Rachel Morin's mother recounts daughter's death: 'Rips out your heart'
The mother of Rachel Morin, the Maryland woman who was fatally attacked on a popular hiking trail in a Baltimore suburb in 2023, was invited to the White House, a day after a Salvadoran man was found guilty in the case that became a flashpoint during the 2024 presidential campaign.
Victor Antonio Martinez-Hernandez, 24, was convicted of first-degree murder, first-degree rape, third-degree sex offense and kidnapping on April 14, according to the Harford County State's Attorney's Office. A Maryland jury deliberated for less than an hour before returning the guilty verdict, CBS Baltimore and The Baltimore Banner reported.
Rachel Morin's mother, Patty Morin, was invited as a "special guest" at an April 16 White House briefing. She shared details about her daughter and how she was attacked, noting that the hiking trail had been a "safe place" for their family.
"When she went on that trail that day, she was not planning on dying," she said. "She wasn't planning on walking to her death."
Authorities accused Martinez-Hernandez of killing Rachel Morin, 37, a mother of five who vanished in August 2023 while walking on the Ma & Pa Heritage Trail in Bel Air, a town northeast of Baltimore. He was arrested in Oklahoma in June 2024 following a nationwide search.
Authorities also accused Martinez-Hernandez of entering the U.S. without authorization in February 2023 after allegedly killing a different woman in his home country of El Salvador. He was then linked to an assault in Los Angeles during a March 2023 home invasion through DNA evidence.
"This case shook our Harford County community and robbed a family of their daughter, sister, mother, and friend," Alison Healey, the Harford County State's Attorney, said in a statement. "It is my sincere hope that today's verdict brings some peace and closure to the entire Morin family."
Martinez-Hernandez is being held at the Harford County Detention Center without bail, according to online inmate records. The Harford County State's Attorney's Office said it "intends to seek the maximum penalty allowable by law," which includes life without the possibility of parole on the murder charge, a life sentence on the rape charge and additional years on the remaining charges.
Kilmar Abrego Garcia case: Judge admonishes U.S. for failing to return Maryland man wrongly deported to El Salvador
What happened to Rachel Morin?
Rachel Morin's boyfriend reported her missing when she failed to return home from her walk on the Ma & Pa Heritage Trail on Aug. 5, 2023, according to authorities. Morin was last seen on the trail at around 6 p.m., and her vehicle was found near the footpath.
The next day, Harford County Sheriff's deputies discovered Rachel Morin's body in a wooded area near the trail and said she was a "victim of a violent homicide."
Prosecutors alleged that Martinez-Hernandez had planned the attack and was waiting in the woods before attacking Rachel Morin shortly after she entered the trail. Health data on Rachel Morin's cell phone and Apple Watch showed that she was pulled about 150 feet from the main trail into the woods, prosecutors said.
Evidence presented during the trial revealed that Martinez-Hernandez concealed Rachel Morin in drainage culverts just off the trail, where she was beaten, raped and killed, according to prosecutors.
"(Morin) spent her day as she often did. Spending time with her children and boyfriend, working out at a local gym, running errands, and finally, taking a walk on the Ma & Pa trail," Healey said. "Witnesses testified that her time on the trail was 'her peace,' and she never could have predicted that on that day that she would never see or speak to her children again."
Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) said the Harford County Sheriff's Office requested assistance from its Baltimore office on Aug. 17, 2023, and relayed information that a person of interest in the investigation had been involved in a home invasion in Los Angeles.
On that same day, authorities announced a DNA connection between Rachel Morin's suspected killer and a man who assaulted a girl and her mother during the home invasion. Prosecutors said DNA evidence that was recovered from parts of Rachel Morin's body also matched the DNA of the suspect.
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Attack leads to 10-month search for suspect
Rachel Morin's death shocked the community of Bel Air and sparked a 10-month nationwide search for the suspect.
On Sept. 7, 2023, the Harford County Sheriff's Office said in an update that investigators had "collected and watched hours of video footage" from the trail. Authorities later released a finalized sketch of the suspect on Feb. 12, 2024, but a name was not formally released.
