Student Killed On UGA Campus Highlights Dangers Of Running Alone For Women

When Laken Hope Riley was killed last week, she joined a grim list of women runners violently attacked and killed by strangers.

The 22-year-old nursing student’s body was found near a lake on the University of Georgia campus in Athens on Thursday. Her death has sparked renewed concerns about women’s safety while exercising by themselves, with random attacks on women walkers and hikers receiving a lot of media attention, too.

The widely reported cases are usually followed by articles offering tips from self-defense experts and social media posts and essays by women expressing outrage that they should — and indeed, must — alter their behavior to guarantee their safety.

The details of Riley’s killing echo those of many other victims. Her body was found hours after friends reported that she hadn’t returned from her morning run. The next evening, authorities announced that they had arrested Jose Antonio Ibarra, 26 , in connection with her death and charged him with malice murder, felony murder, aggravated battery, aggravated assault, false imprisonment, kidnapping, hindering a 911 call and concealing the death of another. Riley died from blunt force trauma, authorities said, after being struck with a weapon that “ disfigur[ed] her skull ” and dragged to a secluded area, according to court documents.

Here are eight other well-known cases of women fatally attacked by strangers while running in the past 10 years.

Rachel Morin ( found Aug. 6, 2023)
The 37-year-old mother of five was attacked on a Maryland hiking trail while she was running on the evening of Aug. 5, 2023, and pulled into a drainage culvert where her remains were found the next day, authorities said. DNA found at the crime scene matched that of an