The 29-year-old burglary suspect held in connection with the fatal attack of a jogger earlier this month on Chisholm Trail in Plano is now being charged with capital murder, Plano police said.
Plano Police detectives executed an arrest warrant on Bakari Abiona Moncrief in connection to the death of 43-year-old Sarmistha Sen, according to a press release Monday morning.
Moncrief, an out-of-state resident who was in town visiting relatives in another city outside Plano, remains in the Collin County Detention Center in McKinney, officials said.
Shortly after sunrise on Aug. 1, Plano Police Officers were dispatched to a welfare concern call after a passerby reported a female laying down near the creek at Legacy Drive and Marchman Way. Upon arrival, officers located the deceased female in the creek area.
Sen died as a result of "blunt force injuries," which investigators said matched the weapons found at the scene, according to a probable cause affidavit for the murder charge.
DNA evidence confirmed that Moncrief had the victim's blood on his shirt and on his person, police stated in the affidavit.
Police said in the written document they believe Moncrief attacked Sen on the trail, then moved her about 135 feet to the creek that runs under Legacy Drive, where he killed her.
Moncrief is being held on a $10 million bond at the Collin County Detention Center, police said.
The investigation remains ongoing as police await autopsy reports.
According to a police affidavit, on that same morning shortly before her body was discovered a person matching Moncriefs’ description was reported smashing in a front door window with a large stone at a Plano home less than 100 yards from where Sen’s body was found.
The man was heard saying that he is not a coward, according to the affidavit.
In the home, officials took swabs of sweaty handprints for possible DNA evidence, the affidavit states. It is unclear what, if anything, was taken.
Moncrief was detained by police later that morning while he was charging his phone with an outside electric outlet at a Tiger Mart at Legacy Drive and Custer Road, police said.
When Moncrief was detained, he again stated that he is not a coward, the affidavit states.
He was booked into jail on a burglary charge at that time but was also named a person of interest in the attack on the jogger.
Sen, a 43-year-old clinical cancer research manager for UT Southwestern Medical Center, grew up in India and moved to Plano in 2004. The mother of two young boys, ages 12 and 6, was a gardener who liked to cook and a trained singer who performed Indian classical music.
“I’ve had many conversations with her over the years, and I am absolutely heartbroken,” one friend whose son played soccer with one of Sen’s boys posted on the Nextdoor app that connects residents in the area. “She was truly the sweetest and most loving person you could ever meet.”
In the days following her attack, more than 1,000 shoes were placed near the site of the attack as a temporary memorial to Sen. They were later donated to Trusted World, a nonprofit that helps feed and clothe people worldwide.
An early riser, Sen liked to jog along the Chisholm Trail every morning, according to a GoFundMe page set up by her husband in her memory. The fund will be used for charities Sen cared about such as Cancer Awareness and Research.
The story has been updated to include information from the probable cause affidavit for the murder charge.