HSI said the Maryland State Police Crime Lab notified the Harford County Sheriff's Office on June 14, 2024, that it had matched DNA recovered from Martinez-Hernandez's clothing to DNA recovered at the scene of Rachel Morin's murder.
Authorities were then able to track Martinez-Hernandez to a bar in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and local police officers arrested him, according to HSI. He was booked into the Tulsa County Criminal Justice Center and later transferred to Maryland.
Prosecutors alleged that Martinez-Hernandez claimed he had never been to Maryland. But multiple witnesses and business records said he had been living and working in Bel Air at the time of the murder.
Following his arrest in Oklahoma, prosecutors said Martinez-Hernandez's phone was seized and authorities discovered photos and screenshots of Rachel Morin.
Patty Morin on her daughter's death: 'Rips out your heart'
Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt introduced Patty Morin on April 16 after defending the deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, an unrelated case in which a Maryland man was wrongly removed from the country in March.
"If you're a mother here in the room, can you imagine standing there alive, you're alive, someone comes and puts their hands into your chest and rips out your heart," Patty Morin said of her daughter's death. "That's what it feels like."
A month after Martinez-Hernandez's arrest, Rachel Morin's family took the podium at the Republican National Convention in Wisconsin to talk about losing their loved one, one in a series of speakers who shared their personal experiences with crime or substance abuse in the past four years.
"Joe Biden and his designated border czar, Kamala Harris, opened our borders to him and others like him, empowering him to victimize the innocent. Yet, to this day, we have not heard from Joe Biden or Kamala Harris," Michael Morin, a brother of Rachel Morin, told the crowd in Milwaukee in July 2024. "But when Rachel was killed, President Trump called my family to offer his condolences."
President Donald Trump, who came into office in January, has promised to reform U.S. immigration policy. He met with El Salvador President Nayib Bukele on April 14, a leader praised by the administration for opening his country's prison system to alleged gang members and detainees that Trump wants out of the United States.
"I think he's doing a fantastic job, and he's taking care of a lot of problems that we have that we really wouldn't be able to take care of from a cost standpoint," Trump told reporters about Bukele, referring to the cost of imprisoning the detainees in El Salvador.
Contributing: Jonathan Limehouse and JJ Hensley, USA TODAY; Reuters
(This story was updated to add new information.)
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Newsweek
7 hours ago
- Newsweek
ICE Detains Woman in US for 17 Years Since Age 7 After Traffic Stop
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Giovanna Hernandez-Martinez, a 24-year-old Leeds, Alabama, resident and community advocate, was taken into U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody after a traffic stop by local police on the highway. CHARLY TRIBALLEAU/AFP via Getty Images/ What To Know Leeds Police, in an August 8 Facebook post that includes dash cam footage, said that an officer in an unmarked vehicle observed a "young lady, who only possessed a Mexico-Issued Identification," who "was traveling at least up to 91 mph as recorded on the dash in and out of traffic and following too close." "Also, the windows are darkly tinted on the Honda that she was driving," the post says. "We have a duty to protect the public and must stop individuals who are recklessly driving on our streets and highways. We would not have stopped her or had any idea of our immigration status if she would have been operating her vehicle safely." Leeds Police Chief Paul Irwin issued a statement last Thursday claiming Hernandez-Martinez's vehicle "came within feet of striking other vehicles and erratically changed lanes." Authorities said Hernandez-Martinez produced a Mexican identification card when asked for a driver's license, prompting federal immigration agents to arrive at the scene and take her into custody. Newsweek reached out Irwin and the department via email for comment. Irwin's recounting of events has been disputed by Hernandez-Martinez's family members, as well as Facebook users who commented on the police department's post and attached dash cam footage. "On the dash cam it was obvious that wasn't the case at all," her brother, Dilan Hernandez, told "My sister was speeding a little bit, but we feel that, under the circumstances, it wasn't fair at all." Facebook user Emily Barfield commented the following under the video: "This is exactly the video I was expecting. Where's the erratic driving? 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All of our family is here, all of her siblings, she has built her education here, she has all of her friends here." Dilan Hernandez on his sister's GoFundMe page: "Not only is she an impeccable woman with a strong moral character, but she is also a distinguished professional. ... She takes pride in advocating for her community, and those without a voice. Now, its our turn to use our voices to fight for her and defend her." Carlos E. Alemán, CEO of ¡HICA!, in an August 7 statement calling for Hernandez-Martinez's release: "Giovanna is not only a trusted community partner, she is a role model. She brings purpose and heart to everything she does. Her contributions have touched families and young people throughout Alabama, and her detention is a painful loss for the entire community." What Happens Next Hernandez-Martinez is scheduled to appear in court on August 20, when her legal team and family are expected to seek bond. ICE custody and detention decisions and the court process will determine whether she remains detained or is released pending proceedings.
