Maureen’s death in August drew widespread attention. The mother of five was walking the Mommy and Daddy Heritage Trail, about 20 miles northeast of Baltimore, when she never returned. Her car was found parked at the entrance, and her boyfriend reported her missing that night.
“My heart breaks for the Morin family, and it breaks for the entire state,” Maryland Gov. Wes Moore (D) said Sunday when asked about the incident and Martinez-Hernandez’s past.
“We know we have to fix our broken immigration policy, and we know Congress needs to act on this,” Moore said on CBS News’ “Face the Nation.”
Lawyers representing the victims’ families took an even tougher stance.
“Americans continue to die because politicians in Washington can’t solve the problem,” Randolph Rice said in an interview Sunday. “If politicians would stop the flow of illegal immigrants, Rachel would still be alive.”
Police officials also said Martinez-Hernandez may be involved in a home invasion in Los Angeles last March that left a 9-year-old girl and her mother injured.
“If there are any other victims, I urge you to come forward,” Rice said.
Rice said Morin’s mother and other family members declined comment over the weekend because they were still taking in the developments. “They feel relieved, they feel the worry of him being out there has gone and now they can move on to the part where he’s going to get tried,” Rice said.
Tulsa police said Martinez-Hernandez was arrested Friday night. He remained in the Tulsa County Jail on Sunday, where he is being held by the Harford County Sheriff’s Office and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, according to online records. Jail records did not list an attorney for Martinez-Hernandez.
Those records listed his name as Victor Martinez Hernandez, but the Harford County Sheriff’s Office and Tulsa Police Department listed him as Victor Antonio Martinez Hernandez.
Officials with Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S. Customs and Border Protection could not be reached for comment Sunday.
Harford Sheriff Galler said he expects Martinez-Hernandez will soon be extradited to Maryland to face charges. “I don’t want him to ever leave the state of Maryland again,” he said. [the] “The Maryland prison system,” Gahler said.
Very early on in the case, Harford investigators linked Morin’s murder on August 5, 2023, to a suspect in Los Angeles.
Authorities said DNA evidence collected at the scene along the Mama and Papa Heritage Trail matched DNA taken at the scene of a robbery in Los Angeles on March 26, when the girl and her mother were assaulted.
Doorbell camera footage released by authorities showed a shirtless man emerging from the Los Angeles home where the assault allegedly took place, and DNA evidence collected in Maryland was entered into the FBI’s Combined DNA Indexing System and matched the DNA of the Los Angeles robbery and assault suspect, authorities said.
At a press conference Saturday, Special Agent in Charge Bill DelBaño, of the FBI’s Baltimore field office, said an “investigative genetic genealogy team” was working to identify the suspect and that agents had traveled to El Salvador as part of the case.
Gahler said the incident was the second murder committed by an illegal immigrant in Harford in the past two years, and he has spoken directly to the White House and Congress to raise larger concerns about immigration.
“I want to now share these comments with 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and with every member of both houses of Congress,” he said. “We are 1,800 miles away here in Harford County. We are 1,800 miles away from the southern border, and the American people are not safe because of our failed immigration policies.”
