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ATHENS, Ga. – The judge in Georgia nursing student Laken Riley’s murder trial issued a warning to the courtroom about graphic body cam footage about to be shown — prompting several to get up and leave and family members to cover their eyes.
“I’m going to interrupt you,” Judge H. Patrick Haggard said to prosecutor Sheila Ross as she was about to play the video taken from the scene of where the 22-year-old jogger’s body was found.
“I suspect what we are about to see is the victim’s body,” Haggard said. “I’m going to offer for anyone that’s here to step out if you want to do that. I’ll pause in order to allow you to do that.”
The judge said the evidence would be “more difficult” to watch.
Ross then confirmed that a “a few people have left but the others are insisting on staying.”
The prosecutor said she warned them to refrain from speaking out in the courtroom while the footage played.
Riley’s mother and a few other Riley supporters walked out of the courtroom and at points, Riley’s stepdad covered his eyes as the video played in the emotional trial.
The footage showed Sgt. Kenneth Maxwell – with the University of Georgia Police Department – finding
Riley’s body after searching for her in a trail by the university campus in Athens, Ga. for roughly 20 minutes.
Riley – who prosecutors say was beaten and asphyxiated by illegal Venezuelan immigrant Jose Ibarra – laid lifeless 50 feet off the trail with her torso exposed and her shirt pulled up, Maxwell testified.
“I found her! Ma’am, ma’am. Ma’am. I need EMS immediately. Ma’am, ma’am, ma’am. She’s down, she’s not breathing!” Maxwell could be heard saying in the video.
Maxwell then started attempting to revive her with CPR before he says, “I’m not getting any pulse. She’s stiff.”
“Looks like blunt force trauma to the head,” the cop adds.
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