An unlawful immigrant from El Salvador was sentenced to life in jail with out parole on Monday over the rape and homicide of a 37-year-old Maryland mom.
Victor Martinez-Hernandez, 24, was discovered responsible in April over the rape and loss of life of Rachel Morin, who was the mom of 5 kids. Martinez-Hernandez had earlier entered the nation illegally and was launched in 2023. He later dedicated the crime in that very same yr.
U.S. Division of Homeland Safety (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem issued an announcement in regards to the sentencing given within the Harford County Circuit Court docket.
“This criminal illegal immigrant should never have been in our country in the first place. Rachel should still be here watching her 5 children grow up,” Noem mentioned.
“We hear far too much in the mainstream media about sob stories of gang members and criminal illegals and not enough about their victims. God bless Rachel and her family,” Noem added.
Climbing on Path
On Aug. 5, 2023, Morin’s boyfriend reported her lacking after she left for a hike on the Ma & Pa Heritage Path and didn’t return. A day later, regulation enforcement discovered her physique in a wooded space off the path.
The DHS mentioned that Martinez-Hernandez bashed Morin’s head with rocks after which raped her deceased physique. He then tried to cover her corpse in a drainage culvert.
Following sentencing, Harford County State’s Legal professional Alison M. Healey acknowledged that the county has by no means seen a case or a defendant extra deserving of each single day of the utmost sentence that the courtroom imposed.
“This has been a long and grueling process for Rachel’s family, and it is our hope that this sentence provides some sense of justice as they close this chapter and move forward in their grief and toward healing,” she mentioned.
Morin’s household additionally commented on the sentencing.
“I was relieved to know that he will never see the light of day outside of a cell. That someone else won’t feel this pain,” mentioned her mom, Patty Morin, to native Baltimore media outlet WBAL-TV.
“We couldn’t ask for anything better, so that gives us some peace,” Morin’s sister Erin Layman instructed reporters.
Martinez-Hernandez’s Previous
Jeffery Gahler, sheriff of Harford County, close to Baltimore, instructed a media occasion on June 15, 2024, of Martinez-Hernandez’s previous legal exercise.
“We all suspected that Rachel was not his first victim,” Gahler mentioned. “It is my understanding that this suspect, this monster, fled to the United States illegally after committing the brutal murder of a young woman in El Salvador a month earlier, in January of 2023.”
The sheriff mentioned a DNA match for Martinez-Hernandez was additionally linked to an assault in Los Angeles in March 2023.
“Once in our country, and likely emboldened by his anonymity, he brutally attacked a 9-year-old girl and her mother during a home invasion in March of 2023 in Los Angeles,” he mentioned. “That was our first DNA match linking Rachel’s case to the one in Los Angeles.”
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