Man found guilty in 2023 rape, murder of Maryland mom Rachel Morin

A jury on Monday found the man charged with murdering Maryland mother Rachel Morin guilty. 

What we know:

Victor Martinez-Hernandez was convicted on several charges, including premeditated murder and first-degree rape. Sentencing has not yet been set.  

RELATED: Illegal immigrant from El Salvador charged in rape, killing of Maryland mom of 5

Martinez-Hernandez killed 37-year-old Rachel Morin in August 2023. Her body was found a day after she left to go on a run. He was arrested almost 10 months later. 

Martinez-Hernandez entered the U.S. illegally from El Salvador in 2023. He does have known gang ties. 

"This person, who took Rachel's life in such a horrific way, will be removed from society and never allowed to harm another human being again," Harford County Sheriff Jeffery Gahler said during a press conference following the verdict.

The backstory:

Rachel Morin, a 37-year-old mother of five, was jogging on the Ma & Pa Trail in Bel Air around 6:30 p.m. on Aug. 5, 2023 when she vanished. She was found dead the next afternoon in what authorities described as a "criminal homicide."

Police were able to connect DNA from the scene to a home invasion and assault in Los Angeles from March. The suspect was identified as Victor Martinez Hernandez, an illegal El Salvador migrant. Martinez Hernandez was arrested in Tulsa, Oklahoma in June 2024 and was charged with first-degree murder and first-degree rape. 

"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," Harford County Sheriff Jeffrey Gahler said at the time of the arrest. "And as everyone I believe is aware, that was our first DNA match linking Rachel's case to the one in Los Angeles."

Police said he arrived in the states only a month after he allegedly murdered a young woman in El Salvador.