Rachel Morin's mother reflects 2 years after daughter was found murdered off Maryland trail
Patty Morin remembers the moment she learned that her daughter, Rachel Morin, a Maryland mother of five, was found dead off a popular Harford County walking trail.
Wednesday marked two years since the 37-year-old's body was found brutally murdered in a drainage culvert along the Ma & Pa Trail on August 6, 2023.
"I'll never forget the words," Patty Morin told WJZ. "It's been two years, but he said, and I quote, 'Mrs. Morin, this is Det. Goldin. There's no easy way to tell you this, but we found your daughter's body.'"
Victor Martinez-Hernandez, an illegal immigrant from El Salvador, was convicted of Morin's murder. He will be sentenced at 9:30 a.m. on Monday, August 11, at the Harford County Circuit Court.
Patty Morin says she looks forward to the sentencing, so her daughter's killer can get what he deserves, and her family can move forward, celebrating Rachel Morin the way she deserves.
"She wasn't a perfect person, but she was a lovely person," Patty Morin said. "She was very kind and gentle, very loving, and she genuinely cared about other people."
Martinez-Hernandez will not be deported back to his home country of El Salvador, but rather fulfill his sentence in Maryland.
"It shook the community"
For the past two years, Patty Morin has been consumed by the death of her daughter.
She questions how Rachel Morin became the victim of a horrific attack.
"These last two years have been, for lack of a better word, a journey from those moments of disbelief that something like this could happen, to questions about what happened," Morin said.
Rachel Morin's murder investigation
On August 5, 2023, Rachel Morin was reported missing by her children and her boyfriend after she went for a jog on the trail and never returned.
Her vehicle was located at the trailhead, and she was found off the trail, raped and murdered.
The murder trial in April revealed Rachel Morin was texting with her children until 7:04 p.m. on August 5, 2023, and was then never heard from again.
"It shook the community. I think this crime really shook the community," said Harford County State's Attorney Alison Healey, who led the prosecution against Martinez-Hernandez, an El Salvador native.
Martinez-Hernandez was arrested 10 months later, in June 2024, at a bar in Oklahoma.
Martínez-Hernández's DNA was found on nearly every piece of evidence collected at the murder scene, and it took a jury less than an hour to find him guilty of Morin's rape and murder.
"Our first and only goal in this whole case was to get justice for Rachel and for her family," Healey said. "For her children, her siblings, for her mom, for everybody who loved and cared about her. So at this point, we just want to make sure we get the justice she deserves for this horrific crime."
