Police say the murder of Rachel Morin, a Maryland mother of five, was the work of an illegal immigrant from El Salvador.
in Press conference Harford County Sheriff Jeffrey Gahler said Saturday that Victor Martinez-Hernandez was arrested late Friday night and that a warrant was issued for his arrest Saturday morning.
“Five hours after we met [Morin’s] “Just before midnight, our family’s time, police in Tulsa, Oklahoma, with the assistance of our federal partners, located and arrested Rachel’s killer, Victor Antonio Martinez Hernandez,” Gahler said.
He was charged with first-degree murder and first-degree rape.
A Maryland sheriff’s “intuition” suggested Rachel Morin had been “stalked” by the suspect before she was killed.
On February 12, Maryland authorities released a sketch of the suspect in the August 2023 murder of Rachel Morin in Bel Air, Maryland. (Facebook/Harford County Sheriff)
Police said the 23-year-old immigrant entered the United States illegally in February 2023.
“We all suspected that Rachel was not his first victim,” Gahler said. “My understanding is that this suspect, this monster, had brutally murdered a young woman in El Salvador in January of 2023, one month prior, before illegally fleeing to the United States.”
Rachel Morin murder: Maryland State Police link crime scene DNA to Los Angeles assault, burglary
Gahler said the initial DNA match to Martinez-Hernandez was from a March 2023 attack in Los Angeles.
“After entering our country, perhaps emboldened by a kinship connection, he broke into a home and brutally attacked a 9-year-old girl and her mother in Los Angeles in March of 2023,” Gahler said. “And as we all know, this was the first DNA match linking Rachel’s case to the Los Angeles case.”
Rachel Morin, a mother of five, was found dead on a hiking trail on Sunday. Her missing person report was filed by her new boyfriend, Richard Tobin (far right). (Facebook)
The sheriff focused his remarks on the crisis at the southern border and addressed the White House and “members of Congress.”
“We are 1,800 miles away from the southern border,” Gahler said, “and the American people are not safe because of failed immigration policies.”
“For the second time in two years, an innocent woman in Hartford County has had her life wrongfully taken by criminals in our country,” he repeated in the statement. “In both cases, the suspect was an El Salvadoran national with ties to organized crime. This should not happen.”
“Victor Hernandez did not come to this country to better his life or his family’s, but to escape the crimes he committed in El Salvador. He came to kill Rachel and, God willing, not to kill anyone else,” he said.
“But that should never have been allowed to happen,” Gahler said.
Police officers hold up fliers seeking information about the murder of Rachel Maurin on Mama & Papa Trail in Bel Air, Maryland, Tuesday, Aug. 8, 2023. The trail is where 37-year-old Rachel Maurin was found dead on Sunday. (Mega from Fox News Digital)
Rachel Morin murder case
Maureen, 37, was reported missing in August by her boyfriend, who said she had gone for a run on the Ma & Pa Trail in Bel Air, a quiet and normally safe town, and never returned. Northeast of BaltimoreAugust 5, 2023.
Her body was found by the roadside the next day.
The Hartford County Sheriff’s Office in Maryland has released two new sketches of a suspect in connection to the murder of 37-year-old Rachel Morin, whose body was found Aug. 6, 2023, in a wooded area near a trail. (Hartford County Sheriff’s Office)
In February, police released a new sketch of Martinez-Hernandez, who has now been identified.
The sketch was created after DNA testing identified Martinez-Hernandez at the scene of a home invasion in Los Angeles, California.
Police used the Combined DNA Indexing System (CODIS) and found a single match to the DNA of an unidentified Hispanic male.
Rachel Morin murder case: Maryland sheriff’s office releases new sketch of suspect
The Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) recovered a hat that was left at the scene of a home invasion that escalated into riots in March 2023, leaving several people injured, including an underage child.
The suspect is said to have broken into the home in the middle of the night and assaulted the family inside before being forced out. Security camera footage showed a shirtless man leaving through the front door.
Rachel Morin has been missing since Saturday evening after she said she was out walking along a trail in Maryland. (Harford County Sheriff’s Office/FB)
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“I’m going to keep this short because I’m very emotional,” said Rachel’s mother, Patricia Morin. “I want to take this opportunity to thank the police department for all their hard work.”
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“They really cared about our family and my daughter,” she said. “They were working hard to find who killed her.”
