Murder of Laken Riley (Wikipedia)On February 22, 2024, Laken Riley, an American 22-year-old nursing student at Augusta University, was kidnapped and murdered while she was jogging at the University of Georgia (UGA) in Athens, Georgia. Her body was found near a lake of a wooded area at UGA; her death was caused by blunt force trauma. The police described Riley’s killing as a “crime of opportunity”.
Georgia (U.S. state) (Wikipedia)Georgia (/ˈdʒɔːrdʒə/ JOR-jə) is a state in the Southeastern, South Atlantic, and Deep South regions of the United States. It borders Tennessee to the northwest, North Carolina and South Carolina to the northeast, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, Florida to the south, and Alabama to the west. Of the 50 U.S. states, Georgia is the 24th-largest by area and eighth-most populous. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, its 2025 estimated population was 11,302,748. Atlanta, a global city, is both the state’s capital and its largest city. The Atlanta metropolitan area, with a population greater than 6.3 million people in 2023, is the eighth most populous metropolitan area in the United States and contains about 57% of Georgia’s entire population. Other major metropolitan areas in the state include Augusta, Savannah, Columbus, and Macon.