Democrat President Joe Biden’s open border policies “allowed” an illegal alien to enter the country and brutally murder a mother-of-five, a Maryland sheriff has warned.
On Friday, 23-year-old Victor Antonio Martinez Hernandez from El Salvador was arrested Friday and charged with the rape and murder of 37-year-old Rachel Morin, who was killed while on a hiking trail last year.
A Maryland sheriff has ripped America’s open southern border after an illegal immigrant – who was already wanted for the slaying of a woman in his native El Salvador – was arrested Friday and charged with the rape and murder of Rachel Morin, a mother of five who was killed while on a hiking trail last year.
Sheriff Jeffrey Gahler of Harford County said Hernandez should not have been in the country in the first place to carry out the horrific crime.
Hernandez, who illegally entered the country by crossing the Southern Border, was already wanted for the slaying of a woman in his native El Salvador.
The illegal alien was apprehended while he was “casually sitting” at a bar Friday night in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Investigators said the killer was caught after a police tip and DNA evidence allowed them to crack the case and track him down.
“He killed a woman in El Salvador and that’s why he fled there, to come here through our open border,” Sheriff Gahler told “America’s Newsroom” Monday.
“He tried to come in legally and he was turned away.
“And yeah, that didn’t deter him because we have such a porous border and he came right through… and this is the result.”
Morin’s naked and beaten body was found in a culvert on August 6 after the mom-of-5 had gone missing the day before.
She never returned after going hiking on the Ma and Pa Trail in Bel Air, a quiet and typically safe town about 28 miles northeast of Baltimore.
Gahler said that Hernandez was free to roam all over the U.S. having entered the country illegally in February 2023.
He crossed Biden’s open border about a month after he was wanted in El Salvador for homicide.
Police linked Martinez Hernandez’s DNA to a March home invasion in Los Angeles where a mother and her 9-year-old daughter were viciously assaulted.
“To my citizens here in Harford County, to every citizen in this country, this is a public safety crisis and one that we can so easily fix by really coming up with a workable immigration policy for our country,” Gahler said.
“It’s just insane that we would allow things like Rachel’s murder to happen, and when I say ‘allow it,’ we allowed it by letting him into this country unchallenged.”
“That shouldn’t happen to families in our country. This is preventable.”
Gahler said there is no death penalty in Maryland but he hopes Hernandez will rot in jail for his alleged crimes.
The sheriff went on to say that a bipartisan effort is needed to address border issues that have been raging for decades.
“The border was never more secure than when President Trump was in office, but it has been an issue dating way back in my 40 years in law enforcement,” he said.
President Trump, meanwhile, weighed in on Morin’s death on Monday.
He likened it to that of Georgia student Laken Riley’s death and pointed the blame at Biden.
“Rachel Morin was on a run in Maryland, just like Laken Riley was in Georgia, when she was brutally killed by an illegal monster who was wanted for murder in El Salvador and fled to the USA because he knew Crooked Joe would let him in,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
“Now Rachel Morin’s 5 young children will grow up without their mother because Crooked Joe refuses to shut down the border.”
Randolph Rice, an attorney for Morin’s family, said it’s astounding that someone like Hernandez, who was already wanted for murder in his home country, could gain entry to America.
“This is an American problem and you would think that Border Patrol would be able to stop people and say, ‘Hey are you wanted for murder back in your country? If so you can’t come in here,’” Rice told “Fox and Friends First” on Monday.
“And so that’s certainly a big problem and Maryland is a long way from the southern border, so clearly it’s not something just affecting the southern states.
“It’s making its way all the way up to Maryland, and Harford County, which is a very rural, small county.
“It can happen anywhere in America and it’s something Washington really has to fix.”
Rice later on Monday revealed that Hernandez waived extradition and will soon be sent back to Maryland.
A DNA tip on May 20, what would have been Morin’s 38th birthday, helped uncover the lead that ultimately led to Hernandez’s arrest.
“That DNA hit out in Los Angeles was a big break in the investigation,” Gahler said.
“So working hand in hand on a planet of billions of people we were able to find the one individual, identify him, and find him on a barstool sitting in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and bring him into custody.”
Surveillance footage of the suspect leaving the Los Angeles home was released to the public in February.
It shows a shirtless man fleeing the home.
The suspect allegedly broke into the home in the middle of the night and assaulted the family inside before he was chased out, but he left a hat behind at the scene.
Gahler said the intensive investigation was aided by multiple agencies, including the FBI and law enforcement officials in Los Angeles and Tulsa.
Bill DelBango, of the FBI Baltimore Field Office, said at a Saturday press conference that FBI investigators even traveled to El Salvador as part of their efforts to identify Morin’s alleged killer.
“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,” DelBango said.
“To find the suspect, we’ve provided technical assistance helping to pinpoint his location.
“That brings us to (Friday night), where Tulsa police and FBI agents were able to successfully apprehend and arrest the suspect in Oklahoma.”
During the press conference, Morin’s mother, Patricia, praised the efforts of law enforcement.
“At one point, when things seemed like really bleak and hopeless, the lead detective said to me, he said, ‘Patience will win in the end’,” she said.
“And that’s what (investigators have) been doing.
“They’ve been diligently working very hard, and they’ve been patiently working through all the leads.
“And it’s because of that we have an arrest today, so I’m very thankful and just very grateful to these men.”
