Emma is a staff writer for the Deseret News where she covers housing, business and cross-generational issues.
The sentencing of the illegal immigrant found guilty of murdering a Maryland woman, Rachel Morin, in 2023, took place in the Harford County Circuit Court in Bel Air on Monday. Morin's loved ones gave victim impact statements during the hearing.
The defendant was handed a life sentence without parole, getting a maximum sentence for each of the four counts against him, including life without parole for first-degree murder, life for first-degree rape, and 40 years for a sex offense and kidnapping, according to CBS News.
"Arguably, Harford County has never seen a case or a defendant more deserving of every single day of the maximum sentences this court imposed," Harford County State's Attorney Alison Healey said outside the courthouse, per the news outlets.
In her statement, Morin's mother, Patty Morin, said, "The depths of grief are equivalent to the depths of love felt. This will impact generations to come."
Before the sentencing, Morin told Fox News that she was advised by the court not to speak directly to the defendant when giving her statement, adding that in the last two weeks, she's written close to nine drafts of her statement.
"Because I'm thinking of my daughter and her life, and how can I put the value of her life, reduce it to ink and paper," she said. "And then I think about my grandchildren and her siblings and the pain that they've suffered, and how today they're going to be expressing their pain as well, and statements, so it's just going to be a really hard day."
Following a 10-month manhunt, El Salvador national Victor Martinez-Hernandez, 24, was arrested in Tulsa, Oklahoma, after detectives pinged his cell phone. He became the lead suspect after more than 1,000 tips were sent in to the Maryland State Police, and DNA on Morin's body matched an unidentified man who had sexually assaulted a woman and child in Los Angeles four months prior, per The Baltimore Banner.
Morin, a 37-year-old mother of five, was determined missing after she had gone on a run in August 2023 at a trail near her home. The medical examiner confirmed her cause of death was strangulation and blunt force injuries.
Her body was discovered the day after she went missing in a drainage culvert.
Martinez-Hernandez was found guilty on all counts, including first-degree Martinez-Hernandez was found guilty on all counts, including first-degree premeditated murder, first-degree rape, third-degree sex offense and third-degree kidnapping.
He was accused of entering the country via the southern border illegally after allegedly killing a woman in his home country of El Salvador, according to News Nation. In 2023, he was denied entry into the country by border patrol, but succeeded on his fourth attempt.
Martinez-Hernandez faces life in prison without the possibility of parole, because Maryland does not have the death penalty.
Morin's death became a political flashpoint during the last presidential election, as Morin's mother and other mothers of victims of crimes committed by illegal immigrants endorsed then-presidential candidate Donald Trump.