Victor Antonio Martinez-Hernandez, left, is suspected of killing Rachel Morin, right. In the center is a composite sketch of the suspect released during the lengthy manhunt. (The image on the left is from Tulsa police; the sketch and Morin photos are from Hartford County Sheriff’s Office — Maryland)
A 23-year-old man is accused of raping and murdering a 37-year-old mother of five on a Maryland hiking trail a month after he allegedly killed a woman in El Salvador and was linked to the Maryland murder through DNA in a brutal attack of a 9-year-old girl and her mother in Los Angeles, authorities said on Saturday.
Victor Antonio Martinez-Hernandez, 23, was arrested on Friday night in Oklahoma. He faces charges of first-degree murder and first-degree rape in Rachel Morin’s death and is being held without bond and on a detainer from the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement at a Tulsa County jail, online jail records show. He is awaiting extradition from Oklahoma to face charges in Harford County, officials said.
At a news conference, Harford County Sheriff Jeffrey Gahler minced no words when talking about the accused killer’s arrest.
“Rachel’s murderer is no longer a free man,” he said. “Hopefully, he will never have the opportunity to walk free again. I want him to die in a Maryland prison system.”
Morin disappeared on Aug. 5 when she had gone running on the Ma&Pa Trail in Bel Air. Her boyfriend reported her missing later that evening. Her body was found the next day, which led to a nationwide search for her killer.
On May 20, Morin’s birthday, investigators received the information that would lead to the arrest — DNA evidence that put a name to the image of the suspect in a video from LA, released two weeks after Morin’s death.
Over the past two weeks, investigators tracked the suspect from Prince George’s County to Tulsa, Oklahoma, where he was arrested on Friday. Tulsa police said in a news release that the FBI had been working on information that the suspect was in the Tulsa area. Law enforcement found him casually sitting at a bar. Initially, he lied about his true identity and denied any knowledge of the crimes he is wanted for, cops said.
Authorities said he is a citizen of El Salvador who illegally crossed the border into the United States in February 2023.
“We all suspected that perhaps Rachel was not his first victim, and it’s my understanding that this suspect, this monster, fled to the United States illegally after committing the brutal murder of a young woman in El Salvador a month earlier in January of 2023,” Gahler said.
Once in the U.S. and “likely emboldened by his anonymity,” Gahler said he attacked a 9-year-old girl and her mother during a home invasion in March 2023 in LA.
This is the second time in two years that a Harford County woman has lost her life to a criminal in the US illegally, he said. In both cases, they are suspects from El Salvador with ties to criminal gangs.
“Victor Hernandez did not come here to make a better life for himself or for his family,” the sheriff said. “He came here to escape the crime he committed in El Salvador. He came here and murdered Rachel and, God willing, no one else. But that should have never been allowed to happen.”
At the news conference, Morin’s mother thanked law enforcement for their hard work and talked about her spirits dimming during the 10-month hunt for the killer.
“At one point, when things seemed really bleak and hopeless, the lead detective said to me, ‘Patience will win in the end.’ And that’s what they’ve been doing,” she said. “They’ve been diligently working very hard, and they’ve been patiently working through all the leads. And it’s because of that we have an arrest today. So I’m very thankful and just very grateful.”
“I didn’t think that we were ever going to have an end, that it was going to be a cold case.”
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