Nicole Marie Torain, a 34-year-old woman from Dundalk, was found dead at a trash incineration facility in the 1800 block of Annapolis Road in Baltimore in April 2015. The Baltimore Sun's homicide database lists her death on Wednesday, April 22, 2015, the day police announced that the medical examiner had ruled it a homicide, and records the cause as asphyxiation.
The Baltimore Police Department investigated, and the Sun's database lists the case as a homicide.
Her death began as a missing person case. Baltimore County police asked the public for help finding her, saying she had last been seen at 3 p.m. on Saturday, April 18, in the 3500 block of Elmley Avenue in Baltimore. She lived in the 700 block of Peach Orchard Lane in Dundalk. Police said she was believed to be driving a black 2005 Chevrolet Equinox with a Baltimore Ravens sticker on the back, and they noted that "she has never gone missing before, and police are concerned for her safety." The search was led by the county's Missing Persons Unit.
Her body was found on Monday, April 20, at the Wheelabrator incineration facility and was identified the next morning. Police said at the time that there were "no obvious signs of trauma." On April 22, Baltimore police announced that the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner had ruled her death a homicide, and the Associated Press reported that city and county detectives were working together on the case. How her body came to be at the incinerator has not been explained publicly, though the location suggests it may have passed through the trash stream before it was discovered.
Months later the case was still open. On December 22, 2015, Baltimore police released a flyer about her killing and asked anyone with information to come forward. WBAL NewsRadio reported that day that "city police have made little headway on finding her killer," and the department posted on social media under the tags #BPDCaseFiles and #NicoleTorain, calling it an "Unsolved Murder Investigation." No suspect has been publicly identified.
The facility where she was found sits along Annapolis Road in South Baltimore, a mostly industrial stretch near the city's highways. The Wheelabrator plant, a waste-to-energy incinerator with a tall stack visible from Interstate 95, burns trash from across the region. Dundalk, where she lived, is a community in Baltimore County just east of the city line. The trail between where she was last seen in the city, her home in the county and the incinerator is part of what has made the case difficult.
After the unrest of 2015, Baltimore recorded more than 300 homicides a year for eight straight years, and the share of killings that ended in an arrest fell sharply.
No arrest, criminal charge or court case connected to the death of Nicole Torain could be found in news archives or public records. More than 11 years later, there is no public sign that anyone has been held responsible. Anyone who saw her, her black Chevrolet Equinox or anything unusual near Elmley Avenue or the Annapolis Road incinerator in April 2015 may hold the detail detectives need. Even a small detail, such as a name overheard, a vehicle seen nearby or a conversation remembered, can help detectives move a case forward. Anyone with information can call Baltimore Police homicide detectives at 410-396-2100, or leave an anonymous tip with Metro Crime Stoppers of Maryland at 1-866-7LOCKUP (1-866-756-2587).
