4 days Ago By USA TODAY
A man from El Salvador has been found guilty in the 2023 murder of a Maryland woman who was attacked on a popular hiking trail in a Baltimore suburb, a high-profile case which became a flashpoint during the 2024 presidential campaign. Victor Antonio Martinez-Hernandez, 24, was convicted of first-degree murder, first-degree rape, third-degree sex offense and kidnapping on April 14, according to the Harford County State’s Attorney’s Office. A Maryland jury deliberated for less than an hour before returning the guilty verdict, CBS Baltimore and The Baltimore Banner reported.
Authorities accused Martinez-Hernandez of killing Rachel Morin, 37, a mother of five who vanished in August 2023 while walking on the Ma & Pa Heritage Trail in Bel Air, a town northeast of Baltimore. He was arrested in Oklahoma in June 2024 following a nationwide search . Authorities also accused Martinez-Hernandez of entering the U.
S. without authorization in February 2023 after allegedly killing a different woman in his home country of El Salvador. He was then linked to an assault in Los Angeles during a March 2023 home invasion through DNA evidence.
"This case shook our Harford County community and robbed a family of their daughter, sister, mother, and friend," Alison Healey, the Harford County State’s Attorney, said in a statement. "It is my sincere hope that today's verdict brings some peace and closure to the entire Morin family." Martinez-Hernandez is currently being held at the Harford County Detention Center without bail, according to online inmate records.
The Harford County State’s Attorney’s Office said it "intends to seek the maximum penalty allowable by law," which includes life without the possibility of parole on the murder charge, a life sentence on the rape charge and additional years on the remaining charges. Kilmar Abrego Garcia case: Judge admonishes U.S.
for failing to return Maryland man wrongly deported to El Salvador What happened to Rachel Morin? Morin's boyfriend reported her missing when she failed to return home from her walk on the Ma & Pa Heritage Trail on Aug. 5, 2023, according to authorities. Morin was last seen on the trail at around 6 p.
m., and her vehicle was found near the footpath. The next day, Harford County Sheriff's deputies discovered Morin's body in a wooded area near the trail and said she was a "victim of a violent homicide.
" Prosecutors alleged that Martinez-Hernandez had planned the attack and was waiting in the woods before attacking Morin shortly after she entered the trail. Health data on Morin's cellphone and Apple Watch showed that she was pulled about 150 feet from the main trail into the woods, prosecutors said. Evidence presented during the trial revealed that Martinez-Hernandez concealed Morin in drainage culverts just off the trail, where she was beaten, raped and killed, according to prosecutors.
"(Morin) spent her day as she often did. Spending time with her children and boyfriend, working out at a local gym, running errands, and finally, taking a walk on the Ma & Pa trail," Healey said. "Witnesses testified that her time on the trail was 'her peace,' and she never could have predicted that on that day that she would never see or speak to her children again.
" Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) said the Harford County Sheriff’s Office requested assistance from its Baltimore office on Aug. 17, 2023, and relayed information that a person of interest in the investigation had been involved in a home invasion in Los Angeles. On that same day, authorities announced a DNA connection between Morin's suspected killer and a man who assaulted a girl and her mother during the home invasion.
Prosecutors said DNA evidence that was recovered from parts of Morin's body also matched the DNA of the suspect. Who is Jocelyn Nungaray? Trump honors 12-year-old girl murdered at Texas bridge Attack leads to 10-month search for suspect Morin's death shocked the community of Bel Air and sparked a 10-month nationwide search for the suspect. On Sept.
7, 2023, the Harford County Sheriff’s Office said in an update that investigators had "collected and watched hours of video footage" from the trail. Authorities later released a finalized sketch of the suspect on Feb. 12, 2024, but a name was not formally released.
HSI said the Maryland State Police Crime Lab notified the Harford County Sheriff’s Office on June 14, 2024, that it had matched DNA recovered from Martinez-Hernandez's clothing to DNA recovered at the scene of Morin’s murder. Authorities were then able to track Martinez-Hernandez to a bar in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and local police officers arrested him, according to HSI. He was booked into the Tulsa County Criminal Justice Center and later transferred to Maryland.
Prosecutors alleged that Martinez-Hernandez claimed he had never been to Maryland. But multiple witnesses and business records said he had been living and working in Bel Air at the time of the murder. Following his arrest in Oklahoma, prosecutors said Martinez-Hernandez's phone was seized and authorities discovered photos and screenshots of Morin.
Related: Trump’s immigration rhetoric is already impacting college students Rachel Morin case highlighted during 2024 RNC A month after Martinez-Hernandez's arrest, Morin's family took the podium at the Republican National Convention in Wisconsin to talk about losing their loved one, one in a series of speakers who shared their personal experiences with crime or substance abuse in the past four years. "Joe Biden and his designated border czar, Kamala Harris, opened our borders to him and others like him, empowering him to victimize the innocent. Yet, to this day, we have not heard from Joe Biden or Kamala Harris," Michael Morin told the crowd in Milwaukee in July 2024.
"But when Rachel was killed, President Trump called my family to offer his condolences." President Donald Trump , who came into office in January, has promised to reform U.S.
immigration policy . He met with El Salvador President Nayib Bukele on April 14, a leader praised by the administration for opening his country's prison system to alleged gang members and detainees that Trump wants out of the U.S.
"I think he's doing a fantastic job, and he's taking care of a lot of problems that we have that we really wouldn't be able to take care of from a cost standpoint," Trump told reporters about Bukele, referring to the cost of imprisoning the detainees in El Salvador. Contributing: Jonathan Limehouse and JJ Hensley, USA TODAY; Reuters This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Rachel Morin case: Man found guilty of killing Maryland mother.
