Maryland Sheriff Jeff Gahler, who is investigating the August 2023 murder of Rachel Morin, suggested pedestrians "break" their routines following the Feb. 22 killing of Augusta University student Laken Riley on the University of Georgia campus.
Both women – Morin, a 37-year-old mother of five, and Riley, a 22-year-old nursing student – were murdered while jogging on popular pedestrian trails.
"We put out a lot of recommendations following Rachel's case. Break your routine. Don't be a creature of habit. Don't be on the trail… at that location at the same time every single day," Harford County Sheriff Gahler told Fox News Digital. "Always, if you can, be with a friend. Go out when the trails or the parks are more crowded.
"I live on a section of the mine trail here in our county where Rachel was killed. The same trail. And I'll pass by younger ladies, older ladies… and they'll have their headsets in, and they won't know someone's beside them until you're beside them."
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Morin was running along the Ma and Pa Trail, a pedestrian trail in Bel Air, a quiet and typically safe town about 28 miles northeast of Baltimore, on Aug. 5, 2023, when she vanished. Authorities found her body the next day in what Gahler previously described as a "horrific" criminal homicide.
In February, the Harford County Sheriff's Office released a composite sketch of the suspect in Morin's case, described as a Hispanic male based on witness accounts and video footage of the suspect from a March 2023 incident in Los Angeles described as a home invasion.
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Just 11 days after authorities found Morin's body, the sheriff's office announced a link between evidence found at the scene of Morin's murder to evidence found at the scene of the LA home invasion using the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS), leading them to a single DNA match for an unidentified Hispanic male.
The Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) collected a hat left behind at the scene of the March 2023 home invasion that turned violent and injured people, including children.
The suspect allegedly broke into the home in the middle of the night and assaulted the family inside before he was chased out. Surveillance video footage captured the man leaving, shirtless, through the front door.
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Social media users have compared the two cases due to not only the similar circumstances under which both victims were found dead, but also because Riley's alleged killer somewhat matches the description of the unidentified suspect in Morin's case.
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Gahler, however, does not believe the two murders are related based on evidence his office has investigated so far.
"Sadly, we're monitoring cases from across the country… anytime there's something tragic. And, this one, because of some of the parallels… you have a young woman out on a very safe trail… jogging, as it was in our case with Rachel Morin, mother of five who went out for a jog in a very safe area and was brutally killed," Gahler said. "And, much like what we're hearing out of the Georgia case, our suspect is known to be Hispanic based on some of the DNA evidence that we've collected."
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When Georgia authorities announced the arrest of Jose Antonio Ibarra, a 26-year-old illegal immigrant from Venezuela, the Harford County Sheriff's Office received "a lot of tips" from people speculating about a possible connection between the two cases, Gahler explained.
"People believe the images that we have been able to release, including a sketch in the last few weeks, that the suspect looks somewhat similar [to Ibarra]," the sheriff said. "So, certainly since [Feb. 22], when we heard about this case… a horrible case like we had here in Harford County… our investigators have been in contact with our federal partners and the investigating agency down there. And we're looking at that case. But right now, we don't have any reason to believe the two are related."
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The Harford County Sheriff's Office does not know what brought the suspect from LA to Maryland, but they do know he was in Bel Air prior to Morin's murder. And they are asking members of the public who may have seen or communicated with the suspect during the summer of 2023 to come forward. Authorities believe he still poses a threat to the public.
Authorities are offering a $35,000 reward for information leading to an arrest in Morin's case. Anyone with information is asked to contact RMTips@harfordsheriff.org.
