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While men are not immune from the dangers of exercising outdoors, women especially, are victims of assault & harassment when running & exercising outdoors. This is perpetuated by the sexualization of women & the media’s response to crimes against women that often involve a victim-blaming mentality. Women sadly cannot control what others do while we know there is no such thing as asking for it & you can take every precaution in the world & still end up a victim. It’s infuriating that a woman cannot go out for fresh air & exercise without fearing for her life, but until something changes, women must be diligent about protecting themselves when running or walking outdoors.
On Saturday, August 5, 2023 37-year-old Rachel Morin, who was a fitness enthusiast & mother of five, set out for her near daily walk at about 6 pm on the popular Ma & Pa Trail in Bel Air in Harford County, Maryland northeast of Baltimore. She sadly never returned. Her boyfriend, 27-year-old Richard Tobin, reported her missing at 11:23 pm after Rachel still hadn’t returned home & had stopped responding to text messages & phone calls beginning at about 7 pm. It was the next day when the Harford County Sheriff’s Office received a 911 call that a woman’s body had been found off the trail.
Rachel Morin was born on May 20, 1986 in New Hampshire to Patty Morin & the late Ronald Morin & she had five siblings. According to her obituary, she was a devoted mother of five who loved fitness, fashion & traveling. She was always the life of the party & was best described as faith-filled, loving & adventurous. She owned a cleaning company & worked tirelessly to provide for her children.
When Rachel’s boyfriend realized she wasn’t home & two of her children, one being a teenager, were home alone, he immediately felt that something wasn’t right since she only planned to be gone for about 45 minutes. Richard drove out to the Ma & Pa Trail, a place Rachel visited nearly every day during the summer months & located her car in a nearby parking lot, but there was no sign of Rachel herself. The last text Rachel’s daughter received from her mom was at 7:04 pm & further texts & phone calls went unanswered.
As the search for Rachel began, Richard told investigators that her car could be found at the trailhead on Williams Street in Bel Air. She often utilized the Ma & Pa Trail, but had never left her car there that late. The search continued until 1 pm the following day when a volunteer who was out searching for Rachel noticed a trail with flattened leaves as well as large rocks with blood on them until they eventually came across her body about 70-80 yards off the trail in a drain culvert. It was immediately clear to investigators that she had been a victim of a violent homicide rather than an accidental injury.
According to her autopsy, Rachel endured 15-20 blows to the head & died as a combined result of strangulation & blunt force trauma. She had been sexually assaulted & bruises blanketed her body & her face to the point that she was unrecognizable. She was found partially nude with her sports bra pulled up over her breasts & her shorts pulled down to her ankles.
Initially, some speculated that Rachel’s boyfriend, Richard, may have had something to do with her murder. On the Sunday night that her body was found, he took to Facebook & wrote: I love Rachel, I would never do anything to her, let the family & I grieve. Yes I have a past but I also have 15 months clean & have changed as a person. Please.
According to court records, Richard has two arrests for second-degree assault & separate arrests for violating restraining orders, malicious destruction of property & drug possession that dates back to 2014 as well as charges of being a fugitive of justice, resisting arrest & disorderly intoxication.
The Ma & Pa Trail runs through a seven mile section of Harford County & the location where Rachel’s body was found was well graded & very open with two large drainage culverts that run under a local highway. During the summer months when trees are full with growth, the drains are concealed from the trail by the shrubbery.
Investigators immediately believed that Rachel had been attacked on the trail as she came up to a bend & pulled her through a wooded area & into the drainage culvert where she ultimately lost her life as this was where her body had been found. Since the culverts were so concealed, many people who routinely utilized the trail during the summer months didn’t even know they were there & with this, her killer would have been able to commit the murder without being seen. According to investigators, at the time of day that Rachel was out, the trail is usually very well populated.
Residents were horrified when word was released that Rachel’s death was being investigated as a homicide as many people utilized the trail system & had previously felt safe while out enjoying nature & getting exercise. Police released a statement for those utilizing the trail to be vigilant & aware of their surroundings. They recommended avoiding ear buds, going out alone & suggested bringing a whistle or alerting device & letting family or friends know where you’re heading before you set out. In the meantime, authorities increased patrols along the trail.
Within the first week of the murder investigation authorities received hundreds of tips; multiple witnesses had seen Rachel out on the trail that day as well as most days of the week since she routinely did her runs at this location at the same time. It was clear that her killer was familiar with the location since they were aware of the culverts as well as Rachel’s routine. At the point in the trail where she was attacked, for likely only a moment of time, she would have been out of the sightline of others who were out that day.
