About a half dozen people, including at least one of Laken Riley’s relatives, left an Athens, Georgia, courtroom to avoid seeing videos and images of the nursing student’s lifeless body.

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.

A Venezuelan man "went hunting for females on the University of Georgia’s campus” earlier this year and ended up killing nursing student Laken Riley after a struggle, a prosecutor said Friday. A defense attorney said the evidence is circumstantial and doesn't prove his client is guilty.

The case was swept up in the debate over immigration after investigators said the perpetrator was a migrant from Venezuela who entered the U.S. illegally.

On Friday, Nov. 15, prosecutors alleged in an Athens County, Ga., court that Ibarra was out “hunting for females” on University of Georgia’s campus on the day of Riley’s killing, per the Los Angeles Times, AP and NBC News .

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.

The bench trial for murder suspect Jose Ibarra began Friday as the prosecution laid out evidence in the Laken Riley slaying.

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

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.