Today Nancy Grace and Sheryl McCollum critique the developments of the Laken Riley murder trial in Athens, Georgia. Nancy and Sheryl focus on the defense's controversial decision to opt for a bench trial rather than a jury trial. They cover the prosecution's compelling evidence, including DNA and video footage, emotional testimonies, and a 911 call capturing the victim's final moments. They also dive into the implications of pre-existing knowledge that a judge would have versus a jury, the emotional toll on the victim's family, and the broader political and social issues at play.
Show Notes:
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Nancy Grace is an outspoken, tireless advocate for victims’ rights and one of television's most respected legal analysts. Nancy Grace had a perfect conviction record during her decade as a prosecutor. She is the founder and publisher of CrimeOnline.com, a crime- fighting digital platform that investigates breaking crime news, spreads awareness of missing people and shines a light on cold cases.
In addition, Crime Stories with Nancy Grace, a daily show hosted by Grace, airs on SIRIUS XM’s Triumph Channel 111 and is downloadable as a podcast on all audio platforms - https://www.crimeonline.com/
Connect with Nancy:
X: @nancygrace
Instagram: @thenancygrace
Facebook: @nancygrace
Sheryl “Mac” McCollum is an Emmy Award winning CSI, a writer for CrimeOnLine, Forensic and Crime Scene Expert for Crime Stories with Nancy Grace, and a CSI for a metro Atlanta Police Department. She is the co-author of the textbook., Cold Case: Pathways to Justice.
Connect with Sheryl:
Email: coldcase2004@gmail.com
Facebook: @sheryl.mccollum
Crime Round Up with the one and only Nancy Grace. We are live in Athens, Georgia for the Lakeland Riley trial, and I tell you, Nancy, it has already been gangbusters as far as I'm concerned, right out of the gate this morning.
Well, can we just start with the fact that the defendant and his lawyer, which I think this is a grave mistake, chose a bench trial over a jury trial.
What were they thinking?
And this is not a comment on the judge. I understand this is pretty good judge. It's just that a judge, I mean, you might be able to trick somebody on jury, make them believe that, hey, the cops framed him or something like that, or hey the crime why I'm framed him?
This isn't really his DNA just crazy, all right?
Sure, but Judda just gonna be going have you lost your mind?
I do not believe the.
Entire Athen's Police department and the crime lab in Panthers Off Panthers Doll and this one and that one all got together to frame your client.
That did not happen. And think about it.
We know that there's a peeping time charge connected to the murder case because this guy.
According to police, he's presumed Edison.
According to l E law enforcement, he was peeping on women before he murdered Lake Kenriley.
Wouldn't you know?
Right when I get talking, here comes shut up David. Anyway, all right, so we know that charge is in there, but the defense thought, who's and nail to have the charge removed?
Who did they argue that to the judge.
So even.
Say a motion to suppress, and what if the judge says, okay, I'm suppressing this evidence. But then that judge is the sole fact finder. He's acting as the jury. He knows about all of this extrinsic evidence that otherwise the jury would never have heard.
You see what I'm saying.
I never ever went with a bitch trial over a jury trial. And I loved my judges, most of them anyway, and I thought they would do the right thing. But no, that was a bad move. Let's just kick it off with that.
I agree with you one hundred percent. There is no chance anybody's gonna sympathize. There's no chance you're going to pull the wool over anybody's eyes. This is it. You've got one sole person now determining your faith instead of twelve.
So the defense is trying to basically argue that we're trying to that the state is trying to explain away a tragedy.
A tragedy.
There's no question her head was bashed in with a rock. That's not an accident. I mean, can we just get real for a minute. Where else can defens go?
That's right, Nancy. They've got no eyewitness that can put him in another location. They've got nobody that's going to come up and say, hey man, you know he was with me. They've got nothing. They got him on video for crying out loud.
And what about the nine to one one call that captured Lake and Riley's final moments played in court? You know, it just her mother just burst into tears.
There's so many things that go through your mind when you're watching the prosecution put this on and you're watching her roommates, and you're watching that first officer and they play that nine one one call and they confirm what you and I said from day one, and that is Lake Glynn fault. She fought for her life, she tried to call for help. Nancy. It's just been an emotional, just wildfire. This morning.
The mother had to cover her face with her hands when that nine on one call was being played. She couldn't not hear. She couldn't even look in the courtroom when that was being played. I mean, and you don't really hear Lakan herself. You hear a muffled audio, A male voice is what you hear. But you know those are her final moments. I mean, I can't even stand if one of the twins gets upset.
Whenever they've gotten upset, even tho they were a little and cried, I.
Would just it would like somebody's stabbing me in the heart. This mother to hear that, knowing what was happening to her daughter, and you know she was.
