A former FBI particular agent gave an within glance into how federal and state regulation enforcement apprehended the El Salvador migrant suspect within the multi-state murder investigation of Rachel Morin.
Retired FBI Supervisory Particular Agent Scott Duffey instructed Fox Information Virtual that, originally of any murder investigation, regulation enforcement begins with the ones closest to the sufferer.
“At the beginning, you get started with family members, whether or not or not it’s a partner, a spouse or a romantic spouse,” he mentioned. “After which whenever you exclude them, then you definately transfer outward.”
Duffey, who met with Morin’s circle of relatives in Harford County, Maryland, after her homicide, mentioned the FBI’s Blended DNA Index Gadget (CODIS) allowed regulation enforcement throughout state strains to stick at the identical web page because the 10-month investigation advanced.
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Victor Martinez Hernandez, 23, was once arrested within the homicide of Rachel Morin. (Harford Co. Sheriff’s Place of job)
CODIS is a database utilized by federal and state regulation enforcement to collect DNA profiles of convicted offenders, unsolved crime scene proof and lacking individuals.
A ruin in Morin’s murder case got here after a work of DNA proof confirmed up 1000’s of miles from Morin’s Maryland fatherland in Los Angeles weeks after her disappearance.
Scott Duffey, a retired former FBI particular agent, mentioned Rachel Miron’s murder with Fox Information Virtual. (Fox Information Virtual)
“And lo and behold, the 2 DNA suits from DNA from Rachel Morin’s crime scene and the DNA from LA have been a fit via CODIS,” he mentioned.
Morin mentioned the CODIS operates below “strict pointers,” which gave him convenience in regards to the legitimacy of the DNA fit.Â
“They’ve very strict pointers, and the truth that you had two DNA suits was once very comforting to me as a former investigator,” he mentioned.
Rachel Morin went lacking after taking a stroll on a Maryland path. (Harford County Sheriff’s Place of job/FB)
The previous particular agent mentioned the sudden twist got here after investigators found out Morin’s suspected killer, later known as Victor Martinez Hernandez, an unlawful El Salvador migrant, was once now not a U.S. nationwide.
Martinez Hernandez’s immigration standing brought about regulation enforcement to depend on FBI global workplaces, referred to as prison attachés.
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“What is their subsequent forestall in another country into El Salvador?” Duffey mentioned. “Now, it is something if you have a genealogical tree, and you are able to mention, ‘OK, we are getting nearer’ and the DNA mavens are in a position to mention, ‘Good day, it is a fit’.
“However while you pass in another country, you lose positive possession of an investigation.”
A photograph of Rachel Morin was once posted to a tree via her circle of relatives alongside the Ma and Pa Path in Bel Air, Md., Aug. 10, 2023. The 37-year-old was once murdered whilst mountaineering the path. (Mega for Fox Information Virtual)
The FBI global place of work in El Salvador was once used to “bridge that hole” with regulation enforcement within the U.S. on Morin’s case,” Duffey mentioned.
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“However having an FBI place of work in El Salvador, they are able to bridge that hole with American regulation enforcement and with El Salvadorian government,” he mentioned.
Victor Martinez Hernandez, 23, was once arrested within the homicide of Rachel Morin. (Harford Co. Sheriff’s Place of job)
El Salvador government then communicated with U.S. regulation enforcement that Martinez Hernandez had fled his nation of starting place after brutally killing any individual within the Central American nation.
The inside track brought about the FBI to place out a “pink understand,” which instructed all regulation enforcement concerned about Interpol to be in search of Martinez Hernandez.
“That pink understand would have alerted government, ‘Don’t let this person pass any longer. Forestall and detain,'” Duffey mentioned. “All the ones issues are falling into position, to not point out the exhausting paintings that Harford County investigators pursued with LA government.”
Rachel Morin, a mom of 5, was once discovered lifeless on a mountaineering path. She was once reported lacking via her new boyfriend, a ways proper, Richard Tobin. (Fb)
Duffey mentioned he believes regulation enforcement used Martinez Hernandez’s “virtual forensics footprint” to piece in combination the general touches on its investigation.
“A mobile phone, an electronic mail deal with, one thing that this person is speaking with anyone else and thereby having this type of footprint that regulation enforcement can zone in, pinpoint to a somewhat small, very tight house to the place surveillance may pass out and examine,” he mentioned.
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Duffey mentioned it was once “superb” Martinez Hernandez, a sought after fugitive, controlled to evade seize for 10 months after Morin’s murder.
“It’s going to be attention-grabbing to look what his manner have been,” he mentioned. “Who was once supporting this person who was once already a fugitive from justice from his nation of starting place?”
Richard Tobin, a ways left, denied he had any position in his female friend Rachel Morin’s dying after her frame was once discovered on a Maryland mountaineering path. (Fb)
RACHEL MORIN MURDER
On Saturday, Harford County Sheriff Jeffrey Gahler introduced the arrest of Martinez Hernandez.
Gahler mentioned the 23-year-old was once arrested in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and charged with first-degree homicide and first-degree rape.
The 23-year-old migrant illegally crossed into the USA in February 2023, police introduced.
“All of us suspected that Rachel was once now not his first sufferer,” Gahler mentioned. “It’s my working out that this suspect, this monster, fled to the USA illegally after committing the brutal homicide of a tender lady in El Salvador a month previous, in January of 2023.”
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Gahler mentioned a primary DNA fit for Martinez Hernandez was once from a Los Angeles assault in March 2023.
“As soon as in our nation, and most likely emboldened via his anonymity, he brutally attacked a 9-year-old lady and her mom all the way through a house invasion in March of 2023 in Los Angeles,” Gahler mentioned. “And as everybody I consider is mindful, that was once our first DNA fit linking Rachel’s case to the only in Los Angeles.”
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Morin, 37, was once reported lacking in August via her boyfriend, who mentioned she by no means returned after going out for a run at the Ma & Pa Path, a pedestrian path in Bel Air, a quiet and normally secure the town about 28 miles northeast of Baltimore, Aug. 5, 2023.
Her frame was once discovered on a path the next day to come.
