Photo: Tulsa Police Department/Harford County Sheriff's Office
An illegal migrant from El Salvador has been charged in the rape and murder of Rachel Morin, a mother-of-five found dead on a popular Maryland hiking trail last August.
Victor Martinez-Hernandez, 23, a career criminal also wanted for murder in his native country and assault of a mom and young girl in Los Angeles, was arrested while "casually sitting at the bar" in Tulsa on Friday (June 14) night, the Tulsa Police Department announced in a Facebook post shared on Saturday (June 15). Martinez-Hernandez was pegged as the suspect in Morin's death through DNA evidence.
“We are 1,800 miles from the southern border here in Harford County,” said Jeffrey Gahler, the sheriff in Harford County, Maryland, where Morin was found dead last year, during a press conference on Saturday via the New York Post. “This is the second woman in our county to be killed by illegal suspects.”
“In both cases, they are suspects from El Salvador with ties to criminal gangs,” he continued. “[This] should not be happening. Victor Hernandez did not come here to make a better life for himself, or for his family, he came here to escape a crime he committed in El Salvador.”
Morin's body was located by authorities after "a citizen called 9-1-1 to report a female's body" found off the trail.