An illegal immigrant was found guilty Monday of murder and rape in the 2023 slaying of Rachel Morin, a mother of five who was attacked on a running trail and dragged into the woods.
A Harford County jury convicted Victor Martinez-Hernandez, a 24-year-old Salvadoran national who had alleged ties to MS-13, of first-degree murder, first-degree rape, third-degree sexual assault and kidnapping.
Jury deliberations lasted less than an hour, and the defense rested its case after 10 minutes. The trial itself lasted about two weeks.
The case was one of many brutal crimes connected to illegal immigrants during former President Joseph Biden’s time in office. The previous administration’s flimsy border-security policies came under fire for allowing wanted criminals from other countries to flood the U.S.
After Martinez-Hernandez was arrested in June 2024, Harford County authorities said he was wanted for a January 2023 homicide in his native El Salvador.
Police said the killer crossed into the U.S. illegally in February 2023, and a month later was tied to a home invasion and assault in Los Angeles that left a mother and a young girl injured.
“The failure here, again, is the immigration system that allowed this person to enter our country illegally, and remain in our country and commit crimes in Los Angeles and then here in Harford County,” Harford County Sheriff Jeffrey Gahler said after the verdict.
President Trump also weighed in on the verdict and vowed to protect women like Morin across the country.
“Moments ago, the Illegal Criminal, who was allowed into our Country by Crooked Joe Biden, was convicted of the heinous murder of Rachel Morin,” the president wrote on Truth Social.
“Rachel was a beautiful mother of five from Maryland, and her life was taken at the hands of a monster who should have NEVER been here in the first place,” Mr. Trump said.
Trial testimony revealed the grisly manner in which the 37-year-old Morin was killed near the Ma & Pa Heritage Trail in Bel Air.
Dr. Zabiullah Ali, a former forensic pathologist who conducted Morin’s autopsy, said she was strangled in the attack and suffered well over a dozen blows to her head, including a deep gash on the back of her skull.
The doctor said the case stuck with him because, over the course of his 20-plus year career, the number of injuries found on Morin were so severe.
Witnesses also took the stand to recount discovering Morin’s exposed body near a drainage culvert on Aug. 6, 2023, a day after she was killed but still considered missing.
“I saw an unclothed human body on her back. At first, I truly thought it might have been a deer or something that had died in there,” witness Evan Knapp testified. “I had to move a bit closer to confirm what I had seen, and it was a human. I feel like time froze for a second and I didn’t know what I was looking at.”
Photos shared at trial included close-ups of her bloodied head and face. Flies and larvae can be seen in the images as investigators said the humid summer weather accelerated her decomposition.
Police tracked Martinez-Hernandez down 10 months later in Oklahoma, and he has been in custody ever since. At the trial, forensic scientists said Martinez-Hernandez’s DNA was found on Morin’s neck, wrist and Apple watch.
The murderer faces up to life in prison without parole when he is sentenced as Maryland does not have the death penalty. The sentencing date was not publicly announced.
