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The long-awaited trial begins this week for the illegal immigrant accused of murdering 37-year-old Rachel Morin, a Maryland mother of five who was killed along a hiking trail.
Jury selection was set to start Tuesday in the Harford Country Circuit Court in Bel Air, Maryland, before Judge Yolanda Curtin.
Victor Antonio Martinez-Hernandez, 23, of El Salvador, is charged with the brutal rape and murder of Morin, whose body was discovered on the Ma & Pa Trail in Bel Air in August 2023. She was found bashed in the head and strangled to death.
The crime shocked the community and highlighted the then-Biden administration’s failed border policies.
Morin, 37, was reported missing in August 2023 by her boyfriend, who said she never returned after going out for a run on the Ma & Pa Trail, a pedestrian trail in Bel Air, a quiet and typically safe town about 28 miles northeast of Baltimore, Aug. 5, 2023.
Her body was found near the trail the next day.
In February, police released new sketches of Martinez Hernandez.
“I’m going to make this short because I’m very emotional,” Morin’s mother, Patricia Morin, said previously. “I just want to take this time to thank all the law enforcement for all their hard work.
“They just really cared for our family and for our daughter,” she said. “They were going to diligently work and find the person who murdered her.”
Martinez-Hernandez’s court-appointed attorney Marcus Jenkins did not immediately return a request for comment.Â
