The Venezuelan migrant charged with murdering Laken Riley likely panicked and bashed in her skull when the brave nursing student tried to fight back, according to an analysis by a former criminal profiler.
Jose Antonio Ibarra, 26, has been charged with multiple murder and assault charges in the death of the 22-year-old, whose skull was disfigured when she died of blunt force trauma.
The gruesome details of her injuries in new warrants suggest that the University of Georgia student likely fought back while she was grabbed during a run — and her cowardly killer likely panicked while trying to
“In this case, the offender was met with resistance which he wasn’t expecting, and it got overpowering and he couldn’t control it and he restored to violence,” John Lang Jr., a former Georgia Bureau of Investigation investigator told WSB-TV.
“But he didn’t know what he was in for and I suspect she probably fought back,” said Lang, a criminal profiler not involved in the case.
“He’s not a very big fellow and he may have been overwhelmed by her size and her strengths and tenacity to fight back.”
Ibarra, who is reportedly 5 feet, 7 inches tall, allegedly prevented Riley from calling 911 and dragged her body to a secluded area after the vicious attack.
“Concealing her body, that’s just an opportunity to distance himself from the crime,” Lang told WSB-TV, adding that investigators can’t rule out sexual assault as a possible motive in the heinous crime.
“In looking at this whole thing, this is like a disorganized offender. That’s what we call them” he added. “He just does it on the spur of the moment for whatever motivating factors.”
Ibarra is charged with malice murder, felony murder, aggravated battery, aggravated assault, false imprisonment, kidnapping, hindering a 911 call and concealing the death of another.
Riley was kidnapped and killed while she went out for a run on the University of Georgia campus on Thursday.
Charging documents accuse Ibarra of causing “great bodily harm with an object,” without specifying exactly what it was.
He also was charged with aggravated battery for “seriously disfiguring her body … by disfiguring her skull,” according to the affidavits shared by Fox News.
The suspect, who entered the US illegally in El Paso, Texas, last year twice slipped through the hands of law enforcement — and could have been deported after a bust in the Big Apple.
Riley, who transferred from the University of Georgia to the nearby Augusta University School of Nursing last year, is planned to be mourned at funeral services on Friday.