Going to devote her life to saving the lives of strangers. You know, you just think of all the goodness that is taken, and every life is precious. But I think, especially when you're fixing the you know your entire adult life is going to be saving people. And that's who he chooses to kill. It just on some level, to me, is so much worse because she wasn't just taken from her friends and family, she was taken from all of these people that she was gonna help Nancy.
Well, A thing that Another thing that I hate is that this case has been turned into a political football and it should not be because he got swept up in the debate over immigration, illegal aliens or as they say, migrants, after investigators said the perp came here illegally from Venezuela and he is a member of a horrible, horrible gang that many people are just learning about. But it's that this particular gang gang has now infiltrated across the country and nothing good. But that said, that's that's another thing why you don't, if you're the defense attorney, why you don't want a bench.
Trial, because see, the judge already knows that.
He's a member of the gang, right, but the jury would probably not have heard that because that would have been deemed too present prejudicial. You cannot have a bents trial unless both sides agree to the bench trial.
Okay, So the.
Judge is going to know a lot more than a jury would ever know. For instance, that he's an undocumented migrant, all right. The jury may not have been able to hear that. That may have been deemed too inflammatory for a jury. But the judge knows all of this.
And the judge also knows that the former prosecutor that lost the election is the one that took the death penalty off the table. He knows all of it, the good, the bad, and the ugly, and he cannot take that away. Even though he's impartial, it's still knowledge that he possesses. That He's got to factor that in. As far as I'm concerned.
Well, of course, I'm just trying to think through what all the judge knows that a jury would never have known.
It's extensive.
For instance, whenever a judge gets the file, the judge has an injury would never see this, the person's wrap sheet, all sorts of even arrests that are not convictions.
All of that is in the file.
The jury would never ever hear that, And if the prosecutor tried to bring it up, there would be an immediate mistrial, granted possibly with prejudice, so the state could not re try it and not screw up the second time.
That's right, you know.
Outside outside of her being dedicating her life to helping other people, she was an incredible scholar athlete. She inspired other people with as they say, with her kindness. I wonder what all that means. She was in her low sorority. They all loved her just, I don't know, kind of like this precious, beautiful girl that the parents thought, Wow, how did I how did we get so lucky to have her?
You know, that's that's.
Girl, absolutely, and you know there's proof of how just you can count on her. She was a solid friend, She was a solid human being. When she went missing, it wasn't an hour after she should have been home, and her roommates were on it. They were like, this is not like her. She doesn't just drop off. She is where she says she is going to be always. And I'm going to tell you now. You know, I got four sisters, and there's one of them. If she was late, I would be immediately concerned. There's another one. I mean, it might be three or four days before we find out where where she Dan John.
Davia will be sitting outside the house in his truck. Lucy will be no telling. There's just no telling where Lucy will be when everybody's waiting, it doesn't matter.
At the other morning, the other morning.
They were supposed to be acolytes at the eleven o'clock service, and.
I had already gone over.
I was calling and I'm like, do I have to march down the aisle with the candle myself?
Get in the car.
Nobody cares about your hair, Lucy, nobody.
You're the only one that cares about your hair.
Now get in the car.
Of course they made it okay, and it's so funny morning. John David has on that robe and he's six ' six that comes just below his knees and you can see his sweatpants and his tennis shoes coming out at the bottom. But that said okay, and then there's perfectly adorned okay, anyway, that said exactly here when she is not. She is supposed to be exactly on time. Everybody says something horrible must have happened.
They knew it, they knew it was not like her. And that's what I'm saying. That would be true if Sheila. It would not be true of my sister Shelley. But that goes to prove it's not just us saying it. Her roommates lived it. They knew something is wrong. And of course, like we've had in other cases, this case, she's got you know, the smart watch, and it can tell exactly when her heart stopped beating, so that evidence came in this morning.
Well right in the opening statements, the prosecution slammed it and Lamb's making notes.
On Feb.
Two, the prosecutor says, is about Ibarra put on a black hat, a hoodie style jacket, and black kitchen style disposable gloves and went hunting for females on the UGA campus. I mean, when Ross said that, who would put on beside Brian Coburger, who would put on plastic gloves for something innocent? I mean, this guy and Brian Coburger are the only two that I know that would just walk around wearing plastic gloves.
I mean, right there.
Right there, Sheila Ross is so solid, She's so good. She is so just mechanical the way she will dissect the case. She is And I'm telling you, you know, they might have elected not to have a jury, but I'm gonna tell you in this case, it ain't gonna matter. She would have said it the same way showed the evident. It's the same, you know order, And I think for me watching her is one of those things I used to get from you. You leave no stone unturned. And most people will say because they said this during the trial up in Delphi. They were like, well, the defense had enough, so they just ended early. Let me tell you something, you don't end early. If you have it, you put it up. And Sheila is gonna put every nail in that board she can find.
