Salvadoran fugitive sentenced to life in woman’s killing on a Maryland hiking trail

Patty Morin, mother of murder victim Rachel Morin, speaks during a hearing of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary on Capitol Hill in Washington on Dec. 10, 2024. (Mark Schiefelbein / AP Photo)

BEL AIR, Md. — A fugitive from El Salvador has been sentenced to life without parole in the 2023 killing of a Maryland woman who was attacked while exercising on a popular hiking trail northeast of Baltimore.

Victor Martinez-Hernandez, 24, was found guilty of first-degree murder and first-degree rape, among other offenses, following a jury trial earlier this year. Prosecutors alleged he was carrying out a planned attack when he grabbed Rachel Morin off the trail, bashed her head against nearby rocks, raped her and concealed her body in a drainage culvert. .

During a hearing Monday in Maryland state court, Harford County Circuit Court Judge Yolanda Curtin sentenced Martinez-Hernandez to life in prison without the possibility of parole, according to Randolph Rice, an attorney representing Morin’s relatives. The judge also imposed an additional life sentence, plus 40 years.

“While no sentence can bring Rachel back, the Morin family takes comfort in knowing justice has been done,” Rice said in a statement.

Martinez-Hernandez was accused of entering the United States illegally after allegedly killing another woman in his home country. Authorities said he was also linked to a 2023 home invasion in Los Angeles.

Prosecutors used DNA evidence to connect him to the deadly attack on Morin in August 2023. Detectives collected DNA from several places on Morin’s body and matched it to Martinez-Hernandez. He was arrested last summer in Oklahoma but had been living in Bel Air, Md., around the time of Morin’s death, prosecutors said.

The attack sent shock waves through Bel Air, a suburban community northeast of Baltimore. It also became a flashpoint in the 2024 presidential election campaign as Donald Trump called for increased border security and mass deportations of immigrants living in the U.S. illegally.

Morin, 37, left behind five children. A fitness enthusiast, she would often exercise on the Ma & Pa Heritage Trail, which follows parts of an old railroad line that ran between Maryland and Pennsylvania.

Several of her family members spoke during Monday’s hearing about how their lives have been impacted by her death.