Why Laken Matters

A Nation and Family Betrayed

As I sit here writing this, Jose Ibarra has been found guilty of the brutal murder and attempted rape of 22-year-old Augusta University Nursing Student Laken Riley. Laken was murdered on February 22, 2024, while on her morning jog on a trail near the intramural fields in Athens, Georgia. As a Georgian myself, and someone who had many female friends from high school go to UGA, this crime and its victim haunt me and awaken within me a beast that is equally righteous in fury and dark in wrath. This essay will be my own personal attempt to grapple with and channel the feelings this case brought out of me.

I will not regale you with the details of the trial, as those are readily available online, and frankly, I do not wish to get carried away and have this essay turn into little more than a crow pecking at a corpse. Suffice it to say, the verdict was correct and never in doubt, and I think that her family composed themselves admirably given the circumstances. My heart breaks for her parents, who will live the rest of their lives trapped in a hell that every parent consciously dreads.

I did not know Laken. She was from a different part of the state, a few years my junior, and of course attending a different college. But I know many young girls like her; I grew up with them. One reason that Laken’s murder haunts me is that she reminds me very much of my sister; they have an astounding number of positive traits in common. Her letter to God that her stepfather read aloud during his victim impact statement might as well have been written by my sister, their writing sounds so alike.

The South produces many young women like Laken; white, Anglo, beautiful, smart, Godly, conscientious, moral, etc. Laken was just like several of my friends with whom I attended college; they were in Auburn’s nursing school and were the “Party (with class) on Friday, tailgate on Saturday, go to Church on Sunday” type. Pleasant people all around, fun and classy, some of the best that our region produces. I am certain that I would have found her to be of pleasant company if we had ever met. Again, it is the fact that Laken reminds me of so many close friends, in addition to my own flesh and blood, that weighs on me.

This entire case — from its origins in the Biden administration’s open borders policy to the DA’s refusal to seek the death penalty for a capital crime because she was afraid that Americans might see illegals committing heinous acts and draw the proper conclusions — is a damnable, treasonous travesty. It is a cosmic injustice that bellows for a redress, a moral wound, and a blight that festers and rots. Laken’s family and this nation deserve proper, honest justice, not this pussyfooting that we so often see from our legal justice system. That beast should not see the inside of a jail cell for one day. He should be taken to the courthouse steps, in full view of the public, doused with gasoline, and set on fire. He beat a 22-year-old girl so violently that it caved in her skull, as she begged for her life and honor. He tried defiling her for 18 minutes, her last awful moments of life tracked and cataloged by her Apple Watch, the only real witness to her end.

No American parent should have to endure what Laken’s parents have endured. Theirs is a loss that will never heal, and this Thanksgiving, an empty chair will haunt her family’s dining room table. Laken didn’t deserve this. Her family didn’t deserve this. This nation doesn’t deserve this.

Ibarra represents the world our ancestors fought so ruthlessly to protect their own daughters from. He and his ilk are the danger that comes in the night. He is the personification of the boogeyman, the devil, the stranger that mothers warn their children to avoid. There are thousands, millions, like him in this country. Many were let in by our current President and that sack of wine Alejandro Mayorkas. They are further enabled by complicit mayors like Athens Mayor Kelly Girtz, who declared his city a sanctuary city and all but invited Ibarra to his city himself. Girtz may as well have held Laken down while that creature Ibarra attacked her. If our political system functioned properly, the people of Athens would treat him as though he had.

I sincerely hope that President Trump and his cabinet are able to carry out mass deportations. I care not for the suffering of illegal immigrants, for the feelings and well-being of the invaders of my country, who come as parasites to leech off our greatness and grow themselves at our expense. I care not for the weeping and gnashing of teeth of the Left and their cheerleaders on CNN. Traitors, all of them, alongside Judas Iscariot. The Democrats, their voters, their apparatchiks in the NGOs, and their apologists in the media killed Laken. Joe Biden killed her the moment he promised to open the southern border during the 2020 Presidential campaign. Alejandro Mayorkas killed her when he turned the DHS into a fifth column for mass migration. Ibarra was simply the monstrous instrument of the monsters who rule us. My earnest hope is that the Jeffrey Dahmer treatment is administered by the inmates of the Georgia Prison System.

