Rachel Morin and the Cases That Look Eerily Similar
The Fox News article compared the murder of Rachel Morin to several other high-profile cases in which women were attacked while jogging or walking alone, often by strangers. Morin, a 37-year-old mother of five, disappeared on August 5, 2023, while jogging on the Ma & Pa Heritage Trail in Bel Air, Maryland, and was found dead the following day. At the time the article was published, police had not identified a suspect and were still considering whether the killing had been random. Former homicide detective Ted Williams said attacks on female runners by strangers were not unheard of and warned that offenders often exploited predictable routines, isolated trails and locations where they could hide or quickly overpower a victim.
The article drew parallels between Morin’s death and the murders of Chandra Levy, Mollie Tibbetts, Karina Vetrano, Eliza Fletcher and Sydney Sutherland. Each case involved a woman who had been exercising or traveling alone when she was attacked, although the circumstances and relationships between victims and killers differed. Investigators in those cases frequently relied on DNA, surveillance footage, physical evidence or confessions to identify the perpetrators, while the Chandra Levy case ultimately remained unresolved after the prosecution against its original suspect collapsed. The comparison underscored the vulnerability of women using isolated trails and roads and the possibility, which investigators were considering early in the Morin case, that her killer may have been a stranger who targeted her opportunistically rather than someone from her immediate circle.
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Speaker 1: And welcome back to the program. In the wake of
Rachel Morin being found murdered on the Mon Paw Trail
in Maryland, Fox News has an article out discussing some
of the more high-level cases of joggers who were murdered
while out for a run. So instead of me whinging
about it, why don't we just dive right into this
article and let's see what Fox has come up with. Headline,
Rachel Morin murder eerily similar to high-profile cases of female
joggers killed by strangers. This article was authored by Audrey Conklin.
Nearly a week since Rachel Morin was found dead after
she vanished from a popular walking trail in Maryland, no
suspects have been named in connection with her homicide and
locals are wondering whether the attack was random. So there's
a lot of questions, right? Was it random? Was it
somebody she knows? We heard some rumors that she was
on various dating websites. So was it somebody she met
on one of those? Was it some random scumbag that
was lurking and waiting for her? Again, we just don't
know yet. The Marilyn mother of five was jogging on
the Ma and Pa trail in Bel Air around 6.30 p.m. Saturday,
August 5th, when she disappeared. She was found dead in
what authorities have described as a horrific homicide the next day.
So a horrific homicide leads us to believe that this
crime scene was brutal. So was it a case of
overkill because it's somebody that was mad she had a
new boyfriend? Again, just me speculating. We have no idea.
But something initiated this attack. And it is fleetingly rare
for it to be a random stranger to do something
like this. However, that does not mean that it does
not happen. There are strangers out there that do this
sort of thing, like we're about to find out in
this article. A majority of female runners fear being attacked
because instances of these random crimes are not entirely uncommon.
These cases are not out of the ordinary, and while
you are always looking at individuals who are closest to
the victim, you have to keep your eyes open. Former Washington, D.C.
homicide detective and Fox News contributor Ted Williams told Fox
News Digital. This is one reason why women are told
if you're going to be jogging alone in the early
morning or late at night to change their jogging pattern,
because there are always, unfortunately, predators out there. And thankfully,
my lady doesn't do the whole jogging by herself early
in the morning anymore, but she used to. Now she
waits till she gets to the gym. You know, she's
a personal trainer. So she gets there earlier than everybody else,
gets her workout in and then teaches her classes. But
she used to go and run in the neighborhood and
it used to make me crazy. I used to say
to her all the time, you know that there's sickos
out there, a bunch of psychopaths. What are you doing?
Why are you going out there and running in the
middle of the night like that? And the sad part
is we shouldn't have to have those conversations with the
women we love. They shouldn't have to fear for their
lives when they're out having a jog. So really, it's
more telling about society than anything else, in my opinion.
I've seen it happen around the country, unfortunately, Williams added.