Miami Herald
8 hours ago
- Miami Herald
Schools to open with unprecedented protections for children and their parents amid ICE raids
LOS ANGELES - Los Angeles public schools are opening Thursday for the new academic year confronting an intense and historically unique moment: They will be operating in opposition to the federal government's immigration raids and have set in motion aggressive moves to protect children and their immigrant parents. School police and officers from several municipal forces will patrol near some 100 schools, setting up "safe zones" in heavily Latino neighborhoods, with a special concentration at high schools where older Latino students are walking to campus. Bus routes are being changed to better serve areas with immigrant families so children can get to school with less exposure to immigration agents. Community volunteers will join district staff and contractors to serve as scouts - alerting campuses of nearby enforcement actions so schools can be locked down as warranted and parents and others in the school community can be quickly notified via email and text. L.A. Mayor Karen Bass spoke about "how profound this moment is in U.S. history" during a Monday news conference with local officials. "Here you have an entire array of elected officials, appointed officials, education leaders, people committed to our children, and we are gathered here today to talk about protecting our children from the federal government," Bass said. L.A. schools Supt. Alberto Carvalho said recently that the nation's second-largest school system will oppose "any entity, at any level, that seeks to interfere with the educational process of our children. We are standing on the right side of the Constitution, and years from now, I guarantee you, we will have stood on the right side of history. We know that." High school boy mistakenly handcuffed The worries among school officials and parents are not without cause. On Monday federal agents reportedly drew their guns on a 15-year-old boy and handcuffed him outside Arleta High School. The confrontation ended with de-escalation. Family members persuaded federal agents that the boy - who is disabled - was not the person they were looking for, Carvalho said. The situation was largely resolved by the time the school principal realized what was going on and rushed out to assist. School police also arrived and scooped up unspent bullets dropped on the ground by the agents, Carvalho said. A spokesperson for U.S. Customs and Border Protection said Tuesday that Arleta High was not being targeted. Instead agents were conducting "a targeted operation" on a "criminal illegal alien," they described as "a Salvadoran national and suspected MS-13 pledge with prior criminal convictions in the broader vicinity of Arleta." At a Tuesday White House briefing, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, responded to a question that referenced the L.A. Times reporting about the incident. "I'll have to look into the veracity of that report," Leavitt said. "I read the L.A. Times almost every single day, and they are notorious for misleading the public... This administration wants to ensure that all school children across the country, in every city, from Los Angeles to D.C., can go to school safely." School communities in fear The incident outside Arleta High is among the ongoing confrontations across the region that have provoked public protests and prompted the Trump administration in June to deploy troops to Los Angeles. Enforcement actions have included masked agents arresting people at parking lots, in parks, on sidewalks and next to bus stops. Litigation, including a temporary restraining order, appears to have slowed down local immigration raids, but federal officials have strongly affirmed that they have not stopped. Trump administration policy is that no location - including a school - is off limits for enforcement actions in his drive to deport at least 1 million immigrants a year. "People in our country illegally can self-deport the easy way, or they can get deported the hard way. And that's not pleasant," Donald Trump said in a video posted to a White House social account. "A big part of it is to create the sense of fear so people will self-deport," said Jimmy Gomez, a Trump critic and Democratic member of Congress representing Los Angeles. The ripple effect is that school communities are experiencing fear and trauma, worried that agents will descend on or near campuses. Most in the state's public school systems, including in L.A. Unified have embraced a counter mission, protecting the right of children - regardless of immigration status - to a public education. That right to an education is, so far, protected by past U.S. Supreme Court rulings. For most school officials up and down the state, a necessary corollary to that right is safeguarding students' guardians and close relatives. On Tuesday, 30 school board members from L.A. County - which has 80 school districts - convened in Hawthorne to emphasize their own focus on protecting immigrant families. "We're about to welcome students back to schools, but we're very concerned that these fears and anxieties may potentially have an impact for students not