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Laken Riley murder: Woman testifies how suspect tried to ‘break inside’ her apartment, 'I saw through a peephole…'
Tejaswi Stamilmnai Saraswathi, 24, has testified how she was in the shower when she heard someone try to get inside her apartment.
Jose Antonio Ibarra, a 26-year-old Venezuelan migrant accused of killing Georgia nursing student Laken Riley, was indicted on charges for peeping at a person on the day of the murder. The woman he peeped at, Tejaswi Stamilmnai Saraswathi, 24, has now testified how she was in the shower when she heard someone try to get inside her apartment.
Ibarra is now standing trial in Athens, Georgia. He reportedly waived his right to a jury trial and is being tried by a judge. If convicted, he faces life behind bars.
‘I saw through a peephole someone was trying to open [the door]’
Saraswathi was a student at the University of Georgia living in an apartment in Athens. On the morning of February 22, she heard someone "fidgeting" with her door. This happened about an hour before Riley was murdered.
“I heard some fidgeting sounds on my front door. I was in the shower," Saraswathi said. "When I went to see who it was, I saw through a peephole someone was trying to open [the door]."
Saraswathi said that when she asked who was there, the person fled. She saw him wearing a black hood, black jacket, a hat and black gloves. "I couldn't see the face," she said, according to New York Post.
Extremely alarmed, Saraswathi called 911, saying, "Someone is trying to break inside my apartment."
Ibarra has been accused of killing Riley while she was out jogging. The encounter lasted from 9:10 am to 9:28 am, when Riley’s heart stopped beating, data taken from her running watch showed. Besides the murder charge, Ibarra is also facing a Peeping Tom charge for the break-in attempt at Saraswathi’s apartment.
Riley, who was a nursing student at Augusta University, was found dead near a lake on the University of Georgia’s campus in Athens. She died from "blunt force trauma," according to official police reports.
