More than a decade after 19-year-old Morgan Bauer disappeared after moving from South Dakota to Georgia, the long-running murder case has finally reached a major legal conclusion.
Katelyn Goble was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole after a Newton County jury found her guilty of murdering Bauer. The verdict came more than 10 years after Bauer vanished in February 2016.
Bauer had moved to the Atlanta area hoping to start a new life. She had only been in Georgia for a short time when she disappeared after meeting Goble, a woman she had reportedly befriended through work.
Investigators later determined that Bauer had been taken to a home in Porterdale, where prosecutors said she was killed. For years, however, authorities could not locate her remains, leaving her family without answers.
The case changed dramatically in 2023 when investigators searched a Porterdale property and recovered Bauer’s remains. The discovery finally allowed authorities to build a homicide case around a disappearance that had remained unresolved for seven years.
Goble was arrested in Illinois, while her former boyfriend, Jonathan Alexander Warren, was arrested separately in California. Both were subsequently charged in connection with Bauer’s death.
Warren did not go to trial. In January 2024, he pleaded guilty to malice murder and several other charges, including tampering with evidence and concealing a death. He was sentenced to life without parole.
Goble maintained her innocence and chose to fight the charges in court.
During her trial, prosecutors argued that Goble and Warren were involved together in Bauer’s killing and the subsequent attempt to conceal what happened. The defense presented a different picture, arguing that Warren was responsible for the killing and that Goble had been afraid of him.
After hearing the evidence, the jury found Goble guilty of malice murder, felony murder, aggravated assault, concealing the death of another person and tampering with evidence. She was sentenced on September 1 to life in prison without parole.
The case has now produced the same ultimate punishment for both defendants.
Warren is already serving his life sentence, while Goble will also spend the rest of her life behind bars with no possibility of parole.
The investigation into Bauer’s disappearance was one that stretched across years, states and changing circumstances. For her family, the discovery of her remains in 2023 finally answered the most painful question: what happened to her?
The recent conviction answers another.
More than 10 years after Bauer disappeared, the two people prosecutors connected to her death have both been sentenced to life without parole.
The legal case may now be largely settled, but for Bauer’s family, the loss began long before the courtroom verdict — on the night a 19-year-old woman disappeared while trying to build a new life far from home.