Law&Crime Sidebar - ‘100% a Homicide’: Maryland Mother Found Dead On Hiking Trail — Everything We Know So Far

Episode Date: August 8, 2023

Rachel Morin — a mother of five — was found dead on a hiking trail in Maryland on Sunday, August 6. Her boyfriend reported her missing hours after she was found, claiming she left Saturday night to go on a walk but never came back. The Law&Crime Network’s Angenette Levy spoke with Harford County Sheriff Jeff Gahler about everything confirmed so far.LAW&CRIME SIDEBAR PRODUCTION:YouTube Management - Bobby SzokePodcasting - Sam GoldbergWriting & Video Editing - Michael DeiningerGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSocial Media Management - Vanessa Bein & Kiera BronsonSUBSCRIBE TO OUR OTHER PODCASTS:Court JunkieThey Walk Among AmericaDevil In The DormThe Disturbing TruthSpeaking FreelyLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lawandcrimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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that will keep you on the edge of your seat. Don't let your fears take hold of you as you dive into this addictive series. Love thrillers with a paranormal twist? The entire Oracle trilogy is available on Audible. Listen now on Audible. Days I absolutely love being the Sheriff of Harford County. This is not one of those days. We're here to follow up on what I think our entire community She knows, sadly, what is a homicide along the Mompah Trail here just outside the town limits. A Maryland mother is found dead after going out on a hike and her boyfriend takes to social media to claim he didn't do anything to her. We discussed the developing details of the case. Welcome back to Sidebar here on Law and Crime. I'm Janette Levy.

37-year-old mother of five, Rachel Morin, went for a hike Saturday evening around 6 p.m. Bel Air, Maryland. Less than 24 hours later, Morin was found dead, and the police believe someone murdered her. No suspects have been named, but just like most murder cases, those closest to her have come under the microscope, including her boyfriend. 27-year-old Richard Tobin changed his relationship status on August 1st to show that he was in a relationship with Morin. Upon discovering Morin's body, Tobin wrote underneath his Facebook post, I didn't do anything to her. Hundreds of people commented below that post to express their own opinions. Tobin has not been named a suspect. He was the first to report Morin missing after she didn't return home from her

hike and he also provided police with the correct location of her vehicle. Tobin may not be a suspect right now, but he does have a long rap sheet. According to court records, Tobin's faced criminal charges 20 times. He's been arrested twice for a criminal second degree assault, malicious destruction of property, drug possession, and violating restraining orders. Again, police have not accused him of any wrongdoing. We want to be very clear about that, but his criminal past really makes you wonder. Tobin went on to say under that Facebook post that he had struggled with the law but has changed as a person. Joining me to discuss this disturbing case is the sheriff of Harford County. He is Jeff Gailer. Sheriff Gailer, welcome to Sidebar. Thanks for coming on. Absolutely. Thanks for inviting us to the program today.

and, you know, sadly to discuss this horrible case. Yeah, it's absolutely awful. And those poor children who have now lost their mother, it's heartbreaking. What is the very latest on the investigation? Well, you know, our investigators have been working diligently all the way back to when this was a missing person report and hours later, you know, transitioning into a homicide investigation. But much of what we are releasing is very little.

You know, I know that our community and this story. has garnered attention from around the globe. If I know this story, this story has so much public interest and people are just anxious to know, but we cannot, for a second, allow public wanting to know something to compete with the need to put together a quality investigation to identify a suspect and hopefully to bring this case to a successful resolution and prosecution. So really, we're saying, you know, we're saying very little at this point that the investigation's going on.

