ATHENS, Ga. — When a 22-year-old nursing student was found dead on a wooded trail at the University of Georgia in what’s believed to be the first homicide on campus in nearly 30 years, it set off waves of grief and fear that shook the university to its core. But when a 26-year-old migrant from Venezuela was charged Friday with kidnapping and killing the student, Laken Riley, it did something else: It transformed Athens and Clarke County, a community of about 130,000 people some 70 miles east of
The relatively liberal culture of Athens, its local immigration policies and the border crisis have combined with a brutal crime to create a toxic brew.