Authorities reported Saturday that A fugitive wanted in El Salvador for the murder of a young woman was arrested for the murder last year of a Maryland hiker.
The suspect, Victor Antonio Martinez Hernandez, 23, was arrested in Tulsa, Oklahoma, around 11:30 p.m. Friday in Harford County, Maryland, Sheriff Jeff Gahler said at a news conference reported by NBC News.
Rachel Morin’s body was discovered on Ma and Pa Trail in Bel Air, Maryland, on August 6, 2023, the day after her boyfriend reported her missing. The sheriff previously indicated that she may have been killed an hour or two before sunset on August 5.
In a statement Saturday, the sheriff’s office said Investigators believe Martínez Hernández “was hiding next to a trail where Rachel was walking and attacked and killed Morin before fleeing Maryland.”
Authorities have not said whether a gun was involved or how exactly Morin, a 37-year-old mother of five, died. On Saturday, Gahler noted that the suspect faces charges of first-degree murder and first-degree rape in Maryland in connection with Morin’s attack.
Gahler claimed that The suspect arrived in the United States in February 2023 without permission while fleeing El Salvador, and the authorities were looking for him for the death of a young woman there. The sheriff did not name the gang he said the suspect claimed.
The sheriff used Saturday’s news conference to criticize federal leadership on border security.
“American citizens are not safe because of failed immigration policies,” Gahler said.
He said Morin was the second woman in the county allegedly murdered in recent years by someone with ties to gangs from El Salvador who was in the country illegally.
Oklahoma jail records indicate the suspect was being held without bail in Tulsa County based on a “fugitive from justice” arrest and arrests from Maryland and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. .
Gahler said he is concerned additional crimes could be connected to the Harford County case.
“Investigators are afraid we’re coming across another crime,” Gahler said.
A March 2023 home invasion in South Los Angeles in which a 9-year-old girl was assaulted helped lead to an arrest in the Maryland case, the sheriff explained.
Gahler added that DNA evidence from that crime scene matched genetic material found in the Morin murder investigation.
William J. DelBagno, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Baltimore office, said familial DNA — genetic material that leads to a small group of relatives — led to the suspect. Agents traveled to El Salvador as part of the investigation.
Details about the El Salvador assassination, described as having occurred in January 2023, were not available. “We suspected that Rachel was not the first victim,” Gahler said.
A statement from the sheriff’s office indicated that the FBI contacted detectives with the Tulsa Police Department. Authorities then “converged on a bar” and “found the suspect casually sitting at the bar and arrested him.”
Authorities at the news conference were confident that Martínez Hernández would be extradited and tried in Maryland before authorities in El Salvador or California could consider prosecuting him. No charges have been announced in the California case.
Morin’s mother, Patricia “Patty” Morin, spoke at Saturday’s news conference, thanking investigators for solving a difficult case and the media “for keeping the story alive.”
“At a time when things seemed really bleak and desperate,” he said, “the lead detective told me: Patience will win out in the end.”
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