On Aug. 5, Rachel Morin went out for an early-evening walk along a well-trodden trail in Bel Air, Md., and never came home.
A citizen called 911 the next day shortly after 1 p.m. to report finding a woman’s body off to the side of the Ma & Pa (as in Maryland and Pennsylvania) Trail, according to Harford County Sheriff Jeff Gahler, turning what had been a missing person search into a homicide investigation.
The 37-year-old mother of five was last seen at 6 p.m. and her boyfriend reported her missing at 11:23 p.m., Gahler said during an Aug. 6 news conference. Investigators found Morin’s car parked in a lot at the trailhead, where the boyfriend indicated the vehicle would be, the sheriff continued, and his office issued a public notice that was shared more than 11,000 times.
“That’s been a good side of social media,” Gahler noted. “The bad side is, there’s also been a lot of false or early information shared that we don’t want to see. We don’t want to see false news out there.”