Georgia police executed a search warrant in Porterdale on Thursday as part of an investigation into the disappearance of a 19-year-old woman in 2016.
At a news conference Thursday afternoon, Porterdale police provided little information, but said they had “located items of evidentiary interest.”
Morgan Bauer disappeared in February 2016, just two weeks after returning to Georgia from South Dakota, according to WAGA. She was last seen on February 25, after leaving The Top of Gainesville club, where she worked as a dancer. But a video posted the next day to her Instagram showed her in a park in Porterdale, about 80 miles away, with a man walking behind her (see screenshot above).
Sherri Keenan, Bauer’s mother, wrote on Missing Morgan, a Facebook page dedicated to finding the missing woman, that the man “is not a new person” and was “the last man she texted when her phone pinned in Porterdale.”
The park is not far from the property where investigators launched their search on Thursday. Porterdale Police Sgt. Michael Anthony Walden said the search warrant was “based on new information that came to light” and said investigators would be on the large property by the Yellow River “as long as it takes.”
“Over time, sometimes the information becomes clearer or the locations become clearer,” he said, apologizing repeatedly for being unable to answer specific questions.
Walden said investigators were currently searching the property itself but that the search warrant covers both the house and the property. The property owners are cooperating, he said.
Walden also said that multiple agencies were assisting in the search, including the Atlanta Police Department, the FBI, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, the New County Sheriff’s Office, the Newton County District Attorney’s Office, and the Peoria, Illinois, Police Department. He declined to say why the Illinois department was involved.
Porterdale Police Chief Jason Cripps said the Morrow and Social Circle Police Departments had also provided assistance in the investigation.
Police said no one is in custody in the case currently.
Keenan, writing on the Missing Morgan Facebook page, wrote Thursday night that the family was “doing our best to be grateful, graceful, peaceful and prayerful.”
“Please allow us time to navigate this process,” she said. “We are taking things minute by minute.”
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[Featured image: Morgan Bauer/Facebook]