we have 10 detectives assigned primarily to the case, you know, just that's their sole focus, along with all the other assets of our office, our civilian staff, our technical people, our phone, you know, our phone and IT people, everybody's talents and investigative skills and efforts are focused on this, but, you know, 10 direct investigators assigned to the case to make sure that we follow up on the hundreds of leads that are coming in. We've had this story shared tens of thousands of times. So we're getting a lot of tips. A lot of those, you know, won't go anywhere. But some of them might be that something out there could be that key piece of evidence that we need to bring this case, again, to a successful resolution. Ten detectives. That's a lot of manpower. Is that

putting a strain on your department? I only asked because I think that would be a lot of detectives for any department, but obviously this is all hands on deck for you. You're exactly right. For us, that's the bulk of our entire criminal investigation section or the larger portion of it, but it's all hands on deck. This crime is out of the norm for what we're 30 minutes north of Baltimore. You know, homicide in Baltimore doesn't garner as much of attention as it does here in Hartford County. And in Hartford County, you know, where this crime occurred just outside the town limits of Bel Air, I can't even tell you in the last time they had a homicide. And then the couple that, you drilled down with that for the fact that this was. a young lady, you know, 37 years old, a young lady who was out on the trail exercising

where she had routinely gone, been known that she would be out there exercising into fitness, and, you know, her life struck down in such a criminal manner. And we're not releasing, I've been asked many times about the details, how we can confirm it's a homicide. And the only thing I'm answering to that is that it's not an accidental injury. It's not a self-inflicted taking up someone's life. Our detectives are 100% clear that this is a homicide investigation. I have a lot of questions for you.

But I want to go back to something you just mentioned earlier when we first started. How soon was she reported missing? Because she was found dead, sadly, less than 24 hours after she left to go on the trail. So how quickly was she reported missing? Well, she was reported. She went around, as I understand the timeline, she was. She went out to do her run around 6 p.m. She wouldn't have been expected back.

Her boyfriend reported her mission just around 11.30 p.m. on Saturday night. And then following Sunday at, and I have it here, at 107 p.m. So on Sunday at 107, just a little over 12 hours, a self-deployed citizen who knew we were conducting search operations in that area. many people were well aware social media was a buzz many people struck out on their own to go searching what's a very large wooded area that surrounds the hiking trail and this this individual came across the crime scene there's been a lot of chatter on social media on facebook in particular directed toward the boyfriend rich tobin he said that he would never hurt her he had had some past run-ins with the law, but that he's changed. So has he been ruled out? Is he cooperating with your

investigation? Well, certainly no one's been ruled out and no one's been ruled in, if you will. There's no single suspect that we're looking at. We are taking, you know, this case as we would, any case. We're looking at the victim. We're working our way out from her, you know, those closest to her. And of course, you know, there's a lot of online speculation and accusation about his actions. And all I can say is that him or anyone who's responsible for this case, when we can make a case against an individual and we have a suspect, you know, the public will be the first to know. And as the sheriff in this county and the community, and I want to reassure people of their safety, if I could say certainly that we have a suspect and this was a targeted event and our community overall is safe, that there's not a general threat to safety, that's what I would be saying. And I am not in a position to say that. So we are working all the way out from, again, the inner circle, all the way out to the unknown.

Some, you know, some random person on the trail with no connection to the victim whatsoever. We are looking at every possible conceivable scenario. So you can't say that you have one suspect or three. You're still really in the early stages of this. Absolutely. And, you know, people are anxious. And again, we understand that. People are nervous.

People are afraid. But these things don't generally, unless it's a smoking gun and someone's arrested there at the scene, these investigative efforts become technical. They become very involved and they often take a bit of time. And that's when you have just one specific person you can look at or one group you can look at or something like that. And the more far reaching, the more tips we get. And again, this is in the hundreds. that's more work that needs to be done by those, you know, 10 detailed investigators, but all the people that are assisting as well.

And obviously, we want to know who did this. And, you know, this is a woman with five children. I mean, five children now are left without their mother. Who's taking care of these children? I mean, is children's services involved? Are other people involved? I know that there's been a GoFundMe that's been started. for her children.

Well, they're still family. And I know that, you know, the father of at least a couple of the children is still in the picture. The parents, you know, her parents are still here. And, you know, they've lost a daughter, brother and sister who have lost a sibling. So they have a, you know, a family network. And the kids are in good care. I was speaking to another news source earlier.