Seasoned investigators fully believed that Rachel had been targeted that day & her attack had not been random although the idea that it had been a crime of opportunity certainly wasn’t out of the question. There was no doubt that the man chose the concealed culvert & waited for a victim, but had he specifically waited for Rachel?
Kyle Stacy was a witness who was believed to be one of the last people to have seen Rachel alive. He later testified that he was walking on the Ma & Pa Trail with his dog & girlfriend when he heard a branch snap in the woods off the trail about a half-mile from the trailhead. He turned toward the sound & locked eyes with a broad-shouldered man who was holding a black stick, wearing an orange cap. The man wore sunglasses & despite the August heat, he wore a hooded sweatshirt.
The man seemed to be acting sneaky, according to Kyle, as if he was caught in the act of doing something he shouldn’t be doing. Looking back, he wishes he would have said something to him, but the moment passed & he continued on. He acknowledged that he’d been to the trail dozens of times before & noted that it was highly unusual to see people hanging around off the main trail.
Kyle felt uncomfortable about the encounter which put him on high alert as he headed back toward the trailhead. That’s when he saw Rachel; she was wearing headphones & adjusting her Apple Watch. It wasn’t until a co-worker later told him that a murder occurred on the Ma & Pa Trail when Kyle looked up an article & immediately recognized Rachel as the woman he saw on the trail. With this, he contacted law enforcement to report the suspicious man he’d seen.
It later emerged that the stick Kyle described seeing the suspect holding was likely a shovel with a distinctive orange tip that was found in the woods a couple of days later. However, there was not enough DNA found on the shovel to determine who it belonged to.
As police continued to process the crime scene, they were able to recover genetic material from multiple areas of Rachel’s body that were entered into the national CODIS database. The database not only contains the DNA of known offenders, but also DNA samples from other unsolved cases. With this, rather than being a match to a particular person, the DNA was a match to another unsolved case from Los Angeles, California. In this case, there was a home invasion on March 26, 2023, about five months earlier, on the opposite side of the country.
California authorities allege that a man raped a woman & her 9-year-old daughter & left behind a baseball hat. The LAPD were able to recover DNA from that hat which was entered into the CODIS system; it was not a match to anyone in the system, but eventually matched the DNA collected from the scene of Rachel’s murder from an unnamed person who was of hispanic descent.
It was clear that this unnamed man was highly dangerous & violent & police could only wonder what other crimes he could have been responsible for in the five months between the two violent attacks. Investigators could only speculate if the man lived in California & traveled to Maryland in August or lived in Maryland & traveled to California in March or lived in another state entirely & traveled to those two locations. It was also possible that the man was not a United States citizen & may have entered the country illegally.
According to Maryland investigators, the attack that occurred in California was very violent & resulted in multiple victims inside the home being injured which included minor children. This proved just how dangerous the individual was which highly motivated police to quickly locate the suspect for the safety of the public as they feared the man could become a serial killer if not caught.
During the home invasion that occurred in Los Angeles, a man could be seen on the Ring doorbell video that depicted the assailant leaving the home shirtless, holding a piece of clothing after he attacked a mother & her 9-year-old daughter. Had the attack not been stopped by one of the family members, it would have likely also resulted in murder. The person who stopped the attack was described as a younger person who ultimately woke additional members of the family.
With this, the man fled through the front door of the home & the family contacted the police. The man was only seen exiting the home since he came in through another entrance that wasn’t video monitored, entering the home in the middle of the night. Because of his positioning in the footage, the suspect’s face was not visualized, rather, only his profile, but it was estimated that he stood at about 5’9”, weighed 160# & was somewhere between 20-30 years old.
Images of the suspect were shown to the public in hopes that someone would recognize him, but six months after Rachel’s murder, investigators still had no identification for her killer. They’d received well over 1,000 tips, each of which were followed up on from all across the country.
Investigators relied on both witness accounts from the home invasion in Los Angeles as well as from witnesses out on the Ma & Pa Trail in Maryland. They also utilized the Ring doorbell footage in order to create a sketch which was released to the public six months after Rachel’s murder. Two sketches were created; one with the suspect wearing a red hat that matched the hat left behind at the home invasion in Los Angeles & one image with no hat.
