Rachel Morin murder: Illegal immigrant from El Salvador charged in rape, killing of Maryland mom-of-5
A migrant from El Salvador has been busted for the brutal 2023 rape and murder of mom of five Rachel Morin on a Maryland hiking trail, cops said.
Victor Martinez-Hernandez, 23, was tracked down in Tulsa, Oklahoma Friday, after police matched his DNA to the gruesome crime scene, Harford County Sherriff Jeffrey Gahler told reporters Saturday.
“Rachel’s murderer is no longer a free man and, hopefully, he will never have the opportunity to walk free again,” Gahler said.
According to police, Martinez-Hernandez has connections to Salvadoran street gangs and had a violent history that included at least one other homicide.
“Victor Hernandez did not come to this country to make a better life for him or his family, he came here to escape the crimes he committed in El Salvador. He came here to murder Rachel and God-willing, no one else,” Gahler said.
“But that should have never been allowed to happen.”
The accused killer illegally crossed into the US in February 2023 after he vicously murdered another young woman.
Martinez-Hernandez was in the US for six months before he allegedly targeted Morin while she was walking alone on the Ma & Pa Heritage Trail in Bel Air.
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Her naked body suffered such severe trauma that family said it looked as though “her head had been smashed in with a rock.”
About a month after the killing, police matched Martinez-Hernandez’s DNA to a sample recovered at the scene of a home invasion and assault of a young girl in Los Angeles.
Although they had the DNA evidence and video from that break-in, Gahler said they did not have an identity on the suspect until May.
Authorities tracked the alleged serial assailant in Tulsa two weeks ago and executed an arrest warrant just before midnight Friday.
He was taken into custody and booked Saturday morning on first-degree murder and first-degree rape charges. A motive for the killing remains a mystery.
Patricia Morin, the victim’s mother, held back tears at a press conference as she thanked investigators for tracking down the suspect.
“At some of the points during this, I didn’t think that we were ever going to have an answer and that it would be a cold case,” Morin said.
“At one point when things looked really bleak and hopeless, the lead detective told me, ‘Patience will win in the end.'”
