The Augusta University nursing student found dead on the University of Georgia’s campus Thursday has been identified as 22-year-old Laken Riley.
“In the press conference given by UGA PD last night, it was stated that the victim was ‘not a UGA student.’ While this is technically correct, it doesn’t address the truth — she was a Dawg. It’s widely understood at UGA that she was a full-time student here for the past three years, and then for her 4th year enrolled in nursing school at Augusta University’s campus in Athens,” UGA Associate Director and Lecturer Cali Brutz. “It’s a typical track for nursing students here at UGA. The victim has stayed active and engaged with both the UGA community and her sorority.”
Brutz said she did not personally know Riley, but she “was, and is, a part of UGA.”
Georgia criminal defense attorney Philip Holloway said he would not be “surprised” if Riley’s death was a “criminal homicide.”
UGA police found the female student, who has not been publicly identified, deceased with “visible injuries” in a forested area behind Lake Herrick around 12:30 p.m. Thursday after a friend called authorities to report that the student left for a run Thursday morning and never returned.
“I think it’s going to be a short period of time before they find a suspect,” Holloway told Fox News Digital. “It wouldn’t surprise me if this is a criminal homicide.”
The student’s death remains under investigation as of Friday morning, a UGA spokesperson told Fox News Digital. Classes at UGA and Augusta University College of Nursing campus at Athens were canceled on Friday.
Holloway, founder of the Holloway Law Group, said authorities will likely set up a “geofence,” or virtual fence, around the crime scene to determine who came in and out of the Lake Herrick area by looking into cellphone tower data. It should be noted that AT&T experienced a nationwide outage Thursday morning and afternoon, impacting customers across the southeast.
