Huge breakthrough in murder of Maryland mom Rachel Morin as cops finally arrest ILLEGAL migrant seen in haunting doorbell footage TEN MONTHS after her body was found naked and beaten on a remote hiking trail
Maryland police have arrested an illegal immigrant on suspicion of killing a mother whose naked body was found on a remote hiking trail nearly a year ago.
Suspect Vitor Martinez Hernandez, 23, was arrested Friday in Tulsa, Oklahoma and charged with murder and rape for the August 2023 death of Rachel Morin, 37.
Hernandez crossed the southern border illegally in February 2023 after allegedly killing another woman in El Salvador a month earlier.
The case had remained a mystery after Morin, a mother of five, was reported missing by her boyfriend, who said she disappeared after going for a run on hiking trails.
Maryland police have arrested an illegal immigrant on suspicion of the rape and murder of Maryland mother Rachel Morin, 37, in August 2023
Morin’s naked and battered body was found on the Mom and Dad Hiking Trail in Bel Air, about 45 hours 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 begged the public to solve the case.
On Saturday, Hardford County Sheriff Jeff Gaylor announced Hermandez’s arrest at a news conference, saying he had followed a trail of crime since entering the country illegally.
Before reaching Morin, Maryland, Hernandez attacked a 9-year-old girl and her mother during a home invasion in Los Angeles, California, in March 2023, Gaylor said.
DNA evidence from the home invasion was later linked to Morin’s case, and Gaylor added that Hernandez is known to have gang ties.
“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 2023,” he said at Saturday’s press conference.
“Once in our country, he brutally attacked a nine-year-old girl and her mother during a home invasion in Los Angeles in March 2023.”
The suspect in Morin’s murder has been linked by DNA to a home invasion and assault in LA in March 2023
Morin was reported missing by her boyfriend Richard Tobin (pictured together) after she went for a run on hiking trails and didn’t return
The body of the 37-year-old mother of five was discovered naked on the popular hiking trail and smashed into a tunnel along a popular hiking trail in Bel Air, Maryland
In the nearly year-long investigation, detectives searched seven states and involved 10 federal, state and local agencies.
Officials expressed fears the suspect could strike again and released Ring doorbell camera footage showing the attacker 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, I believe, certainly in that direction.
“I believe his intention was to cause more serious bodily harm. We don’t know who he is yet.
“He may still have his head here in our county, or he may have fled to anywhere in the country or even the world.”