In the nine months since Laken Riley was killed while jogging at the University of Georgia, her death turned into a lightning rod over crime and illegal immigration and cast an ominous shadow over the college town of Athens.

The trial for Jose Ibarra, the man accused of murdering nursing student Laken Riley on the University of Georgia campus, began on Friday morning. Channel 2′s Courtney Francisco was in the courtroom as prosecutors and Ibarra’s defense attorneys gave opening statements and started calling witnesses.

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.