An illegal immigrant from El Salvador was arrested and charged for raping and murdering a Maryland mother of five.
Victor Antonio Martinez-Hernandez was taken into custody on Friday after law enforcement agents found him in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The illegal alien was charged for allegedly killing Rachel Morin, who was found dead near a hiking trail in August of 2023. Hartford County Sheriff Jeffery Gahler confirmed the arrest and said that Martinez-Hernandez has been charged with first-degree murder and first-degree rape.
“Five hours after meeting with [Morin's] family and just before midnight our time, police in Tulsa, Oklahoma assisted by our federal partners, located and arrested Rachel's murderer: Victor Antonio Martinez-Hernandez," Gahler said.
Gahler believes that Morin was not Martinez-Hernandez’s first victim.
The 23-year-old undocumented alien illegally crossed the U.S.-Mexico border in February of 2023. Gahler suspects that Martinez-Hernandez fled to the United States after killing a young woman in El Salvador in January of 2023.
FBI agents say they even travelled to El Salvador to track down the alleged killer. pic.twitter.com/jb52TqhATY
— Maxine Streicher (@MaxineStreicher) June 15, 2024
“Once in our country, and likely emboldened by his amenity, he brutally attacked a nine-year-old girl and her mother in a home invasion in March of 2023 in Los Angeles,” Gahler stated, adding that law enforcement’s first DNA match for Martinez-Hernandez was from an attack he committed in March 2023.
The L.A. case allowed investigators to connect DNA samples from the murder scene in Harford County to the surveillance video of the suspect in California— which gave local and federal investigators their first images of Martinez-Hernandez.
FBI Baltimore special agent said that they were able to trace the illegal immigrant’s DNA to potential family members in El Salvador and identify the suspect. Local law enforcement could locate him in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and take him into custody.
“It is my hope and the hope of all involved, working this case that the arrest of this suspect brings her [Mornin's] family and our Harford County community some peace," Gahler said.