Horrific new details revealed about Rachel Morin’s brutal rape and murder as suspect denied bail
Rachel Morin was strangled as well as savagely beaten, it was revealed Friday — as the illegal Salvadorian migrant accused of raping and killing the mom-of-five was denied bail.
Victor Antonio Martinez Hernandez, a 23-year-old suspected gangbanger, attended the Friday hearing via video link from the Harford County Detention Center dressed in a black and white striped jumpsuit with his hands cuffed behind his back.
The court heard that Morin, a 37-year-old mom, was brutally beaten to death and found partially naked after she was attacked on the Ma & Pa Heritage hiking trail in Bel Air, Maryland, on Aug. 4.
The Morin family’s attorney Randolph Rice told The Post after the hearing that the victim’s “badly beaten” body was located in a drainage tunnel the following day.
He said she had “10-15 head wounds and the manner of death was strangulation and blunt force injuries.”
“She was attacked on the trail during her workout and dragged through the woods to the tunnel where she was located,” he added, citing the argument presented by the State’s Attorney at the bail hearing.
Hernandez is charged with first- and second-degree murder, first- and second-degree rape and first- and second-degree assault.
Judge Kerwin A. Miller ruled Friday that Hernandez was a flight risk and a danger to society and noted that he has an ICE detainer and an Interpol Warrant. His bond was denied.
Hernandez declined the opportunity to make a statement as the heartbroken Morin family watched on.
Rice described it as an “emotionally challenging experience for them to see the Defendant on the video screen.”
During the hearing, it was also revealed that DNA testing played a critical role in the investigation after it was first linked to a relative of the suspect.
Further investigation into family lineage led to Hernandez, who had been staying with relatives in Maryland from December 2023 until May 2024, according to authorities.
The DNA also linked Hernandez to a home burglary and assault of a girl in Los Angeles on March 26, 2023. Local authorities previously had surveillance video but did not know his identity.
Hernandez was arrested at a bar in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on June 14 and extradited to Maryland on Thursday.
Rice said the decision to “deny bail in such a serious case is not unexpected.”
“Given the gravity of the accusations in this case — rape and murder — it’s clear that the court found significant reasons to keep the defendant in custody,” he said.
“This decision underscores the court’s priority to ensure public safety and the integrity of the judicial process.”
The ruling also comes after it was revealed that Hernandez’s relatives turned over two bags of clothes and a pair of shoes that he left behind at their Maryland home after he took off in the wake of raping and killing Morin.
According to police, the fatal assault was so brutal that her family said it appeared as though “her head had been smashed with a rock.”
The DNA samples obtained from the clothing were processed at the Maryland State Police Forensics Lab, matching the DNA from the crime scene, documents show.
Authorities said Hernandez entered the US illegally in February 2023 and was known to be affiliated with violent street gangs in El Salvador, where he is suspected in the murder of another woman.
At his bail hearing, the court heard Hernandez was charged with the aggravated killing of that woman, who had left a bar with him before her body was found in January 2023.
No further details of that incident were provided.
