that you'll understand that undocumented criminals are ghosts with no accountability, and we the people better understand the risk if we're gonna allow it to keep happening. So on Friday, February twenty third, just one day after Laken's murder, Jose Ibarro was arrested and charged with malice murder, felony murder, aggravated assault with intent to rape, aggravated battery, kidnapping, and interfering with a nine one one call, and you know, he pled not guilty. He then decided to waive a jury trial.

1:31:38 And this is cute. The reason he waved his jury trial and wanted to just have a judge listen to his case is because, you know, to eliminate the biases against him, the biases against you. You've been breaking laws from the minute you'd cross the border. You broke a law crossing the border, and then you want to come kill you US citizens. Absolutely not. So he pled not guilty. But when it was all said and done, Jose Abarr was found guilty of the murder of Lake and Riley, and he was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. So now while Laken no longer lives, we the taxpayers, are burdened with the cost of his housing and his food and his medical care for the rest of his life when he wasn't even supposed to be here. The US did not win here. Lake and Riley did not win here. What I'll say in closing is this, I do believe that light attracts light, and Laken with her roommates, proved this. They're good people, and good people attract good people. Laken never got to see graduation day and she never will, but her friends did and they remembered her as she walked across the stage.

1:32:54 Connolly graduated with a degree in psychology and she's continuing her education to obtain a mass in mental health counseling. Sophia graduated and she now works as a special education teacher in a high school language arts program. And Lily graduated and is now working as a medical assistant in the medical field. Laken is but a memory now, and her fight to survive should be her legacy. She didn't give in. She was brave, and she died protecting her dignity. Lacan is a testament that dynamite comes in small packages, and she blew up Jose's evil plan, wearing his ass out and ruining his chances of any gratification. Laken, to me, is the epitome of a female warrior. She wasn't immune to fear, make no mistake, She felt it when she looked into Jose's eyes. But then she made a decision to dig in and to fight, not against the fear that he instilled in her, but in spite of it.