ATHENS, Ga. — The trial for the man accused of killing a 22-year-old nursing student on the University of Georgia's campus began Friday with testimony that included her roommates.
Riley, an Augusta University nursing student, was killed on Feb. 22 while out for a run near the intramural fields on UGA's campus. The actions of her roommates after she didn't return home aided officers during the early hours of the investigation.
Testimony shared in court Friday revealed Riley lived with Lilly Steiner, Sofia Magana and Connolly Huth. Steiner, 22, described the relationship she shared with Riley, saying they were basically family.
"Laken brought a sense of joy to all of our lives that has been missing ever sense," she said.
On the morning of Feb. 22, Steiner said she wanted to get coffee with Riley, and she didn't see her in the house, so she checked her location on the Find My Friends app. It showed that Riley was on a trail that she typically runs. A map from the app was displayed in court while Steiner was on the stand.
"It was about 9:30 from what I remember," she said when she checked the app initially.
"When I got home from my first set of errands and I saw that Laken still wasn't home, that wasn't unusual because it was about an hour after I checked her first location, so I thought maybe she was just still on a run," she added.
She checked again around roughly 10:45 a.m., which she said then raised some concerns because the app showed she was in the same location.
"I texted Laken just checking in on her and then addressing Connolly in a group message, I said, 'She's been in the woods a while.'"
This was the same day AT&T was experiencing outages, so Steiner said she didn't have phone service if she wasn't connected to the WiFi at home. She said after 10:45 a.m., she left home again and returned around 11:30 a.m.
"I immediately pulled in and I saw Sofia standing outside with her dog and I got out of the car and she immediately said, 'Can we go look for Laken?'" Steiner testified.
They left home searching for their roommate, using the Find My Friends app to guide them. They went to the location displayed on their phone but didn't find her there.
"When we were walking, Sofia noticed an... AirPod that was sitting on the trail right around where her location was," Steiner added. "She picked it up, kind of assuming it was Laken's."
When they returned home, she called the UGA Police Department, Steiner testified. The phone call was played in court.
Magana also took the stand, sharing what happened that morning as they searched for Riley. She said when they came across the AirPod, they took pictures of it and collected it. She, too, didn't have phone service while she was away from home because of the AT&T outage.
"I told her (Lilly) we were going to walk back to call the police because we both didn't have service," she said.
After placing the call, Magana said she went to pick up Huth and they returned to the area to meet up with the police and Steiner. They talked with a police sergeant at the fields and showed them where Laken's phone was pinging. He asked them to screenshot it and email it to him.
Body camera footage then showed him moving through the woods with their screenshot. That's how he found Riley's body.
The third roommate, Huth, mainly testified about Riley's running habits.
"She always had a watch on," she said. "She would listen to music while running; sometimes, when she was alone, she would call her mom."
Court continued with more testimony Friday and resumed again Monday morning. Jose Ibarra faces several charges in the case, including murder.
