Morgan Bauer disappeared in February 2016. Johnathan Alexander Warren murdered her, police said. (Image of Bauer: City of Porterdale Police Department)
More than seven years after she went missing, police said they solved a young woman’s disappearance — and murder.
Morgan Bauer, 19, was last seen alive in late February 2016, mere days after she moved from South Dakota to Atlanta, Georgia, for a new life. Now Johnathan Alexander Warren is charged with murdering her, and Katelyn Goble is accused of covering up the crime.
“Investigators are still actively investigating the case and it is continuing to develop,” wrote the City of Porterdale Police Department in Georgia. “Investigators are in constant communication with our District Attorney and his Office.”
They did not immediately explain how Warren and Goble allegedly knew Bauer.
This follows more than a week after authorities executed a search warrant on a property in Porterdale, according to WXIA. It raised eyebrows with police from Peoria, Illinois, took part in the search warrant. Officers did not explain why they executed the search warrant or why their Illinois counter parties were there, according to WSB.
But police now say Goble was arrested in Peoria. She faces a count each of concealing a death; and felony tampering with evidence.
Warren, who is charged as Bauer’s killer, was arrested in Los Angeles, California. He faces murder, aggravated assault, concealing a death, and misdemeanor tampering with evidence.
Bauer moved from her South Dakota hometown to the south, where she worked in a strip club in Gainesville, Georgia, her mother, Sherri Keenan, previously told WXIA. Officers initially said she was last seen on Feb. 25, 2016, but her mother said Bauer posted on social media on the following day.
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“On the 25th into that night, she was dancing at Top of Gainesville,” Keenan said. “She left and we know she left with some people. They stated they dropped her off at a Citgo gas station in Covington, Georgia.”
Bauer’s move was bumpy. She moved to Atlanta with just $20, she was expecting a tax refund.
“I didn’t want her to really go to Atlanta. It was something that was really worrying me,” Keenan told Dateline. “But Morgan does everything 100%. She’s a ‘go big’ kind of girl.”
“She was planning on staying with somebody that she had talked to on Craigslist,” the mother told WSB.
Having arrived there initially unemployed, Bauer was supposed to clean the home for the roommates until she got a job, but the roommates had some sort of falling out.
“From what I understand she’d left her clothes there because she didn’t know what to do,” said Keenan. “And then she went to go try to find a place to stay, a hotel, and that’s what brought her to dancing.”
She remembered her daughter in glowing terms.
”When she walked in a room, you knew she was there,” Keenan said, according to Dakota News Now. “She just commanded a whole room. She was beautiful and funny and her laugh could just completely take you away. She was kind.”
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