ATHENS, Ga. — The judge in Georgia nursing student Laken Riley’s murder trial issued a warning to the courtroom about graphic bodycam footage about to be shown — prompting several people to get up and leave and family members to cover their eyes.
“I’m going to interrupt you,” Judge H. Patrick Haggard said to prosecutor Sheila Ross as she was about to play the video taken at the scene where the 22-year-old jogger’s body was found.
“I suspect what we are about to see is the victim’s body,” Haggard said. “I’m going to offer for anyone that’s here to step out if you want to do that. I’ll pause in order to allow you to do that.”
The judge said the evidence would be “more difficult” to watch.
Ross then confirmed that “a few people have left but the others are insisting on staying.”
The prosecutor said she warned them to refrain from speaking in the courtroom while the footage played.
Riley’s mother and a few other Riley supporters walked out of the courtroom and at points, Riley’s stepdad covered his eyes as the video played in the emotional trial.
The footage showed Sgt. Kenneth Maxwell, of the University of Georgia Police Department, finding Riley’s body after searching for her on a trail by the university campus in Athens, Ga., for roughly 20 minutes.
Riley — who prosecutors say was beaten and asphyxiated by illegal Venezuelan immigrant Jose Ibarra — lay lifeless 50 feet off the trail, with her shirt pulled up and her torso exposed, Maxwell testified.
“I found her! Ma’am, ma’am. Ma’am. I need EMS immediately. Ma’am, ma’am, ma’am. She’s down, she’s not breathing!” Maxwell can be heard saying in the video.
Maxwell then starts attempting to revive her with CPR before he says, “I’m not getting any pulse. She’s stiff.”
“Looks like blunt force trauma to the head,” the cop adds.