Sadly, there were no security cameras along the Ma & Pa trail so Harford County deputies asked the public to send photos or videos that were taken on or near the trail. There was video footage of Rachel shopping at Target before she headed to Wawa, eventually going to the trail. Investigators used other cameras along the way to establish a timeline of events that led to her attack & murder.
According to the Harford County Sheriff’s Office, Rachel arrived at the trail at 6:58 pm & based on health data from her cell phone & Apple Watch, she sent her final text message to her daughter at 7:04 pm. Minutes later she was pulled about 150 feet from the main trail into the woods where she was beaten, raped & murdered.
There was a spike in Rachel’s heart rate at 7:07 pm at 115 beats per minute. Two minutes later at 7:09 pm, her heart rate dropped to 69 beats per minute, down to 62 beats per minute just 26 seconds later, which is the time investigators believe she died. Her ear buds were located as well as her shattered phone which was discovered in shallow water in the same tunnel, about 200 feet from her body. Her watch was located on the opposite side of the trail from the tunnels, about 25 feet into the woods.
In response to Rachel’s murder, in late November 2023, nearly four months after Rachel’s murder, Harford County began working with experts who have installed cameras at park facilities across Maryland to install security cameras along the Ma & Pa Trail. More than 100 cameras were installed on 26 poles along the trail which cover nearly every angle of two miles of the trail & utilize AI to detect potential suspicious activity or incidents along the trail. If someone is having a medical emergency or being attacked, an alert is sent out. Since Harford County had such a low crime rate, residents frequently used the trail without giving a second thought to their safety before Rachel’s murder.
A number of witnesses within Harford County had seen men of similar build & description from the Ring doorbell footage as well as in comparison with the sketch. They’d seen this man in the last two weeks of July leading into August in & around the area.
The Morin family worked with criminal profiler Pat Brown to determine suspect traits that include the man being manipulative, lacking empathy & being a pathological liar. These potential traits were listed on flyers in both English & Spanish that were posted & handed out by volunteers near the Ma & Pa Trail. There was also a $35,000 reward for information that led to an arrest.
A little over ten months after Rachel’s murder, 23-year-old Victor Antonio Martinez-Hernandez was arrested on June 14, 2024 at a bar in Tulsa, Oklahoma due to a lead involving genetic genealogy. When he was approached at the bar, he lied to officers about his identity as well as his alleged crimes, but investigators discovered that he was wanted in his native country of El Salvador for the murder of a woman in December 2022. He was arrested & charged with first-degree murder & first-degree rape & held without bail. Four days later he was extradited to Maryland on June 18 & taken to Harford County Detention Center where he pleaded not guilty.
At the time of his arrest, Martinez-Hernandez was renting a small brick home along the 8100 block of East 15th Street in Tulsa in a densely populated area that was a short drive to multiple schools, churches as well as an airport. When his home was searched, rather than finding deadly weapons, investigators found a laptop, sketchbook & a driver’s registration from El Salvador. They also located bus tickets & a metro card.
It turned out that Martinez-Hernandez unlawfully crossed the border from El Salvador into the U.S. on February 13, 2023 near El Paso, Texas without being inspected, admitted or paroled by a U.S. immigration officer. This came after an arrest warrant was issued for a young woman’s murder in El Salvador in January 2023. He is said to have connections in the Washington D.C area & has ties to gangs. He unsuccessfully tried to enter the U.S. three times before successfully making it through on his fourth attempt on February 13, 2023.
Martinez-Hernandez was apprehended by the border patrol for unlawfully entering the U.S. on January 19, 2023 near Santa Teresa, New Mexico, on January 31, 2023 in El Paso & on February 6, 2023 in Santa Teresa, New Mexico. A little over a month after he successfully entered the country, he went on to assault the 9-year-old girl & her mother during the home invasion in Los Angeles, likely emboldened by his anonymity. Six months after he entered the country, he murdered Rachel.
During the national manhunt for Martinez-Hernandez after Rachel’s murder, authorities learned that he was staying with family in Maryland from December 2023 to May 2024. When he left in early May 2024, he left behind two bags of clothing & a pair of shoes. DNA was able to be recovered from these items that he left behind & processed at the Maryland State Police Forensics lab which matched what was recovered from both crime scenes in Los Angeles & Maryland.
Because Martinez-Hernandez wreaked havoc from coast to coast during the six-month time span he’d been in the United States, paired with the violent nature of his alleged crimes as well as the ten months it took to track him down, more cases could eventually be connected to him down the line.
