Former President Trump on Friday met with the family of Rachel Morin, a Maryland mother of five who was brutally attacked and killed in August 2023 by a suspected illegal immigrant from El Salvador.
President Trump’s visit to the southern border and meeting with the Morin family took place while he was campaigning in Cochise County, Arizona.
“I accepted the invitation to come here today because I want to be heard and I want people to take what we have to say seriously,” Patty Morin said. “We’re not here to take a political stance, but we do. We’re here because our mothers, our daughters, our children are being taken by criminals, and that shouldn’t happen. We should take care of our country and our people, and I think the only way that’s going to happen is if President Trump is re-elected.”
Patty continued to recount how she found out her daughter had been murdered.
“We need to take care of our country and our people, and I think the only way that’s going to happen is if President Trump is re-elected as president.”
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“Rachel was 37 years old and had five children. She was working. She ran a small business. She worked hard to provide for her family. The trails that she ran every day were trails that we had been walking for the 25 years that we had lived in Maryland,” she began, referring to the Mama and Papa Trail in Bel Air, Maryland, where Rachel was running regularly the night she was murdered.
“It’s a very safe little walkway. It’s very public, very open. Moms with strollers walk on it too. It’s very safe,” Patty said.
WATCH: Body camera footage of immigrant accused of rape and murder of Maryland mother Rachel Morin
Republican presidential candidate and former president Donald Trump consoles Patty Maurin, the mother of Rachel Maurin, who was killed by an illegal immigrant at the U.S.-Mexico border south of Sierra Vista, Arizona, on August 22, 2024. Trump is scheduled to hold a rally in Glendale, Arizona, tomorrow. (Rebecca Noble)
At the time of Rachel’s death, she was in Kentucky visiting relatives after the recent death of her grandson, when she received a call from a detective in Maryland informing her that Rachel’s body had been found.
“The police found my daughter’s body, and it was only just recently revealed that when her body was found, she had been severely beaten, raped and then stuffed into a drainpipe,” Patty recalled.
Illegal immigrant charged in Rachel Morin murder case, important step: family lawyer
Rachel Morin was dragged off a hiking trail on August 5, 2023 and brutally murdered. (Handouts for families)
“We’re 1,008 miles away from the border and because of this open border, not only has my daughter been born, but two other daughters have been born in the same county…illegal immigrants have come in and caused rape and murder of our citizens,” she said.
In June of this year, Harford County Sheriff Jeffrey Gahler announced the arrest of Victor Antonio Martinez Hernandez, a 23-year-old illegal immigrant from El Salvador, for Morin’s murder.
Rachel Morin murder: Maryland lawmakers clash with Mayorkas over ‘failure’ with suspected illegal immigrant
Victor Antonio Martinez Hernandez, 23, arrived in Maryland and was charged with first-degree murder and first-degree rape in the death of Rachel Morin on the Mama & Papa Heritage Trail in Bel Air, Maryland. (Jerry Jackson/Baltimore Sun/Getty Images)
Martinez-Hernandez was arrested in Tusla, Oklahoma, and is charged with first-degree murder, rape and kidnapping in connection with Morin’s death.
Authorities consider him a potential serial killer because of his alleged involvement in a series of crimes against women in Central America and the United States, and prosecutors are seeking a life sentence without parole against him.
Rachel Morin murder: Maryland police link crime scene DNA to Los Angeles assault, burglary
The Harford County, Maryland, Sheriff’s Office posted a sign at the entrance to Mama & Pa Trail on June 17, 2024 announcing an arrest in the August 2023 murder of Rachel Morin. (Harford County Sheriff’s Office/Facebook)
The investigators also Morin murder scene DNA was found inside a Los Angeles home following a burglary that occurred in March of last year.
“After coming to our country, perhaps emboldened by his anonymity, he Attacking a 9 year old “We recreated the murders of Rachel and her mother during a robbery that took place in Los Angeles in March of 2023,” Gahler said at the time of the suspect’s arrest. “As many of you know, this was the first DNA match linking Rachel’s case to the Los Angeles case.”
Maryland sheriff’s ‘intuition’ suggests Rachel Morin was ‘stalked’ by suspect before she was killed
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)
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However, despite the DNA matches linking the two cases, authorities were unable to find a match between DNA samples taken from either crime scene and the same person because they had not previously been recorded in the National Integrated DNA Indexing System (CODIS) system, which records DNA samples from criminals arrested in the United States.
“We are 1,800 miles away from the southern border,” Gahler said in June, “and the American people are not safe because of our failed immigration policies.”
Fox News’ Sarah Rumpf and Michael Lewis contributed to this report.