Chandra Levy, the former homicide detective, was reporting on the
ground from the nation's capital when Chandra Levy, 24, was
found dead in Rock Creek Park, a two-point-square-mile park in
the center of Washington, D.C., in May of 2002, after
she vanished from a jog, in May of 2001. Levy
was reportedly having an affair with former Congressman Gary Condit
at the time of her disappearance, prompting speculation directed at
the congressman until 2009. Well, if you were her parents
and you found out she was having an affair with
a congressman, wouldn't you think that he had something to
do with her going missing? I know I would. That year,
authorities arrested Ingmar Guandique, an undocumented immigrant, and known MS-13
gang member involved in other abductions of women in connection
with Levy's abduction and murder. In 2011, he was sentenced
to serve 60 years in prison. 60 years, that's it? Why?
Why only 60? You killed this lady. I don't want
to hear about 60 years. Helicopters, volcanoes. The case remains
unsolved to this day, however, because it was later overturned
and back in 2016, prosecutors dropped their case against Guandique.
That next year, he was deported back to El Salvador. Well,
all things being fair, if he was deported back to
El Salvador, chances are he got caught up in Bukele's sweep-ups,
and now he's sitting in some shitty penitentiary for the
rest of his life. So karma did catch up to him.
Molly Tibbetts. Molly Tibbetts, 20, also vanished while running on
a rural road outside of her hometown in Brooklyn, Iowa,
on July 18th, 2018. Christian Bahana Rivera, 27, an undocumented
immigrant from Mexico, working as a farmhand at the time,
was convicted in 2018 for her murder and later sentenced
to life in prison without the possibility of parole. You
know another one, this guy right here, I have no
remorse for him, no empathy, and I don't think he
should be doing a life sentence. If you don't want
to do the volcano idea, that's cool, but how about
we feed them to some animals, some lions and shit,
like the Romans used to do in the Colosseum? I'm
not even kidding at this point. I'm so sick of
these disgusting degenerates who are preying on people on a
regular basis that I'm all for tossing them into a
fucking volcano or strapping them to a rocket and launching
them into outer space. Enough is enough already. Investigators tied
Bahana Rivera to the scene of Tibbetts' murder after surveillance
video from a homeowner appeared to show his Chevy Malibu
repeatedly driving past the victim as she was jogging. When
Bahana Rivera was sentenced in 2021, Tibbetts' mother, Laura Calderwood,
addressed her daughter's killer in an impact statement read by
a representative to the court. So, this is... scumbag, piece
of shit, should have been given over to Molly Tibbetts' family,
and they should have been able to do with them
as they wish. Maybe that should be the punishment from
here on out. And for people who might be taken
aback by that, well, what if it was your daughter?
Especially considering how softly the justice system handles people like this.
Karina Vetrano In August 2016, Karina Vetrano was jogging near
her family's home in Howard Beach in Queens, New York,
when she was brutally beaten and left for dead by
an unknown assailant. Her father, Phil Vetrano, and police discovered
her body about 15 feet from the jogging path in Marshland.
Chanel Lewis, 22, was found guilty in 2019 of sexually
assaulting and murdering the 30-year-old woman two years after his arrest.
Lewis confessed to killing Vetrano in a recorded interview with investigators.
He said he was angry at his neighbor at the
time and suggested Vetrano happened to be in the wrong
place at the wrong time, according to the New York
Daily News. Well, I hope that you're in the wrong
place at the wrong time while you're in prison and
someone sticks a shiv in you. How about that, fuckface?
Authorities also link Lewis to the crime through crime scene DNA.
Eliza Fletcher Eliza Fletcher, a 34-year-old teacher, left her Memphis,
Tennessee home around 4 a.m. in September 2022 for a
morning run. As she passed by the University of Memphis campus,
a stranger named Cleotha Abston allegedly snatched her off the street,
forced her into his SUV, sexually assaulted her, and shot
her in the back of the head. Abston, 38, allegedly
camped out in the area for about 24 minutes before
Fletcher was taken. Police say surveillance cameras recorded him sprinting
out of a GMC Terrain SUV and grabbing Fletcher around 5.30 a.m.
