An illegal immigrant from El Salvador has been charged with the murder of Rachel Morin, a Maryland mother of five.
In a press conference on Saturday, Harford County Sheriff Jeffery Gahler said that Victor Martinez-Hernandez was arrested late Friday night.
“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.
The illegal has been charged with first-degree murder and first-degree rape.
“We all suspected that Rachel was not his first victim,” Gahler said. “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.”
Police said the 23-year-old illegally crossed into the United States in February 2023 and attacked a young girl in Los Angeles shortly after.
“Once in our country, and likely emboldened by his anonymity, he brutally attacked a nine-year-old girl and her mother during a home invasion in March of 2023 in Los Angeles,” Gahler said. “And as everyone I believe is aware, that was our first DNA match linking Rachel’s case to the one in Los Angeles.”
Gahler blamed the current administration for the attack, saying American citizens were not safe today.
“We are 1800 miles of the southern border,” Gahler said. “And American citizens are not safe because of their failed immigration policies.”
“This is the second time in two years that an innocent Harford County woman has lost her life to a criminal in our country illegally,” he continued. “In both cases, they are suspects from El Salvador with ties to criminal gangs. This should not be happening.”
The sheriff said the immigrant did not come to the country to improve his life, but rather to escape past criminal behavior in his home country.
“Victor Hernandez did not come to this country to make a better life for him or his family, he came here to escape the crimes he committed in El Salvador. He came here to murder Rachel and God-willing, no one else,” he said.
“But that should have never been allowed to happen,” Gahler said.
