Rachel Morin’s family ‘convinced her killer has more victims’ in the US because of ‘gaps in time’ between crimes
The sister of slain Maryland mom Rachel Morin told The Post on Monday that the family fears her illegal-migrant attacker may be a serial killer who murdered other victims while in the US.
Accused Salvadoran gang member Victor Antonio Martinez-Hernandez, 23, was arrested Friday in the brutal rape and murder of Rachel Morin, 37, on a hiking trail in August in Harford County, Md. — and had already been wanted in a previous killing in El Salvador and the assault of a mom and young girl in Los Angeles at the time.
“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,” said Rebekah Morin, 43. “Hopefully now they do come forward.”
Rebekah noted that there are monthslong gaps between his known US crimes.
“There was a long time period between his last victims and Rachel’s attack,” Rebekah said.
“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.”
Cops say Martinez-Hernandez has been living illegally in the United States since February 2023 — a month after he allegedly murdered a young woman in El Salvador.
Once in the US, he attacked a 9-year-old girl and her mom during a brutal home invasion in Los Angeles on March 26, authorities say.
He then allegedly violently struck again in August, killing Morin. Martinez-Hernandez has been charged with first-degree murder and first-degree rape in her death.
“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,” said Bill DelBango of the FBI Baltimore Field Office.
“Investigators even traveled to El Salvador as part of their efforts to identify this killer,” he said. “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.”
Rebekah said her family was notified about the arrest warrant shortly before Martinez-Hernandez was taken into custody. She said Rachel’s five children — who range in ages from 8 to 18 — have also been informed.
“Some are much younger than others, and it’s kind of hard to fully grasp how they are feeling or if they fully understand what this means,” she told The Post, adding that the children now live with their respective fathers.
The mother of five was snatched off the Ma and Pa hiking Trail in Bel Air, Md., and dragged into the woods, according to authorities. Her body was found in a culvert Aug. 6.
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“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.
“But it also brings everything back up and makes it feel like it’s Day One all over again.
“We want to make sure the [killer] is never able to walk the streets again,” she said.
Randolph Rice, a lawyer representing the victim’s family, told The Post on Monday that he is also convinced that Morin’s killer “has more victims scattered around the US.
“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.
“[The Morin family is] worried there are other victims.
“I, too, 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,” Rice said.
Martinez-Hernandez was known to have spent time in Maryland, Virginia, Los Angeles and finally Tulsa, where he was apprehended.
Authorities found the career criminal “casually sitting at the bar” Friday night, Tulsa cops said in a Facebook post.
“We are 1,800 miles from the southern border here in Harford County,” Sheriff Jeffrey Gahler of Harford County, Md., said at a Saturday press conference.
“[This] should not be happening. Victor Hernandez did not come here to make a better life for himself or for his family — he came here to escape a crime he committed in El Salvador.”
The extradition process to bring the Martinez-Hernandez to Maryland has already begun, Harford County State’s Attorney Alison Healy said.
ICE has also issued a detainer on Hernandez since he’s been living in the US illegally, Gahler said.
“I’m here to tell you Rachel’s murderer is no longer a free man,” Gahler said. “Hopefully, he will never have the opportunity to walk free again.”