This comes not from sadism, but from a genuine desire for proper justice in this case and my revulsion at the crime. I have no kinship or feelings of shared humanity with Jose Ibarra, that creature clad in human skin. It is an anathema to me. I deny its humanity. I refuse to recognize it as a child of God. The thing sitting in the defendant’s chair, smirking at the bodycam footage of its foul work, is a demon. It is as foreign to me as something from another planet. I will sooner believe it is wearing the skin of a dead man than believe a human soul exists beneath those eyes.

Something must change. This nation will not survive if we do not seize control of this out-of-control government and malignant bureaucracy and reverse the immigration trends that have plagued America since 1965. At every level, those who rule us have betrayed us. Local town managers flood their hometowns with tens of thousands of foreign people from foreign lands. Lawyers facilitate mass migration, whether for profit or so that they can think of themselves as our moral superiors. Bureaucrats steal the wealth of this nation and funnel it into the endless maw of the mass migration machine. Disaster relief aid meant for Americans is redirected into gibs for ungrateful foreigners who are here to vote Democrat and plunge this nation into financial ruin. Those who ostensibly fight for us in the halls of power kvetch about being “nice,” cling to outdated and dead “principles,” and see defending Heritage America as low-class. They hate Trump because he is the vehicle of a long-awaited and long-deserved counterattack against this regime.

It is up to us, as true Americans, as patriots, as Christian men, to do what we can, when we can, where we can, to organize ourselves politically and socially, to devote our energies and faculties to taking power at the federal level, at the state level, at the local level, in business, in the law, in our churches, and to right this ship. We owe it to those who are killed by illegals every year, in preventable automobile accidents and as victims of the criminal acts in which they engage. Southern men in particular owe it to our ancestors, who for too long have been maligned by biological specimens masquerading as our betters but who, frankly, aren’t worth the spit in their mouths. We owe it to our children, who will look at us and judge us by our actions in the coming decades. And finally, we owe it to Laken, who deserved to live, to marry, to have a family, and to enjoy the life she believed God had planned for her.

This is a fight that will likely take decades and one in which we will face much resistance. Trump will likely have to act very “Presidential” to deliver us a victory. He will need good, competent, loyal supporters in his administration, in the federal government, in Congress, and in the private sector. Each of us has a part to play. I ask that you join me in grasping the hilt of the sword meant for you, with clear eyes and a pure heart, and look to the coming struggle with a smile on your face.

I will end this essay by immortalizing Laken’s words, which so moved me and countless others when they were read aloud by her stepfather, John Phillips, in court on November 20, 2024, as his victim impact statement:

To my future husband — As silly as I feel writing this, my old small group leader once recommended it, so here I am. To my future husband: I want you to know that I’m thinking about you. I am working every day to become the best wife I can be by working through my current relationships to best prepare me for ours and our kids’ one day. I am focusing on God and what he defines as a faithful, Christian wife, and so that I can best embody those characteristics. I pray that you know that it is with my full faith and trust in God that I know this relationship has been handcrafted by Him. I pray that we continue to glorify the Lord, prioritizing Him in every aspect of our lives, and raise our family — our future family — to be God-fearing Christians as well. I pray God is the center of our relationship, as it is a gift from Him. I thank Him for you before I even know you. I can’t wait to love you in the best way I know how for the rest of our lives. I pray you know and feel the importance of my love and hopes for our relationship. No matter what challenges we face, I pray that our trust in God and love for one another overrules the obstacle. May our relationship last forever. Your future wife — Laken.