An inside look at the federal and state law enforcement’s capture of the El Salvadorian migrant suspect in the multi-state homicide case of Rachel Morin was provided by a former FBI special agent.
According to Fox News Digital, retired FBI Supervisory Special Agent Scott Duffey stated that law enforcement always begins a homicide inquiry with the people closest to the victim.
“First and foremost, you start with loved ones, whether it be a spouse, a partner or a romantic partner,” he stated. “And then once you exclude them, then you move outward.”
Meeting with Morin’s family in Harford County, Maryland, following her death, Duffey explained that the FBI’s Combined DNA Index System (CODIS) kept law enforcement agencies from several states in sync for the course of the 10-month inquiry.
Federal and state law enforcement use the CODIS database to gather DNA profiles of convicted criminals, unresolved crime scene evidence, and missing people.
A fragment of DNA evidence discovered in Los Angeles, thousands of miles away from Morin’s hometown of Maryland, several weeks after her disappearance signaled a breakthrough in the homicide case involving Morin.
“And lo and behold, the two DNA matches from DNA from Rachel Morin’s crime scene and the DNA from LA were a match through CODIS,” he said.
According to Duffey, the CODIS follows “strict guidelines,” which reassured him on the validity of the DNA match.
“They have very strict guidelines, and the fact that you had two DNA matches was very comforting to me as a former investigator,” he stated.
The shocking development, according to the former special agent, occurred when authorities learned that Morin’s alleged murderer was not a citizen of the United States and was instead an illegal immigrant from El Salvador named Victor Martinez Hernandez.
Martinez Hernandez’s immigration status made it necessary for law enforcement to rely on legal attachés, FBI overseas offices.
“What’s their next stop out of the country into El Salvador?” Duffey said. “Now, it’s one thing when you have a genealogical tree, and you’re able to say, ‘OK, we’re getting closer’ and the DNA experts are able to say, ‘Hey, this is a match’.
“But when you go out of the country, you lose certain ownership of an investigation.”
For Morin’s case, the FBI’s international office in El Salvador was utilized to “bridge that gap” with American law enforcement, according to Duffey.
“But having an FBI office in El Salvador, they’re able to bridge that gap with American law enforcement and with El Salvadorian authorities,” he stated.
Following his savage murder of someone in El Salvador, Martinez Hernandez departed his home nation and informed U.S. government officials of this information.
The FBI issued a “red notice,” alerting all law enforcement parties participating in Interpol to be on the lookout for Martinez Hernandez, in response to the news.
“That red notice would have alerted authorities, ‘Do not let this individual go any further. Stop and detain,'” Duffey said. “All those things are falling into place, not to mention the hard work that Harford County investigators pursued with LA authorities.”
Duffey stated that he thinks the “digital forensics footprint” left by Martinez Hernandez helped law enforcement put the finishing touches on the probe.
“A cellphone, an email address, something that this individual is communicating with anybody else and thereby having such a footprint that law enforcement can zone in, pinpoint to a relatively small, very tight area to where surveillance could go out and investigate,” he said.
Duffey called it “amazing” that Martinez Hernandez, a wanted guy on the run, escaped for ten months following the murder of Morin.
“It will be interesting to see what his means were,” he stated. “Who was supporting this individual who was already a fugitive from justice from his country of origin?”
RACHEL MORIN MURDER
Martinez Hernandez was taken into custody, as stated by Jeffrey Gahler, the sheriff of Harford County, on Saturday.
According to Gahler, the 23-year-old was taken into custody in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and was accused of first-degree rape and murder.
According to police, the 23-year-old immigrant entered the country unlawfully in February 2023.
“We all suspected that Rachel was not his first victim,” Gahler said. “It is my understanding that this suspect, this monster, fled to the United States illegally after committing the brutal murder of a young woman in El Salvador a month earlier, in January of 2023.”
According to Gahler, Martinez Hernandez’s first DNA match came from an attack in Los Angeles in March 2023.
“Once in our country, and likely emboldened by his anonymity, he brutally attacked a 9-year-old girl and her mother during a home invasion in March of 2023 in Los Angeles,” Gahler said. “And as everyone I believe is aware, that was our first DNA match linking Rachel’s case to the one in Los Angeles.”
On August 5, 2023, Morin, 37, went for a run on the Ma & Pa Trail, a pedestrian trail in Bel Air, a peaceful and generally safe community about 28 miles northeast of Baltimore. Her partner reported her missing in August, claiming she never came back.
The next day, her body was discovered on a trail.
or a specific category with our 
Comments are closed, but trackbacks and pingbacks are open.