Laken Riley‘s mother and stepfather begged the judge to have “no mercy” ahead of the sentencing of Jose Ibarra, who was convicted Wednesday morning of killing the nursing student. The judge sentenced him to life in prison without the possibility of parole following testimony from Allyson and John Phillips.
“Your honor, I am asking you to please give Jose Ibarra the same thing he gave us when he made the choice to take Laken’s life and destroy ours,” Riley’s mother said in court. “He showed no mercy on Laken when she was begging for her life. There’s no end to the pain and suffering that he inflicted on her family and her friends.”
On Wednesday morning, Athens-Clarke County Superior Court Judge H. Patrick Haggard read a guilty verdict for Ibarra, finding the 26-year-old Venezuelan migrant, who is in the United States illegally, guilty on all charges,…
