The family of Rachel Morin say they are convinced the illegal immigrant arrested and charged with her murder has also killed others.
Victor Martinez Hernandez, 23, was arrested on Friday in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in connection with the the 37-year-old’s killing after her naked body was found on a Maryland hiking trail almost a year ago.
The case had remained a mystery for 10 months after Morin was reported missing by her boyfriend.
Hernandez, a known Salvadoran gang member, was arrested while sitting at a bar in Tulsa and has been charged with first-degree murder and first-degree rape.
He is also accused of attacking a nine-year-old girl and her mother in Los Angeles in March 2023, before Morin’s murder.
Hernandez had illegally crossed the southern border in February 2023 after he also allegedly murdered another woman in El Salvador a month earlier.
‘Something we’ve been concerned about is that there are other victims out there … whether they were attacked and it ended the same way as my sister, or maybe there are some out there who are still alive but never came forward,’ Rachel’s sister, Rebekah, 43, said to the New York Post.
‘Hopefully now they do come forward.’
Rebekah said that one concern the family has is the months-long periods in between his known crimes in the U.S.
‘Somebody who commits these types of crimes does them because they don’t care. They don’t think about what they are doing, and a person who doesn’t care about human life can easily do this to anybody they come across.
‘It’s a relief to have a suspect in custody and to have a name and a face to (put to) somebody … for this,’ Rebekah said. ‘We want to make sure the killer is never able to walk the streets again.’
The family’s lawyer, Randolph Rice, also believes there are more victims.
‘Using the law of probability where you murder someone in El Salvador in January, you go to California in March and commit assault on a mother and daughter, then there’s a gap from March to August when he rapes and murders Rachel, followed by another 10 month gap until he’s arrested … it’s hard to think he hasn’t committed another crime in those periods or gaps of time,’ Rice said to The Post.
‘I have no doubt that there are other victims out there. We hope this man’s arrest will give them the courage to come forward because he can’t harm them anymore or they might now see him and recognize and can identify him.’
Hernandez was known to circulate between Maryland, Virginia, Los Angeles, and Tulsa.
‘Our investigative genetic genealogy team in Baltimore worked countless hours to identify the suspect by using crime scene DNA and tracing that DNA to potential family members,’ explained Bill DelBango of the FBI.
‘Investigators even traveled to El Salvador as part of their efforts to identify this killer. To find the suspect, we’ve provided technical assistance helping to pinpoint his location. That brings us to Friday night, where Tulsa police and FBI agents were able to successfully apprehend and arrest the suspect in Oklahoma.’
Writing on Facebook this past weekend, Morin’s boyfriend, Richard Tobin, wrote a message for Morin, alongside a photo of her, while also referencing Hernandez’s arrest.
‘Love you baby. The news I got this morning is really indescribable (sic)!! They captured Rachel’s Murderer. I try to forgive, but I sware (sic) on everything I love, Your (sic) going to rot in jail for the rest of your sorry a** life!!!’, Tobin wrote.
On Saturday afternoon, Harford County Sheriff Jeffrey Gahler slammed Biden’s White House and ‘members of Congress’ in a press conference.
‘We are 1,800 miles of the southern border and American citizens are not safe because of their failed immigration policies,’ Gahler said during an emotionally charged press conference in which Morin’s mother, Patty, also spoke.
‘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 said. ‘In both cases, they are suspects from El Salvador with ties to criminal gangs. This should not be happening.
‘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.
‘But that should have never been allowed to happen.’
Patty added: ‘At one point, when things seemed really bleak and hopeless, the lead detective said to me, ‘Patience will win in the end.”
‘That’s what they’ve been doing, they’ve been diligently working hard through all the leads and it’s because of that that we have an arrest.’
The sheriff said he and his team had spent the best part of 10 months looking for the alleged killer and arrested him on what would have been her 38th birthday with the Sheriff terming it ‘poetic justice’ or Morin’s own ‘divine intervention’.
‘Rachel’s murderer is no longer a free man,’ Sheriff Gahler said, adding that ‘DNA evidence that allowed investigators to put a name to the image of the suspect in the video from the Los Angeles attack that was released after Rachel’s death.’
Investigators managed to track the suspect from Prince George’s County in Maryland 1,300 miles west to Oklahoma.
‘He worked odd jobs and didn’t live an expensive lifestyle. It’s a free country, so once you’re here, you move from one jurisdiction to the next,’ he added.
‘He went from El Salvador to the U.S., Los Angeles to Harford County, then Prince George’s County, Virginia, then Oklahoma. We aren’t sure where else he’s been. We certainly know he has connections in D.C. and Prince George’s. We believe he has ties to known gangs and that’s how he lived his life.’
Gahler said that he believed should Hernandez be convicted, he should not be sent back To El Salvador.
‘That’s the last place he wants to go. Our jails are better here than they are in El Salvador. He’s going to spend, God willing, the rest of his days behind bars,’ Gahler said.
‘We fear all the time that we’re going to stumble across another crime through DNA or other science that he’s committed. I never want him to leave Maryland again.. we want to make sure he never sees the light of day,’ the sheriff said.
Morin’s naked and battered body was found on the Ma and Pa hiking trail in Bel Air, around 45 miles north of Baltimore, the day after she was reported missing.
Six months later, Maryland investigators released a sketch of Morin’s suspected killer as her family pleaded for the public to help solve the case.
According to detectives, Hernandez was believed to be hiding adjacent to the popular hiking trail when he allegedly murdered Morin.
He allegedly attacked, raped and killed her before fleeing the state. The Tulsa Police Department said he was tracked down to Oklahoma after officials in the state were contacted by the FBI.
Officials said he initially lied about his identity and denied any knowledge of the crimes he was wanted for. Hernandez is now awaiting extradition to Maryland.
DNA evidence from the home invasion was later linked to Morin’s case.
‘It is my understanding that this suspect, this monster, fled to the United States after the murder of a young woman in El Salvador a month earlier in January of 2023,’ Gaylor said during Saturday’s press conference.
‘Once in our country, he brutally attacked a nine-year-old girl and her mother in a home invasion in March of 2023 in Los Angeles.’
In the almost-year-long investigation, detectives scoured seven states and involved 10 federal, state and local agencies.
Officials expressed fears that the suspect could strike again, and released Ring doorbell camera footage showing the assailant fleeing the Los Angeles home after the home invasion.
Gaylor said at the time: ‘Serial killers all start somewhere. What he did in Los Angeles was certainly, I believe, in that direction.
‘I believe it was his intention to inflict more serious physical harm. He could still be laying his head here in our county, or he could have fled anywhere in the country or even the world.’
Hernandez is known to also have ties to the Washington, D.C., area in both Virginia and Prince George’s County, and is believed to be affiliated with gang activity, cops said.
Morin’s boyfriend, Tobin found her car at the trailhead on the day her body was found, and he was forced to take to social media to deny any involvement after the case gained national attention.
The pair had made their relationship official on social media four days before she was murdered.
He posted: ‘I love Rachel. I would never do anything to her, let the family and I grieve.
‘Yes, I have a past but I also have 15 months clean and have changed as a person. Please.’