(NewsNation) — Wednesday marks one month since Rachel Morin’s body was discovered on a popular hiking trail. Now, the Maryland mom of five’s family is enlisting the help of a criminal profiler to track down their loved one’s suspected killer.
Pat Brown has compiled potential traits of the suspect that could be helpful in recognizing him. Morin’s family has put the traits on flyers that are being passed around the Bel Air community.
Some of the tips needed to identify Morin’s killer are that he possesses psychotic traits like lacking empathy and being a pathological liar; also, he must know someone in Bel Air where he has been able to stay, and he has a specific reason to be in the area of the nature trail.
“We need to identify him,” Brown told NewsNation host Dan Abrams. “That’s why I wrote this profile up.”
Brown has been arguing for years that when authorities go to the public and ask for information, they should be more specific with their requests.
“What you don’t want to do is: ‘Hey, if you know anything, give us a ring.’ People say what is it I’m supposed to know. So, I have always pushed for the police releasing some sort of bullet point chart about here’s what you need to be looking for, then people can see that and send in decent tips to the department instead of a whole bunch of nonsense,” Brown said.
Brown said Morin’s family approached her about putting together the suspect’s profile and checked with the Harford County Sheriff’s Office to make sure it would not interfere with their investigation.
“I was very pleased that they essentially approved of the flyer that was going to go out to the community and had these very important five points on it,” Brown said.
Brown’s complete points include:
- “This man is a suspected serial killer and is an immediate danger to the community.”
- “He is a violent criminal with these dangerous psychopathic traits: narcissistic (only cares about himself), lacking empathy (doesn’t care how others feel), manipulative (takes advantage of others), and he is a pathological liar (lies about everything compulsively.)”
- “After committing a crime in Los Angeles, California, he came to Bel Air, Maryland. This choice of location to a small, lesser-known city is odd, meaning he MUST know someone in Bel Air where he has been able to stay.”
- “The attack on Rachel Morin that occurred while she was running on the Ma & Pa Heritage Trail was likely committed by an opportunistic predator who saw her that evening. This means it is likely the predator has a specific reason to be in the area of the path: he runs on it, travels on it, he works near it, or he is living near it.”
- “The suspect would not be accountable for, either at work or home, sometime between 6 p.m. and dusk on Saturday, Aug. 5, when the attack occurred.”
Brown strongly believes someone in the community knows the suspect.
“The problem a lot of people have is they don’t recognize what they should be looking for, and they also have to be willing to call the sheriff’s department or send us some information,” Brown said. “The guy’s a suspected serial killer. Get him off the streets.”
Maryland State Police analyzed DNA left behind at the Bel Air, Maryland, crime scene and ran it through the CODIS database. The DNA returned as a match for a man suspected of invading a Los Angeles home and attacking a young girl in March. Investigators are confident this is the same person who killed Morin.
Three weeks ago, the sheriff’s office released security footage from the Los Angeles incident showing the suspect leaving a home. Authorities currently do not have a name or location for him. They described the suspect as a Hispanic male in his 20s, standing 5 feet, 9 inches tall and weighing about 160 pounds.
Morin, 37, was last seen alive Aug. 5, when she went for a walk on a Bel Air nature trail. Her car was spotted at the entrance of the trail, but she was nowhere to be found at the time. Her boyfriend ended up reporting her missing, sparking the search.
The next day, the sheriff’s office announced that the missing persons case for Morin had escalated into a homicide investigation after a volunteer searcher located her body along the Ma and Pa trail.
Without revealing details of the crime scene where her body was discovered, the sheriff’s office has confirmed Morin died from a “violent attack.”
The sheriff’s office has received hundreds of tips in the case, but they’re still waiting on the piece of information that will lead them to Morin’s killer. Anyone with information on the case is urged to call 410-836-7788.