I had a lot of people argue, you're overdoing it. It's overkilled. You're putting too much, you're overtrying your case. And this is my opinion on that, and I stand firm on it. Better to do it all and overdo it than to not put up enough, lose your case and then think, wow, what should have could have? Yeah, a problem with the defense attorney. I'm not saying it's not a great lawyer. It's and Kirby arguing an opening statement evidence would not rude beyond a reasonable doubt that he Barrow killed Riley, Okay, he said, and I quote it would take gymnastics for the prosecution to argue Ibarro killed Likan with quote circumstantial evidence. I don't know about you, but I find the evidence to be airtight. I don't consider DNA fingerprint to be circumstantial evidence.
No, ma'am. And let me tell you, Sheila Ross is fixing in not it coming each this thing She's going to have no trouble because not only do you have DNA and the fingerprint on her phone and a video of him discarding what he was wearing with her blood on it. I mean, it's going to go own and own and own in the time table. You know, you always tell people that timeline is your money tree. It is so tight, Nancy. They've got him going and coming, and he's right there, not in camera shot, but he's in the camera. He kills her, he's back in camera discarding evidence that ain't circumstantial, baby, not at all. No.
What was very poignant to me that when the nine one one picked up, they were saying, hey.
Can anybody hear me?
Because not on one couldn't hear any voices. The only sound they could hear were birds chirping, you know, and like a quiet, muffled sound.
Just the fact that as this.
Girl was dying, this beautiful young girl Liaken, you know, everything was going on as normal, Like the birds were chirping, people were going to classes, everything was happening normally in the backdrop, and no one had any idea that Lacn was fighting for her A lot. I gets the guy who would come out hunting for a woman, like an animal, like you know, the coyote looking for the weakest.
Animal it can find, like the hyena.
Looking for the slowest gazelle, just you know, a.
Pad of her.
He didn't care who it was.
He was just looking for a woman to attack, and when she fought back, he wasn't having it, and he killed her with the most convenient object he could find, right there on the scene, and then got rid of the evidence.
I mean, it's so.
Clear to me, you know, being here this morning. We just broke for lunch, and the officer that testified, he's walking down the pathway and he's got his brown file under his arm, that accordion file that we've all had since the eighties. And I just said to him, I said, hey, I just want to tell you about Lakeland's case. And he said, ma'am, I can't discuss it. I said, I know you can't discuss it. I just want you to know we have all been thinking of y'all. I mean, this was a tremendous undertaking. It was horrible for all of you. And he just said thank you and then went on into the police department. But that's how everybody is. The integrity of that case is being maintained just outside that courthouse.
The defense is making it sound like this is going to be a long shot and their circumstantial evidence, Well, no, because investigator state that they immediately went to a dumpster nearby and found a believe it was a sweatshirt. They find a sweatshirt in there, and on the sweatshirt they find blood and hair. Okay, that dumpster was near the apartment complex where Ibora lived, hair and blood on it. It was immediately submitted for testing and it came back with a mixture. I don't know when all of the DNA evidence is going to completely come in in front of the jury, but that DNA was the combination of both the defendant Ann Lakin's DNA.
Now not only is their video, but there.
Is a witness that positively identifies Ebarra as the one disposing the sweatshirt. A woman living in Ebar's apartment, Ross Belly Flores Bellow. I d's the man in the video as Ebarra done. You know, the judge Haggard and I'm not saying this is going to affect his opinion or his decision at all.
You know, he's a crime victim.
His father was killed, shot and killed nearing an armed robbery at a housing complex when he was working as a salesman.
Well again, I know somebody else that dedicated their life because somebody they loved was murdered, and it does affect you. It should affect you, Nancy. I'm one of those people when they say, don't show the jury these photographs. It could inflame them. Dad Gummet, it ought to inflame them. That's why they have that duty. The judge should see it, The jury should see it. The public should see it if they want to. You want to know what murder is. It's ugly, it's horrific, it's horrible, but that should factor into your decision. As far as I'm concerned, this isn't something where people say, oh, well, I didn't realize, you know, a fistfight looked like that. I just can't even watch boxing. If boxing upsets you, you have no idea none. And to me again, when you're going to take somebody's freedom, you ought to know one hundred percent why.
I just hate it.
I hate it for her family and the people that love her. But in years, God willing, there's a guilty verdict in years to come, they will look back and appreciate that this happened, that someone stood up for Lakan and gave it two hundred percent at trial, because.
What if they didn't.
What if it was a half assed job and they lost the case, so they made bad decisions during the case, or they didn't really work the case. I've seen it happen and you get a bad verdict, but not in this case.
That is not happening.
In this case, that is not going to happen. Next to you. Sheila Ross is the best I've ever seen.
I appreciate that because she is really good. Okay, I wurn it upward back in the courtroom.
Thea by guys