wanting to come back," said Lynwood Unified school board member Alma Castro, an organizer of the event. She called her district a "safe haven." Among other measures, her district has trained staff to "restrict the sharing of any student files, any student information, and there's been some work with thinking about our facilities to ensure that we have campuses that are closed off, that people can't just walk in." Protecting immigrant families L.A. Unified, with about 400,000 students, has been layering on protections for months, recently working to incorporate ideas advocated by the teachers union and immigrant-rights groups. A major ongoing effort is building safe-passage networks one, two and three blocks out from a campus. Participants include paid outside groups, district employees and volunteer activists. School police - though diminished in numbers due to staffing cuts - are to patrol sensitive areas and are on call to move quickly to where situations arise. Some anti-police activists want the protective mission accomplished without any role for school police. A safe-passage presence has expanded from 40 schools last year to at least 100 this year, among about 1,000 campuses total, Carvalho said. "It is virtually impossible, considering the size of our community, to ensure that we have one caring, compassionate individual in every street corner in every street," Carvalho said. "But we are deploying resources at a level never before seen in our district." Other various efforts include: •Starting a task force to coordinate safe passage zones with local cities •Setting up a donor-supported compassion fund to help families with legal and other costs •Coordinating food aid for families in hiding •Providing legal referrals •Contacting more than 10,000 families to encourage them to send children to schools •Providing information about online schooling options •Distributing a "family preparedness" guide Carvalho and leaders of other school districts reiterated that K-12 campuses and anything related to schooling, such as a school bus or a graduation ceremony, will be off limits to immigration agents unless they have a valid judicial warrant for a specific individual - which has been rare. "We do not know what the enrollment will be like," Carvalho said. "We know many parents may have already left our community. They may have self-deported... We hope that through our communication efforts, our awareness efforts, information and the direct counseling with students and parents, that we'll be able to provide stable attendance for kids in our community." Reason to be afraid Mary, a Los Angeles mother of three without legal status, was terrified, but more or less knew what to do when immigration agents came to her door twice in May for a "wellness check" on her children: She did not let them in to her home. She did not step outside. And, eventually, the agents - at least eight of them who arrived with at least three vehicles - left. Mary had learned about what to do in this situation from her Los Angeles public school. Mary, who requested that her full name not be used, has three children, one of whom attends an Alliance College-Ready charter school, a network of 26 privately operated public schools. Like L.A. Unified, Alliance has trained staff on the legal rights of immigrants and also trained parents about how to handle encounters with immigration agents and where to go for help. Alliance largely serves low-income, Latino communities and the immigration raids affected attendance in the school last year. Normally, attendance runs about 90% at the end of their school year. This June, average daily attendance at 14 Alliance high schools had dipped below 80%. Six fell below 70% and one dropped as low as 57.5%. Alliance also attempted to gather deportation data. Nine families responded in a school network that enrolls about 13,000. In two cases, students were deported; three other students had family members deported; one student and a sibling were in a family that self-deported; one student was detained; two families reported facing deportation proceedings. While these numbers are small, the reports are more than enough to heighten fear within the community. And some families may have declined to be candid about their circumstances. "What's happening now is that no one is safe anywhere, not even in your home, at work, outside, taking a stroll," L.A. school board member Rocio Rivas said in an interview. Still, Rivas is encouraging families to send children to school, which she considers safer than other places. Alliance is focusing heavily on mental-health support and also arranging carpools to and from school - in which the driver is a U.S. citizen, said Omar Reyes, a superintendent of instruction at the Alliance charter group. Carvalho, a onetime undocumented immigrant himself, said that students deserve a traditional and joyous first day followed by a school year without trauma. Children, he said, "inherently deserve dignity, humanity, love, empathy, compassion and great education. --------- -Times staff writer Andrea Castillo contributed to this report. Copyright (C) 2025, Tribune Content Agency, LLC. Portions copyrighted by the respective providers.