In the ensuing struggle, he lost his champion slides at
the scene, and police found his DNA on them, according
to an arrest affidavit. And we covered Eliza Fletcher's abduction
while it was happening, and we also found out that
the man who was allegedly responsible for this... had already
been reported to the police previously for some shit just
like it, and they didn't take the woman who reported
him seriously. How many times do we have to hear
that story? Police found Fletcher's remains dumped behind a vacant
home near Abston's brother's apartment days later. Witnesses told investigators
they saw him washing out the SUV in the parking
lot with chemical cleaner. The case against Abston is ongoing.
Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty and they should get it.
Sidney Sutherland. Morin's case is also similar to the 2020
murder of Sidney Sutherland, 25, who was jogging near her
home in Jackson County, Arkansas, when she went missing. Her
body was discovered north of her home. two days later,
and police soon arrested Quake Lewin, 28, in connection with
her abduction. Sexual assault and murder. Unlike the former cases,
authorities said, Llewellyn, a local farmer, and Sutherland knew each other.
He was traveling westbound on County Road 41, saw Sutherland walking,
and abducted her. He then put her in the back
of his pickup truck and assaulted her before killing the
young nurse. Llewellyn would eventually confess to the crime, allegedly
telling medical experts that he was driving to check the
wells and the rice fields, and he spotted Sutherland walking
along a gravel road. He turned his truck around after
driving past her, but could no longer see her and
assumed he hit her with his vehicle. When he believed
her to be dead, he took her to a rice
field where he dug a hole, took her clothes off,
and tried messing with her a bit. So not only
are you a disgusting, greasy-looking fuckbag, you're a necrophiliac, huh? Shiv, shower, helicopter, volcano.
Take your choice. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to
life in prison in 2021. Morin's cause and manner of
death have not been released. As of Thursday, but, Harford
County Sheriff Jeff Goller described her killing as a criminal
homicide in an interview with Fox News Digital. Williams said
suspects in these kinds of cases, strangers targeting women who
are walking or jogging, typically occur in places that are
familiar to them. The suspects are also normally young and
relatively strong, he said. Well, you have to be. You
have a woman here who's probably in decent shape. She's
out here jogging, working out. So you're going to have
to have some kind of strength to overpower her. Unfortunately,
joggers are at a disadvantage because the perpetrators of these
kinds of crimes know where to hide to try to
determine how to best take the woman down. The former
detective said it is more likely than not that the
perpetrator was a man and a younger man, and he
would have known where to take Morin and maybe attempt
to assault her. and try to hide the body. The
one thing you look for in a case of this
nature is somebody who's familiar with the area. Morin's boyfriend,
Richard Tobin, broke his silence Sunday in a Facebook post
after online sleuths speculated that he might have played a
role in her death. I love Rachel. I would never
do anything to her. Let the family and I grieve. Yes,
I have a past, but I also have 15 months
clean and have changed as a person. Please, the 27-year-old wrote.
Sheriff Goller said investigators are looking into both Morin's inner
circle and working their way out to people who may
not have known her at all. The sheriff's office is
encouraging anyone with a tip that may be helpful for
authorities to call 410-836-5430 or send the Hartford County Sheriff's
Office a message through its Facebook page. So while this
story of Rachel Morin is certainly very, very disturbing, it's
not one that we haven't seen before, unfortunately. And I
think it's just another clarion call to all the women
out there to make sure if you're going jogging, you're
going to a place that is well-populated. And I hate
even having to say that, but society's fucked. And while
chances are you're not going to run into one of
these psychos while you're out on your jog, what if
you do? Do you think any one of these women
thought that they were going to go out for a
jog and never come home? But that's what happened, isn't it?
And while we're all guilty of the, it's never going
to happen to me type of mentality, You never know
what sort of evil is lurking right around the corner.
Just like these poor women were unaware of the evil
that was about to engulf them. All right, folks, that's
going to do it for this one. All of the
information that goes with this episode can be found in
the description box.