Authorities have arrested an illegal immigrant on suspicion of murdering a mother whose naked body was found on a hiking trail almost a year ago.
Suspect Victor Martinez Hernandez, 23, was arrested Friday in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and charged with the August 2023 murder and rape of Rachel Morin, 37, in Maryland.
Hernandez illegally crossed the southern border in February 2023 after he allegedly murdered another woman in El Salvador a month earlier, and he is also accused of attacking a nine-year-old girl and her mother in Los Angeles before Morin’s murder.
The case had remained a mystery for 10 months after Morin, a mother-of-five, was reported missing by her boyfriend after she went for a run on hiking trails.
Cops have arrested an illegal immigrant on suspicion of raping and murdering Maryland mother Rachel Morin, 37, in August 2023
Suspect Victor Martinez Hernandez, 23, was arrested Friday in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and charged with the murder and rape of Morin. He is also accused of murdering another woman in El Salvador and attacking a nine-year-old girl in Los Angeles
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, and the Tulsa Police Department said he was tracked down to Oklahoma after officials in the state were contacted by the FBI.
Hernandez was taken into custody inside a bar in Tulsa on Friday by several law enforcement agencies, and was said to be found ‘casually sitting at the bar.’
Officials said he initially lied about his identity and denied any knowledge of the crimes he was wanted for. Hernandez is now awaiting extradition.
At a press conference on Saturday, Hardford County Sheriff Jeff Gaylor announced Hermandez’s arrest, and said the suspect had carried out a trail of criminality since entering the country illegally.
Before reaching Morin in Maryland, Hernandez attacked a nine-year-old girl and her mother in a home invasion in Los Angeles, California, in March 2023, Gaylor said.
The suspect in Morin’s murder has been linked by DNA to a home invasion and assault in LA back in March 2023
Morin was reported missing by her boyfriend Richard Tobin (pictured together) after she went for a run on hiking trails and failed to return
The body of the 37-year-old mom-of-five was discovered on the popular trail naked and beaten in a tunnel along a popular hiking trail in Bel Air, 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 at 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. We don’t know who he is yet.
‘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.
Detectives previously released Ring doorbell camera footage showing the assailant fleeing the Los Angeles home after the home invasion
Still images from the footage were disseminated across Los Angeles as cops hunted for the killer
A poster shared Saturday announcing Hernandez’s arrest
Tobin came under suspicion online after his past legal troubles came to light, and he insisted on social media that he had nothing to do with the case
Morin’s boyfriend Richard 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.’
Tobin has been arrested 14 times since 2014 on a variety of charges including drug dealing, assault, disorderly conduct and refusing arrest.
