Jogger's Murder Results in Death Penalty Charges

Authorities in Texas have filed capital murder charges against the suspect in a scientist's apparently random murder. Bakari Abiona Moncrief, 29, has been charged with killing Sarmistha Sen, a 43-year-old mother of two and a cancer researcher at the University of Texas Southwestern, reports NBC Dallas-Fort Worth. Sen went out for an early morning jog in Plano on August 1 and never returned. Her body was later found near a creek, and police say she died of blunt-force injuries.

Moncrief was arrested later that day for allegedly burglarizing a house in the neighborhood, and he was quickly named a suspect in Sen's death after being linked to DNA from both crime scenes, per CNN. No motive is known. When arrested, police say he said the same thing that was heard in Ring doorbell video from the burglary: "I ain't a coward." The family has set up a GoFundMe where donations will be directed to charities supported by Sen. Meanwhile, supporters continue to drop off pairs of running shoes—Sen was an avid jogger—at a makeshift memorial near the site where she was killed. (Sen's husband struggled to make sense of the killing.)