In the nine months since Laken Riley was killed while jogging at the University of Georgia, her death turned into a lightning rod over crime and illegal immigration and cast an ominous shadow over the college town of Athens.

Jose Ibarra, who entered the U.S. illegally, is charged with murder in the February killing, which helped fan the immigration debate during this year's presidential campaign. Ibarra waived his right to a jury trial, meaning his case is being heard and decided by Athens-Clarke County Superior Court Judge H. Patrick Haggard.

The judge who will decide the fate of an undocumented migrant accused of killing Georgia nursing student Laken Riley is a no-nonsense, silvery-white-haired jurist whose father was killed in an armed robbery.

Testimony resumed Monday in the trial of the man accused of killing Georgia nursing student Laken Riley with police officers describing searching the man's apartment and questioning him and others who lived there.

Jose Ibarra is charged with killing the University of Georgia nursing student, inflaming the national debate about immigration.

A trial is set to get underway for a man accused of killing a Georgia nursing student earlier this year, in a case that fanned the immigration debate in the last election cycle.

The suspect accused of killing 22-year-old Laken Riley was "hunting" for women on the University of Georgia's campus the day the nursing student was found brutally murdered on the school grounds, a prosecutor said Friday during opening statements in the bench trial.