And they asked, and I said, I don't have it in front of me. but I don't know where they are, but I probably wouldn't say if I did because, you know, that family needs time to deal with the magnitude of what has happened and, you know, the public attention. And it goes back in my mind to the social media. You know, so much out there is speculation and just not true. And that does nothing to help this family understand the magnitude of this loss or be able to focus on what's being done when there's so much speculation. If people have information that they think might be pertinent to the investigation, let us, you know, give that to police and let us vet that information to see if it has value. Did Rachel have a cell phone with her when she was found or any type of Apple watch or a smart watch? A lot of questions, and those are questions that we've been asked and that's stuff that we're not sharing, you know, it's particulars of the investigation that at this point in time that we're not sharing whether she did or did not.

Was there any sign of sexual assault? Again, it's something else. The medical examiner has, I don't know if they've completed all the reports, but they've completed the autopsy, positively identified her, because that was a question early on, although we knew it was her. You know, the official notification of identification comes from the NB's office. That has happened, the matter of the cause of death.

We're aware of that. But that's all stuff that we are not going to release because, again, And it could interfere, and we do not want anything to interfere with an eventual, eventual successful prosecution of the person or persons responsible for this horrific act. Had she been receiving any threats or anything like that that we're aware of? None that I'm aware of. No. But again, that would be, we're going to start with our victim and we're going to work our way out as any good police investigation should. So that would be something our detectives would focus on it, whether I'm aware of it. I have not.

not heard that, but our detectives may be aware of something I'm not. Was there any surveillance footage recovered? You know, I feel like these days, everything's on camera. Everybody's got one of those ring doorbell things, you know, everybody but me, I guess. But, you know, those things are all over the place. You know, you can drive out of your neighborhood and half the time there's some camera recording somewhere. Oh, 100%.

You know, cameras are everywhere. And my yard actually backs up to a different section of this same hiking. trail, the mom and pop trail. And I have seven cameras around my house. Cameras are cheap. They're not expensive. So certainly that's something that detectives are aware of and they are going to be looking and we're asking the community. If they have footage that's personally owned, if they think maybe is of no value, but it shows a portion of the trail, we want to see it. As far as it's a part of the parks and erect, the actual trail itself. As far as parks and recs for the county, the department for the county, there are not trails along the camera,

certainly something that we've had discussions with as we have stepped up our patrols there, you know, after the fact, you know, in order to reassure a community, something that we've had conversations with them about is maybe exploring that possibility. It gets fairly rural at places. So, but in this age of cheap cameras and technology, it should be something I think we could make happen. Sheriff Gailer, if people have information about Rachel Morin's life or her murder, how do they reach out to you? Well, certainly if anyone, again, and anyone thinks that they have information,

it might be helpful to investigators, but they're not sure. We want them to err on the side of letting us know. They can do that through our Facebook. You know, so many people will live on social media, and that will get to investigators or we're asking people to call our investigators at 410-836-5-4-30. Well, let's hope that you get some leads on this and that some measure of peace can come to this family. Nothing's ever going to, you know, bring her back, we know,

but answers are what this family needs at this point in time and sympathy and probably some financial assistance. So thank you so much. Thank you for having us. And we want to deliver those things for the family, particularly, you know, justice and see this person removed from our community. No doubt. Thank you. I also spoke with Mike Alcassar, a 30-year veteran of the NYPD, about how important it was that Rachel Moran's body was found so quickly. I mean, a lot of the information should be obtained when they process the crime scene to see what kind of evidence is they recover DNA evidence. Any you can compare? Was there a struggle?

Does she have any defensive wounds? You know, DNA is to play big, and it's a silent witness that provides a lot of information. It never lies. And it's an investigative step. It should develop some leads for them immediately. And that's it for this edition of Law and Crime Sidebar podcast. You can listen to and download Sidebar on Apple, Spotify, Google, wherever else you get your podcasts.

And of course, you can always watch it on Law and Crimes YouTube channel. I'm Ann Jeanette Levy, and we will see you next time. You can binge all episodes of this Law and Crime series. Add free right now on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.