Sunday, June 23, 2024

The Coast-to-Coast Killer

Hiking Toward a Nightmare
By Robert A. Waters

On August 8, 2023, the Baltimore Sun reported "police have opened a homicide investigation after a dead body, believed to be a woman recently reported missing, was found Sunday afternoon near a popular trail in Bel Air (Maryland)..."

Rachel Hannah Morin, 37, had been reported missing on August 6. A mother of five, Rachel was a fitness enthusiast. Late in the afternoon, she drove to the Maryland and Pennsylvania Trail (also called the Ma-Pa Trail) and began jogging through the heavily forested park. When she failed to return home, her boyfriend, Richard Tobin, reported her missing.

The next morning, a tracker named Michael Gabriszeski, with the help of his daughter, Cynthia, found Rachel's body in a drainage tunnel about 70 yards off the trail. Although this information had not yet been released by authorities, Gabriszeski told Daily Mail that Rachel "was laying on her back, fully naked, and she had brutal head trauma...it looked like her head had been smashed in with a rock." A blood trail leading to the tunnel helped Gabriszeski find the body.

WBALTV confirmed the tracker's account, reporting that "Martinez-Hernandez laid in wait for Morin as she was out for a jog. Prosecutors said he then attacked and dragged her through the woods to a drainage ditch tunnel. The medical examiner found 10-15 head wounds, and the report indicated Morin died from blunt force trauma and strangulation."

From the start, this case had the feel of a stranger-on-stranger crime. The Harford County district attorney told reporters "it was the most brutal and violent offense that has ever happened in Harford County."

Harford County Sheriff Jeff Gahler quickly called in the FBI for assistance. The killer had left DNA, so investigators obtained a genetic profile and entered it into CODIS, the FBI databank. 

They quickly got a hit.

In Los Angeles, 2,657 miles from Harford County, a mother and her nine-year-old daughter had managed to survive a violent home invasion. An unidentified Hispanic male broke into the home and sexually assaulted the two. Police speculated he would likely have murdered them, but another member of the household interrupted the attack. Doorbell camera footage recorded the intruder fleeing the home. After LAPD entered the killer's DNA profile into CODIS, they got the call from Harford County.

It took ten months, but, using genetic genealogy, investigators determined the suspect to be Victor Martinez Hernandez. According to Daily Mail, "Hernandez had illegally crossed the southern border in February 2023 after he also allegedly murdered another woman in El Salvador a month earlier."

Law enforcement officers gave reporters a timeline of the alleged crimes of Hernandez. According to police, Hernandez murdered the El Salvador woman in January. In March, investigators claim he assaulted the mother and daughter in California. Then in August, his DNA profile matched that of the rapist and killer of Rachel in Maryland.

FBI agent Bill DelBango informed reporters that "our investigative genetic genealogy team in Baltimore worked countless hours to identify the suspect by using crime scene DNA and tracing that DNA to potential family members."  

In June, 2024, cops captured Hernandez in a bar in Tulsa, Oklahoma. 

He has been extradited back to Maryland.

So how many other victims has Hernandez assaulted or murdered? A reputed gang member, he had no problem traveling the length of the United States more than once in a ten-month period. Where did he obtain funds to travel? Why is our border wide open to unvetted criminals and terrorists? At least ten million known illegal aliens from every country in the world have come unimpeded into our country since 2020. There are likely millions more "getaways," (i.e., unknown migrants).

Why is Rachel Morin dead? Why isn't she living her normal life today? Why is her family grieving her untimely death?

At a press conference, Sheriff Gahler echoed the thoughts of millions of Americans. "Victor Hernandez," he said, "did not come to this country to make a better life for him or his family, he came here to escape the crimes he committed in El Salvador. He came here to murder Rachel and, God willing, no one else. But that should never have been allowed to happen." (NOTE: my italics)

1 comment:

  1. The mainstream is catching up ... and they don't have the whole story or are not releasing it. Thanks for the heads up and for being miles ahead!

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