Rachel Morin case update: Potential witnesses on Ma & Pa trail where ‘devoted mom’ was killed come forward

“Shrouded in grief/Suffocating /In soul crushing/Heartbreak,” Ms Morin wrote in a poem shared on Facebook.. “A pain I know well/And hate/My sister/My friend/Now gone/Alone I am/With my pain/My old friend/The only one/That stays til the end.”

Ms Morin was originally from Dover, New Hampshire, and was a long-term resident of Bel Air. She was one of five siblings.

Her sister Rebekah, herself a mother of seven children, revealed on a GoFundMe page that the family had been grieving the death of their niece Lily Beth to sudden infant death syndrome just a week earlier.

“It is with devastating sadness and a broken heart that our family has been hit with yet another heartbreak.

“My sister, Rachel Morin went missing on Saturday August 5 2023 around 6pm. In less then 24 hours her body was found by local law enforcement. It has only been a week since my niece Lily Beth passed away from SIDS, and I find that I have to make yet another gofundme to help my mother, Patty Morin with funeral costs.”

Rebekah confirmed that her sister did not have life insurance, and appealed for financial assistance to provide for her five surviving children.

In an update, Rebekah asked for anyone with information to notify law enforcement to “get justice for my sister, her children, her mother and all her siblings”.

On social media, Rachel Morin posted touching photos with her children, selfies at the gym and spending time with friends.

“Rachel was so unabashedly herself: witty and genuine, brilliant, daring, and headstrong. Her spirit would light up the room and her smile was contagious,” her best friend Claudia Brown wrote in a Facebook post after her death.

“Her faith was so strong,”

Morin’s family invited members of the community to meet at 11 am on 19 August at the William Street entrance of the Ma and Pa trail.

Attendees will then begin walking to the end of the first half of the trail and back.

“We are hoping to have a “Trail of Flowers and Light” to line both sides of the trail for our walk on the Ma & Pa Trail,” Morin’s sister Rebekah Morin wrote on Facebook. “If you are able to, we ask that you bring flowers and a battery operated candle to lay on either side of the trail somewhere as we walk Rachel’s last steps.”

The mother of Rachel Morin has broken her silence with a plea for compassion as the family takes time to grieve the “sudden and tragic” loss of the 37-year-old whose body was found after she vanished while going for a jog on the Ma and Pa Trail in Bel Air.

Ms Morin’s boyfriend Richard Tobin reported him missing on Saturday after she failed to return home.

Responding to speculation in the case, Mr Tobin, 27, previously said on a Facebook post that he “would never do anything” to Morin.

A source close to Mr Tobin has since told The Baltimore Banner that he gave his cell phone and a DNA sample to police.

Authorities have not identified any suspects in the investigation.

On Thursday, Harford County Sheriff’s Office said investigators had been made aware of potential witnesses who may have seen Morin on the trail that night. The witnesses – either three men, two women and two dogs or two men, three women and two dogs – were urged to come forward.

Harford County Sheriff Jeffery Gahler reiterated that the public should continue sending in tips even if the details may seem insignificant.

“That might be the key piece of evidence of information we are looking for,” the sheriff said.

“Some of your tips have been promising and tremendous in advancing the investigation and bringing us closer to getting the answers that we need, the answers that Rachel’s family needs, and the answers that our community needs.”

Rachel Morin was last seen alive leaving her home to head to the Ma and Pa Trail in Bel Air, Harford County, at around 6pm on Saturday evening, according to the Harford County Sheriff’s Office.

When the 37-year-old failed to return home that night, her boyfriend called police to report her missing. On Sunday morning, Morin’s vehicle was found at the parking lot close to the entrance of the trail on Williams Street but there was no sign of the missing mother-of-five.

The desperate search turned to tragedy at around 1.07pm on Sunday afternoon when a member of the public discovered the body of a woman off the trail.

In a press conference on Sunday night, Sheriff Jeffrey Gahler announced that the investigation had now changed from a missing persons investigation to a homicide investigation.The cause and manner of death remain unclear and are still under investigation, the sheriff’s office said.

At this time, the sheriff said that police have no suspects.

Michael Gabriszeski, the Maryland man who claimed he saw the body of 37-year-old Rachel Morin was not even “within eyesight of the crime scene” when she was found, the Harford County Sheriff’s Office told The Independent.

Mr Gabriszeski, 49, claimed to multiple news outlets that he and his stepdaughter came across Morin’s body on Sunday when they joined the search for the missing mother-of-five, who had vanished on Saturday after going for a jog on the Ma and Pa Trail in Bel Air, Maryland.

Mr Gabriszeski said that his stepdaughter, who he said was a friend of Morin’s, was the first to discover the body in a tunnel near the trail before they alerted police.

But a spokesperson for the Harford County’s Sheriff’s Office confirmed to The Independent on Thursday that Mr Gabriszeski “did not find Rachel’s body” and that he did not “view her body.”