Rachel Morin went jogging on the Ma and Pa Heritage Trail in Bel Air, Maryland, last Saturday. The sun was still up when the blonde, blue-eyed mother of five set off on her 6 p.m. run at the popular 6.2-mile wooded trail. It would be the last time anyone would hear from the 37-year-old fitness enthusiast again.
Five hours would pass before her boyfriend, Richard Tobin, reported Morin missing. Police found her abandoned car near the start of the trail. The area is behind several businesses, including a brewery, a Domino’s, and a condominium complex. It leads into a wooded area and through a neighborhood before dropping into another wooded area underneath a state highway.
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One day after Morin went missing near the area, her lifeless body was found, and authorities announced there was “no doubt” her death had been a homicide.
“It was more than obviously apparent to police officers and our detectives who came up that this was not an accidental injury — somebody out exercising who’s fallen down and sustained a fatal injury,” Harford County Sheriff Jeff Gahler told Fox News, adding, “This was the action of one or more persons who took her life in a criminal homicide — an egregious, horrific act in what is very otherwise a very, very safe area.”
Almost immediately, armchair investigators turned their suspicion to Tobin, flooding his Facebook page and forcing him to account for his actions and whereabouts that day.
“I love Rachel, I would never do anything to her, let the family and I grieve,” he posted on Monday. “Yes, I have a past but I also have 15 months clean and have changed as a person. Please.”
Morin’s mother, Patty Morin, asked the public for “compassion” in a statement she posted on her daughter Rebekah’s Facebook page on Thursday.
“It has only been 4 days since we received the horrific news. I ask that as mothers, fathers, brothers, and sisters, that you would please have compassion on us and allow us this,” Patty Morin wrote. “If you have experienced the loss of a dear loved one, then you know how hard it can be to express the pain that you feel in your heart. When it’s sudden and tragic, your mind looks for ways to cope.”
Gahler has not stated whether Tobin is a suspect in Rachel Morin’s death but confirmed he had been interviewed.
“One question we have continued to get centers around whether we have interviewed the boyfriend in this case,” he said during a news conference. “The answer is yes, we have, along with many other people who were close to Rachel. That is the way an investigation is conducted. We start with people who are in her close inner circle and others who may have known her or she encountered and work outward.”
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Gahler also asked the public for help, specifically for anyone living near the trailhead with security cameras to review their footage as investigators continue to comb the area for clues. Authorities have also issued a warning that a killer could be on the loose and to pair up and use other safety measures when on the trail.
“We do not have a solid suspect,” Gahler told WBAL-TV. “Not knowing whether this was a targeted event specific to Rachel, we are going to say, yes, be aware, be thinking there could be somebody out here.”
