The man accused of killing a nursing student in Georgia earlier this year "went out hunting for females" on the day Laken Riley was killed, prosecutors told a judge Friday on the first day of Jose Antonio Ibarra's murder trial.

The suspect accused of killing 22-year-old Laken Riley was "hunting" for women on the University of Georgia's campus the day the nursing student was found brutally murdered on the school grounds, a prosecutor said Friday during opening statements in the bench trial.

Friday morning, Jose Antonio Ibarra’s trial for the murder of Laken Riley in Athens is set to begin with opening statements, but the court setup will be different than most trials.

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.

The 22-year-old nursing student's death fueled an emotional and politically charged debate over immigration and crime after authorities said the suspect was a man who entered the U.S. illegally.

WARNING: This story contains graphic details of an alleged murder in a sexual context.Nikolas Ibey — on trial for first-degree murder in the death of a woman who had just moved to Ottawa from Nunavut to attend college in 2022 — was drinking,