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. Emotions ran high among members of the gallery Friday at the start of the murder trial for Jose Ibarra,

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.

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 undocumented migrant accused of killing Laken Riley was “hunting for females” when he came across the jogging Georgia nursing student, who “fought for her life” and fired off a 911

A trial is set to get underway for a man accused of killing a Georgia nursing student earlier this year, in a case that fanned the immigration debate in the last election cycle.

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.

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

A Georgia jury heard opening statements Friday in the trial of the man accused of killing nursing student Laken Riley. Jose Ibarra is charged with killing the 22-year-old in February. CBS News senior national correspondent Mark Strassmann reports.