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 Courtroom.
“This prison unlawful immigrant ought to by no means have been in our nation within the first place. Rachel ought to nonetheless be right here watching her 5 kids develop up,” Noem mentioned.
“We hear far an excessive amount of within the mainstream media about sob tales of gang members and prison illegals and never sufficient about their victims. God bless Rachel and her household,” Noem added.
Mountain 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 Lawyer 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 an extended and grueling course of for Rachel’s household, and it’s our hope that this sentence supplies some sense of justice as they shut this chapter and transfer ahead of their grief and towards therapeutic,” she mentioned.
Morin’s household additionally commented on the sentencing.
“I used to be relieved to know that he won’t ever see the sunshine of day exterior of a cell. That another person gained’t really feel this ache,” mentioned her mom, Patty Morin, to native Baltimore media outlet WBAL-TV.
“We couldn’t ask for something higher, so that provides 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 prison exercise.
“All of us suspected that Rachel was not his first sufferer,” Gahler mentioned. “It’s my understanding that this suspect, this monster, fled to the USA illegally after committing the brutal homicide of a younger girl 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.
“As soon as in our nation, and certain emboldened by his anonymity, he brutally attacked a 9-year-old lady and her mom throughout a house 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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