Los Angeles Times
14 hours ago
- Los Angeles Times
Schools to open with unprecedented protections for children and their parents amid ICE raids
Los Angeles public schools are opening Thursday for the new academic year confronting an intense and historically unique moment: They will be operating in opposition to the federal government's immigration raids and have set in motion aggressive moves to protect children and their immigrant parents. School police and officers from several municipal forces will patrol near some 100 schools, setting up 'safe zones' in heavily Latino neighborhoods, with a special concentration at high schools where older Latino students are walking to campus. Bus routes are being changed to better serve areas with immigrant families so children can get to school with less exposure to immigration agents. Community volunteers will join district staff and contractors to serve as scouts — alerting campuses of nearby enforcement actions so schools can be locked down as warranted and parents and others in the school community can be quickly notified via email and text. L.A. Mayor Karen Bass spoke about 'how profound this moment is in U.S. history' during a Monday news conference with local officials. 'Here you have an entire array of elected officials, appointed officials, education leaders, people committed to our children, and we are gathered here today to talk about protecting our children from the federal government,' Bass said. L.A. schools Supt. Alberto Carvalho said recently that the nation's second-largest school system will oppose 'any entity, at any level, that seeks to interfere with the educational process of our children. We are standing on the right side of the Constitution, and years from now, I guarantee you, we will have stood on the right side of history. We know that.' The worries among school officials and parents are not without cause. On Monday federal agents reportedly drew their guns on a 15-year-old boy and handcuffed him outside Arleta High School. The confrontation ended with de-escalation. Family members persuaded federal agents that the boy — who is disabled — was not the person they were looking for, Carvalho said. The situation was largely resolved by the time the school principal realized what was going on and rushed out to assist. School police also arrived and scooped up unspent bullets dropped on the ground by the agents, Carvalho said. A spokesperson for U.S. Customs and Border Protection said Tuesday that Arleta High was not being targeted. Instead agents were conducting 'a targeted operation' on a 'criminal illegal alien,' they described as 'a Salvadoran national and suspected MS-13 pledge with prior criminal convictions in the broader vicinity of Arleta.' At a Tuesday White House briefing, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, responded to a question that referenced the L.A. Times reporting about the incident. 'I'll have to look into the veracity of that report,' Leavitt said. 'I read the L.A. Times almost every single day, and they are notorious for misleading the public... This administration wants to ensure that all school children across the country, in every city, from Los Angeles to D.C., can go to school safely.' The incident outside Arleta High is among the ongoing confrontations across the region that have provoked public protests and prompted the Trump administration in June to deploy troops to Los Angeles. Enforcement actions have included masked agents arresting people at parking lots, in parks, on sidewalks and next to bus stops. Litigation, including a temporary restraining order, appears to have slowed down local immigration raids, but federal officials have strongly affirmed that they have not stopped. Trump administration policy is that no location — including a school — is off limits for enforcement actions in his drive to deport at least 1 million immigrants a year. 'People in our country illegally can self-deport the easy way, or they can get deported the hard way. And that's not pleasant,' Trump said in a video posted to a White House social account. 'A big part of it is to create the sense of fear so people will self-deport,' said Jimmy Gomez, a Trump critic and Democratic member of Congress representing Los Angeles. The ripple effect is that school communities are experiencing fear and trauma, worried that agents will descend on or near campuses. Most in the state's public school systems, including in L.A. Unified have embraced a counter mission, protecting the right of children — regardless of immigration status — to a public education. That right to an education is, so far, protected by past U.S. Supreme Court rulings. For most school officials up and down the state, a necessary corollary to that right is safeguarding students' guardians and close relatives. On Tuesday, 30 school board members from L.A. County — which has 80 school districts — convened in Hawthorne to emphasize their own focus on protecting immigrant families. 