Tips in the search for the killer of hiker mom Rachel Morin last month have led detectives to Chicago and Los Angeles, but Maryland investigators are no closer to finding the unknown man now than they were before DNA found at the crime scene linked him to a crime in California.
As CrimeOnline previously reported, that DNA showed up in a home invasion and assault on a young girl in Los Angeles earlier this year. LA detectives provided home security video of the suspect leaving the house after the crime, but Harford County detectives say despite hundreds of tips, they still don’t know who or where he is.
“We’re still asking for the public’s support to share that video, to check out the picture,” Harford County Sheriff Jeff Gahler told Law & Crime. “Somebody out there will recognize him and knows who he is. And I regret to say we have no idea where he is. I mean, he could be here in our community, he could have gone back to Los Angeles, or he could be in any other city or community in our country or in the world.”
He could also be long gone, Gahler said, adding that last week, detectives traveled to Chicago to check out a tip. He declined to provide any details.
“We’ll look under any rock until we find this guy and put him behind bars,” the sheriff said, adding that the department has received 500-600 tips so far.
Morin, a 37-year-old mom of 5, disappeared after heading out for a run on Bel Air’s Ma and Pa Heritage Trail early last month. When she didn’t come home that night, her boyfriend reported her missing, and searchers found her body just off the trail the following day. A $10,000 reward for information leading to a conviction has been offered.
Gahler told Law & Crime that investigators are also working to establish whether Morin knew her attacker, despite saying early on they believed it was a random attack.
“We don’t know for sure that they hadn’t crossed paths,” Gahler said. ” … No one reports him as an acquaintance, so that certainly leads us more in the direction that it was just a crime of opportunity.”
Gahler noted the escalation from a home invasion and assault on a juvenile in Los Angeles to a murder in Maryland.
“There’s nothing to stop him from doing it again,” he said. “I believe, our investigators believe, he will do it again.”
Gahler declined to say whether investigators have asked the FBI to help locate the suspect using forensic genealogy, instead noting that Maryland has some privacy restrictions on use of the technique and taking a swipe at what he called Maryland’s “pro-criminal legislature.” He did however, say that detectives were using all methods available to them in the hunt for Morin’s killer.
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[Featured image: Rachel Morin/ Facebook and Harford County Sheriff’s Office]
