Prosecutor: Laken Riley Was Able to Call 911 as She Was Being Murdered on the Georgia Running Trail, But Eventually Dropped as Her Phone Hung Up

ROSS: “And for Laken, that timeline begins basically at 9:03 in the morning. At 9:03 on Thursday, February 22nd, Laken Riley did something that she does all the time and she went out for a morning jog. She lives not far from the crime scene, and Your Honor will see several maps in this case, and you will see that — where Laken Riley lived, where the defendant lived, where our other victim who you will hear from in this trial lived, Building S at the University of Georgia Student Housing, and where items of evidence were dumped in this case and where Laken was murdered. It’s all clustered together, and it’s all clustered together within about a half-mile radius of one another. You will see several maps throughout this case. She left her house at 9:03 in the morning. We know that for several reasons. She was captured on her Ring doorbell, and you will see that video of — through our first witness. And she also was captured on a trail cam that becomes very important in this case. At about 9:05 P.M., she is captured running from her house down Rogers Road, eventually toward the crime scene where she encounters this defendant. She is running, as you will see, with a few things that are important: two air pods, they are noise-canceling air pods, and her phone, her iPhone is in her left hand. She is wearing typical running clothes. You will hear a little bit about how she runs, what she runs with, because these things are important to judge what eventually happened between her and this defendant on the trail. She wears typically very tight running clothes, because that’s what is comfortable when you run so it doesn’t get — it doesn’t come off or get loose when you are running. So this particular day she is wearing running tights, white polka shoes and three layers of clothing on her top. She’s wearing a running bra, a shirt, and a tight black running jacket when she leaves her house. At 9:11 A.M. exactly, Laken is a few minutes into her run, and we have some digital data which we’ll talk to you about, which is a Garmin watch that Laken had gotten for Christmas, that she’s wearing on her run. This watch captured a lot of important data that you will hear about. But she is on her run and her phone, she activates the emergency function of her iPhone. You will hear about that through testimony of witnesses who examined her phone. She activates the emergency function of her iPhone and she attempts to call 911 and she, in fact, does call 911. Her call is connected to ACCPD. At 9:12, you will hear the call was hung up — and I will play the call for you — at 9:12, the call was hung up by the caller, not the 911 center. The 911 center did not hang up on Laken Riley, the phone hung up. At 9:12, they tried to call her back and there was no answer. This is an enhanced version of the 911 call — and there will be several stipulations between the parties in this case, we will execute a waiver of them as they come in. One of the stipulations was that this 911 call was sent to the FBI in Quantico where they attempted to enhance the call, and this is a one minute and eight second call. This is the enhanced version of that call. And I would like the court, when listening to the call, right about 55 seconds into the call, you will hear a voice.”

[Audio recording plays]
911 OPERATOR:” This is Clark County 911. Hello, this is Clark County 911. Hello, Clark County 911. Can anyone hear me? Clark County 911.”
[Audio recording ends]

ROSS: “There is a long break in what happens next.”