When Rachel’s family received word that an arrest was made in her case, her mother, Patty spoke out & voiced that while they will work towards a resolution in their grief, it wouldn’t change the outcome. She wanted the world to know that her daughter lived life fearlessly & was always loving & compassionate. Patty spoke of Rachel’s five children losing their mother as well as the fact that she wasn’t alive to learn that she was going to be a grandmother for the first time.
During a meeting with lawmakers about closing the border, Patty Morin spoke out about the fact that she herself had been a victim after she was abducted & assaulted as a teenager during the 1970s. At age 14, she was abducted from her home by a criminally insane man who forced her to walk 60 miles with no food or water & during this horrific ordeal, the man raped her multiple times at night. She felt that what she suffered at that time was nothing compared to what her daughter endured during her murder.
Patty clarified that she was not speaking out in a political stance, rather, she wanted the focus to be on taking care of our country & our people in the U.S.
On July 2, 2024, Martinez-Hernandez was indicted by a grand jury in the Harford County Circuit Court with the state’s attorney pushing for the maximum sentence. If convicted, he would face a sentence of life in prison without parole as Maryland no longer has a death penalty.
On July 17, 2024 Rachel’s brother, Michael Morin, spoke at the Republican National Convention where he blamed President Biden’s immigration policies for his sister’s murder, referring to what happened to his sister as one of the most brutal & violent offenses that had ever occurred in Harford County.
In January 2025 defense attorneys requested a change in venue for the trial due to the extensive media attention the case had received which was denied by the judge. Jury selection began on April 1, 2025 & the trial began on April 4, 2025.
Rachel’s children & her boyfriend testified during the trial. Her 14-year-old daughter, Violet, recalled that the last text she received from her mom was at about 7 pm while Rachel’s eldest daughter, Faye McMahon, also noted her mom’s lack of response after 7 pm. Some calls went to voicemail before her boyfriend, Richard Tobin, began getting a beeping tone when he tried to reach her.
Richard recalled driving out to the Ma & Pa Trail & seeing Rachel’s car, but he was unable to find her. He admitted during his testimony that he initially questioned if Rachel was having an affair & had left her car at the trail & was driven somewhere else by another man. He said he started by driving around to local bars before he went to her house & found her daughter, Violet, panicking.
Ten days later on Monday, April 14, 2025, before allowing emotional closing arguments on both sides, Harford County State’s Attorney Alison Healey outlined every event related to the case beginning with the day that Rachel vanished on August 5, 2023 until Martinez-Hernandez was arrested in June 2024. All of her arguments were reinforced with evidence, photos & videos that had been presented over the ten days of trial, thus reminding the jury that the man’s DNA was found on each & every piece of evidence that was presented.
She wanted the jury to consider first-degree premeditated murder reinforcing the fact, you don’t accomplish a rape & a murder in four to six minutes unless you have a plan.
Despite the solid DNA evidence found on Rachel’s body that was a match to Martinez-Hernandez, he denied having any involvement in her murder & in a video that was played to the courtroom, he even denied having ever been to Maryland. This is despite the fact that his aunt previously told investigators that he lived in her Temple Hills home in 2023 & left her home about a month after Rachel’s murder. Multiple witnesses & business records also indicated he had been living & working in Bel Air at the time of the murder. He often went by different names making it difficult for anyone to truly know who he was. He was described as a dirty, disheveled freeloader whose bad habits caused friction with family until he eventually ghosted them in May 2024, leaving his things behind.
After Martinez-Hernandez had been taken into custody in Tulsa, his phone revealed searches for the Bel Air, Maryland area & included screenshots of press releases about Rachel’s murder. When he was asked why his DNA was at the crime scene, he told investigators that he didn’t know & elaborated by saying, Today there is so much technology, anyone could do damage to anyone.
Meanwhile, defense attorney Marcus Jenkins asked the jury to consider several things during their deliberations; the lack of motive & the fact that Martinez-Hernandez didn’t know Rachel & had never previously communicated with her. He also referenced Kyle Stacy’s witness testimony where he recalled seeing a tall, broad, muscular man with a blond beard in the woods moments before seeing Rachel which did not match Martinez-Hernandez’s description.
Meanwhile, defense attorney Sawyer Hicks pointed out that Rachel attracted a lot of male attention & someone may have been jealous that she was in a relationship with Richard Tobin which could have upset them to the point of murder.