'We're about to welcome students back to schools, but we're very concerned that these fears and anxieties may potentially have an impact for students not wanting to come back,' said Lynwood Unified school board member Alma Castro, an organizer of the event. She called her district a 'safe haven.' Among other measures, her district has trained staff to 'restrict the sharing of any student files, any student information, and there's been some work with thinking about our facilities to ensure that we have campuses that are closed off, that people can't just walk in.' L.A. Unified, with about 400,000 students, has been layering on protections for months, recently working to incorporate ideas advocated by the teachers union and immigrant-rights groups. A major ongoing effort is building safe-passage networks one, two and three blocks out from a campus. Participants include paid outside groups, district employees and volunteer activists. School police — though diminished in numbers due to staffing cuts — are to patrol sensitive areas and are on call to move quickly to where situations arise. Some anti-police activists want the protective mission accomplished without any role for school police. A safe-passage presence has expanded from 40 schools last year to at least 100 this year, among about 1,000 campuses total, Carvalho said. 'It is virtually impossible, considering the size of our community, to ensure that we have one caring, compassionate individual in every street corner in every street,' Carvalho said. 'But we are deploying resources at a level never before seen in our district.' Other various efforts include: Carvalho and leaders of other school districts reiterated that K-12 campuses and anything related to schooling, such as a school bus or a graduation ceremony, will be off limits to immigration agents unless they have a valid judicial warrant for a specific individual — which has been rare. 'We do not know what the enrollment will be like,' Carvalho said. 'We know many parents may have already left our community. They may have self-deported... We hope that through our communication efforts, our awareness efforts, information and the direct counseling with students and parents, that we'll be able to provide stable attendance for kids in our community.' Mary, a Los Angeles mother of three without legal status, was terrified, but more or less knew what to do when immigration agents came to her door twice in May for a 'wellness check' on her children: She did not let them in to her home. She did not step outside. And, eventually, the agents — at least eight of them who arrived with at least three vehicles — left. Mary had learned about what to do in this situation from her Los Angeles public school. Mary, who requested that her full name not be used, has three children, one of whom attends an Alliance College-Ready charter school, a network of 26 privately operated public schools. Like L.A. Unified, Alliance has trained staff on the legal rights of immigrants and also trained parents about how to handle encounters with immigration agents and where to go for help. Alliance largely serves low-income, Latino communities and the immigration raids affected attendance in the school last year. Normally, attendance runs about 90% at the end of their school year. This June, average daily attendance at 14 Alliance high schools had dipped below 80%. Six fell below 70% and one dropped as low as 57.5%. Alliance also attempted to gather deportation data. Nine families responded in a school network that enrolls about 13,000. In two cases, students were deported; three other students had family members deported; one student and a sibling were in a family that self-deported; one student was detained; two families reported facing deportation proceedings. While these numbers are small, the reports are more than enough to heighten fear within the community. And some families may have declined to be candid about their circumstances. 'What's happening now is that no one is safe anywhere, not even in your home, at work, outside, taking a stroll,' L.A. school board member Rocio Rivas said in an interview. Still, Rivas is encouraging families to send children to school, which she considers safer than other places. Alliance is focusing heavily on mental-health support and also arranging carpools to and from school — in which the driver is a U.S. citizen, said Omar Reyes, a superintendent of instruction at the Alliance charter group. Carvalho, a onetime undocumented immigrant himself, said that students deserve a traditional and joyous first day followed by a school year without trauma. Children, he said, 'inherently deserve dignity, humanity, love, empathy, compassion and great education. Times staff writer Andrea Castillo contributed to this report.
