A Salvadorian national has been convicted in connection to the 2023 homicide of a woman in Maryland. The incident took place in a Baltimore suburb, on a frequently traversed hiking trail. The individual, named as Victor Antonio Martinez-Hernandez, aged 24, received a conviction for manifold charges including first-degree murder and kidnapping by the Harford County State Attorney’s Office on April 14.
The jury residing in Maryland mulled over the allegations for less than sixty minutes before deciding their verdict of guilty. The authorities implicated Martinez-Hernandez in the murder of Rachel Morin, a 37-year-old mother of five children. Morin was reported missing during her stroll on the Ma & Pa Heritage Trail in Bel Air, a city located to the northeast of Baltimore, back in August 2023.
Following a nation-wide manhunt, Martinez-Hernandez was detained by law enforcement officials in Oklahoma, in June 2024. Alongside the murder, Martinez-Hernandez was also accused of illicitly entering the U.S. in February 2023, subsequent to allegedly committing another homicide back in El Salvador, his country of birth.
Adding to his list of alleged crimes, the authorities connected him to an assault incident during a home invasion in Los Angeles in March 2023, based on DNA evidence. Due to the severity of his crimes, Martinez-Hernandez has been placed under custody at the Harford County Detention Center, awaiting trial without the provision of bail, as stated in the online prisoner records.
The State’s Attorney’s Office of Harford County announced its intention to pursue the harshest possible punishment as per the law. This may include a life sentence without parole for the murder charge, a life sentence for the rape, and additional terms for the other charges.
Morin’s absence was reported by her boyfriend when she did not arrive back home from her usual walk on the Ma & Pa Heritage Trail on August 5, 2023. Following a search, Harford County Sheriff’s deputies located Morin’s body in a nearby wooded area the ensuing day, classifying her death as a ‘violent homicide’.
The prosecution proposes that Martinez-Hernandez had premeditated the attack on Morin, stalking her from the shadows of the woods and striking soon after she entered the trail.
The death of Morin shook the community of Bel Air and motivated a nationwide manhunt that stretched over 10 months. Officials from the Harford County Sheriff’s Office revealed on September 7, 2023, that investigators had gone through hours of surveillance footage from the trail during their investigation.
Following several months of analysis, a sketch of the suspected perpetrator was eventually shared with the public on February 12, 2024. This eventually led to the successful tracing of Martinez-Hernandez to a bar situated in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Local law enforcement officers in Tulsa arrested Martinez-Hernandez without incident. He was then transferred to the Tulsa County Criminal Justice Center and later extradited back to Maryland to face his charges.
Despite the mounting evidence against him, Martinez-Hernandez maintained his innocence, arguing that he had never set foot in Maryland. However, the prosecution presented multiple witnesses and business records suggesting otherwise. According to this evidence, Martinez-Hernandez had been residing and earning a living in Bel Air around the time of Morin’s murder.