After 46 minutes of deliberation, the jury of twelve which included ten men & two women, found Victor Martinez-Hernandez guilty on charges of first-degree premeditated murder, first-degree rape, third-degree sex offense & kidnapping. His sentencing will take place at a later time.
Rachel’s case is another sad story that highlights the dangers that women sadly face on public trails. It’s impossible to eliminate risk, but rather to focus on risk aversion by taking safety precautions because as women, we’re unfortunately vulnerable targets for predators.
There is safety in numbers & going out with someone else for a walk is ideal, but if you are going out alone, it’s so important to protect yourself. Consider bringing pepper spray along, pay attention to people you see along the trail; make eye contact & say hi since this tells people, I see you, I’m strong. Avoid using ear buds & be alert. Trust your instincts; if something is making you feel uncomfortable, feel free to turn around & get out of there. Avoid running at night & stick to well populated trails since predators will likely only attack when no one else is around. Let someone know where you’re heading before you set out & utilize GPS tracking.
If you fall victim to an attack, shout, yell, curse to momentarily startle your attacker, potentially scaring them away. Consider taking self-defense classes to learn techniques to fight your attacker off. Avoid running the same route on a regular basis which makes you easier to track & increases your likelihood of becoming a target. While every person should be free to exercise & enjoy the great outdoors, women must take more steps to stay safe.
Saturday, August 5, 2023 began as a typical day for Rachel Morin; she spent time with her children & her boyfriend, worked out at a local gym, ran errands & headed out for what she assumed would be a peaceful walk along the Ma & Pa Trail. The trail had always been her peace & her safe place & when she set out that day, as Patty Morin stated, she was not planning on dying, she wasn’t planning on walking to her death.
References:
- Evans Funeral, Chapel & Cremation Services: Rachel H. Morin
- CBS News: Body found off Harford County trail believed to be woman reported missing night before
- CBS News: Rachel Morin’s family hands out flyers with murder suspect’s potential traits
- CBS News: Rachel Morin investigation: Sketch released of suspect in Maryland mother’s killing
- CBS News: Rachel Morin investigation: Harford County plans camera network along popular Bel Air trail
- Tulsa Police: Victor Antonio Martinez Hernandez
- CBS News: Rachel Morin’s murder suspect was still in Maryland during nationwide manhunt, documents say
- Martinez-Hernandez charging document
- Independent: Rachel Morin’s boyfriend says he ‘would never to anything to her’ as homicide probe launched
- News Nation: Rachel Morin’s mom: Arrest doesn’t ‘change outcome’
- News Nation: Rachel Morin timeline: Trial begins in Maryland mother’s killing
- CBS News: 1 year ago, Rachel Morin was murdered off Maryland trail. Here’s a look at the high profile case
- Harford County Sheriff’s Office: News release – Rachel Morin update & new details
- Maryland Matters: Rachel Morin’s mother reveals her own tale of assault during emotional hearing
- E News: Everything to know about the Rachel Morin murder investigation
- Yahoo News: Rachel Morin murder trial begins: Illegal immigrant from El Salvador charged with rape, murder
- ABC 3340 News: Search warrant reveals exactly where Rachel Morin’s suspected killer was hiding
- People: Trial begins in killing of Rachel Morin, Md. Mom who went running & was brutally raped & murdered on trail
- CNN: Suspect arrested in connection with 2023 murder of Maryland mother Rachel Morin
- CBS News: Victor Martinez-Hernandez found guilty for 2023 murder of Maryland mother Rachel Morin
- She Explores: 6 tips from a self-defense expert for personal safety in the outdoors
- NBC News: Scared to run alone? Women runners share their best safety tips
- The Colgate Maroon-News: The dangers of running outdoors for women
- USA Today: Rachel Morin’s mother recounts daughter’s death: ‘Rips out your heart’
- Fox News: Rachel Morin’s ‘bum’ killer mooched off locals before murdering mom of 5: lawyer
- WMAR 2 News: Trial day 6: Last eyewitness to see Rachel Morin alive testifies, new evidence introduced
- CBS News: Witness testifies seeing Maryland mother Rachel Morin, suspect on day of murder
- Case Files for Missing & Endangered: Rachel Morin
- WMAR 2 News: Trial day 8: State rests its case after presenting DNA evidence that links defendant to murder of Rachel Morin
- WBAL TV 11: Prosecution timeline places defendant in Bel Air around time of Rachel Morin’s killing
