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An illegal immigrant from El Salvador was convicted of murdering the mother-of-five Rachel Morin on a popular hiking trail.
Prosecutors believed that Victor Martinez-Hernandez, 24, had carried out a planned attack when he grabbed Morin of the Ma & PA route in Bel Air, Maryland.
The case depends on DNA testimony connecting Martinez-Hernandez with the crime.
A jury found Martinez-Hernandez guilty of first-degree murder and rape of first-degree, according to Randolph Rice, a lawyer representing Morin’s family members.
Rice said in a statement: “The Morin family is incredibly relieved that justice has been served today.”
Martinez-Hernandez has been accused of entering the United States illegally after allegedly killing another woman in his homeland.
The authorities also linked him to a 2023 home invasion of Los Angeles.
Morin was killed in August 2023. The act of violence sent shockwaves by Bel Air, a suburban community northeast of Baltimore, and became a political flash point during the presidential election campaign in 2024, as Donald Trump requested a larger border safety and mass portions of immigrants living in the US.
Martinez-Hernandez was arrested in Oklahoma last summer.
He lived in Bel Air around the death of Morin, prosecutors said. They said Morin went for almost every day, usually at night, at the same route or run.
Defense lawyers disputed the prosecutors’ claim that the crime was a random attack, saying the police simply got the wrong man. They also asked the jurors to pay close attention to unanswered questions during the hearing.
According to prosecutors, detectives collected DNA from various places on Morin’s body and developed Martinez-Hernandez as a suspect. After interviewing some of his family members, detectives matched DNA from the scene with DNA collected from socks that Martinez-Hernandez left behind when he fled Maryland.
Morin, 37, left five children.
Her 14-year-old daughter was the first witness who testified in court last week and fought tears back when she described the immediate aftermath of her mother’s disappearance.
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