4 things to know about Rachel Morin and her killing ahead of the 2024 presidential debate

The killing of Rachel Morin along Harford County’s Ma & Pa Heritage Trail last August and the subsequent arrest of a suspect from El Salvador this month quickly turned Maryland’s northeast region into a hotbed of political discourse.

As presidential hopefuls — current President Joe Biden, a Democrat, and former President Donald Trump, a Republican — debate the nation’s top issues such as immigration policy on Thursday night, here are four things to know about Morin, her life and her death.

Who was Rachel Morin?

Before Morin’s death, the 37-year-old mother of five enjoyed traveling, fashion and fitness, specifically weightlifting and marathon running.

She was a passionate mother, devoted Christian and hard worker who owned her own house cleaning business, her half-sister Erin Layman told The Baltimore Sun.

“She didn’t take much too serious,” Layman said. “If there was something serious in a room,  she would find a way to break the ice with a joke and she had a beautiful laugh.”

Morin’s mother told Baltimore Sun Media a few months after her daughter’s death that Rachel and her five siblings, Rebekah, Nathan, Michael, John and Josiah, always said “I love you” to one another before ending their near-daily group video or phone calls.

“Rachel was just a spark of energy with lots of love,” Layman said. “She loved everybody.”

Among the family’s other traditions were apple picking together at a local orchard in the fall and strolling side by side along Bel Air’s Ma & Pa Trail in the summer.

The regular walks encouraged the kids’ love of nature and reminded them of their upbringing in New Hampshire before the family moved to Harford County in the early 2000s, Morin’s mother, Patty Morin, told Baltimore Sun Media.

About 100 people attended a memorial service for Morin at Greater Grace Church in East Baltimore in late August, a few weeks after her death. Her children, who, at the time of Morin’s death, ranged from 8 to 18 years old, are in the care of their fathers and other relatives, said Joseph Murtha, an attorney representing Morin’s family around the time of the memorial.

How she died

On the same trail she grew up walking with her family, Morin was reported missing Aug. 5 by her boyfriend and found dead Aug. 6.

Forensics teams descended on the area of the trail to investigate, and the search for the killer soon included the Harford County Sheriff’s Office and FBI, as well as law enforcement from Los Angeles where authorities found a DNA match.

The investigation

Less than a month after Morin’s death, authorities found that DNA from the Harford County crime scene was identical to DNA from a March 2023 crime scene in Los Angeles, where a 9-year-old girl and her mother were attacked during a home invasion, according to Harford County Sheriff Jeffrey Gahler.

The DNA was used to trace potential relatives of 23-year-old Victor Antonio Martinez-Hernandez in El Salvador, said FBI Special Agent in Charge William DelBagno of the Baltimore field office. That ultimately helped authorities identify and find the suspect. Gahler added that investigators believe Martinez-Hernandez illegally”] came to the United States illegally in February 2023.

In mid-June, FBI intelligence suggesting that suspect Martinez-Hernandez was in Tulsa, Oklahoma, led to an arrest at a sports bar there. Police cited forensic genetic genealogy and a tip from the public as key in locating him.

Before being extradited to Maryland, Martinez-Hernandez was charged in Harford County District Court on six counts that included first- and second-degree murder, first- and second-degree rape and first- and second-degree assault.

Political discourse

Long before the suspect was discovered, the story became fodder for true crime junkies, gossip magazines and television chyrons.

Headlines such as “Killed by a spurned lover or suitor?” ran on true crime pages and news-style websites outside Maryland less than a month after Morin’s body was found, while the New York Post ran a story sourcing a person “close to” the tanning salon that Morin frequented discussing her dating life.

When the suspect was identified as being from El Salvador, the discourse took a sharp turn into border security.

Gahler, a Republican, directed blame for Morin’s murder at Congress and “failed immigration policy,” during the news conference at which Martinez-Hernandez’s identity was revealed to the public.

U.S. Border Patrol agents apprehended Martinez-Hernandez three times in less than a month in early 2023 after he entered the country illegally in Texas and New Mexico, according to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Agents “expelled” Martinez-Hernandez to Mexico each time on the same dates they took him into custody. He came back to the United States in mid-February.

Gahler also said that authorities believe Martinez-Hernandez killed a woman in El Salvador before coming to the U.S.

Soon the conversation surrounding immigration started by local Republican officials gave way to discussions at the federal level.

Trump’s campaign issued a statement pointing to Biden’s border policies which he said “allowed” Martinez-Hernandez to enter the United States and, allegedly, commit the crime. It was a sentiment echoed on social media by U.S. Rep. Andy Harris, the Republican representing the district.

Gov. Wes Moore, a Democrat, and Maryland Democrats in Congress, including Sens. Chris Van Hollen and Ben Cardin, noted that Republicans rejected a bipartisan border security deal twice in 2024 after Trump opposed it.

Immigration policy is expected to be touched on in Thursday’s debate on CNN.