"MOTHER OF FIVE BEATEN TO DEATH WITH ROCK: Illegal Immigrant Gets Triple Life Sentence as Apple Watch Records Rachel Morin's Final Heartbeat

0:03 Callaroga Shark Media. Good morning, I'm Read Carter, and welcome to celebrity trials. Four days ago, in a Harford County courtroom, Judge Yolanda Curtain looked Victor Martinez Hernandez in the eye and told him exactly what he is. You are not a candidate for rehabilitation. Then she gave him life without parole plus another life sentence plus forty years for the rape and murder of Rachel Morn, a thirty seven year old mother of five who went for a jog on the Ma and Paw Trail and never came home. The jury took less than fifty minutes to convict him back in April. Fifty minutes. That's not deliberation, that's paperwork. That's how overwhelming the evidence was. That's how obvious his guilt was, and that's how brutal this crime was. Today we're breaking down how a wanted murderer from El Salvador ended up on a Maryland hiking trail, waiting in the woods with a shovel, ready to destroy a family. Saturday, August fifth, twenty twenty three, six twenty nine pm, Rachel Morn stops at Ahawa, then target at six forty two, normal Saturday errands for a mother of five. She's got her workout clothes on. She's heading to the Maw and Paw Trail in bel Air, Maryland. It's her routine. She goes there

1:34 almost every day. She's training for marathons. She lifts weights at thirty seven. She's in the best shape of her life. Six fifty pm, security cameras catch her car pulling into the William Street parking lot by the trail. She puts in her air pods, checks her Apple Watch, starts jogging. Seven pm. Kyle Stacy is walking his dog with his girlfriend Olivia. They're about half a mile from the trailhead when he hears it a branch snapping in the woods. He looks left. There's a man standing there, gray sweatshirt, hood up, sunglasses in August at seven pm, and he's holding something what Stacy thinks is a walking stick with an orange cap. The man is big, broad shouldered. They lock eyes for two seconds. Two seconds that made Stacy, a big guy himself who doesn't scare easily squeeze his girlfriend's hand and say this is really weird. No one should be over there. We got to get out of here.

2:34 Stacy testified, I think he felt like he got caught, so to speak. He was acting sneaky. Thirty seconds later, Stacy passes Rachel Morin. She's jogging air pods in alone, the last person besides her killer to see her alive. Seven four pm, Rachel's oldest daughter, Fay, texts her mom. No response. Seven seven Rachel's Apple watch records her heart rate spiking to one hundred and fifteen beats per minute. Seven h nine pm, her heart rate drops to sixty nine beats per minute. Twenty six seconds later, it's at sixty two. That's when investigators believe she died. Think about that timeline. Five minutes from the moment her heart rate spiked to the moment it stopped. Five minutes of terror, five minutes of fighting for her life, five minutes that left her children motherless. What that walking stick actually was a shovel? Police found it later on the trail, a black shovel with an orange cap. Victor Martinez Hernandez had been hiding in those woods waiting. This wasn't random, this was hunting. Let's talk about who Victor Antonio Martinez Hernandez really is, because this isn't his first murder. Hell, it's not even his first murder warrant. January twenty twenty three, El Salvador, a young woman is murdered. Authorities issue an arrest warrant for Martinez Hernandez. He flees. But here's the

4:08 beautiful part. He tries to enter the United States and gets caught three times. January nineteenth, caught near Santa Theresa, New Mexico, deported, February sixth caught at the same spot, deported January thirty first, caught near El Paso, deported the fourth time February twenty twenty three. He makes it through. March twenty twenty three, Los Angeles. A nine year old girl and her mother are in their home. Martinez Hernandez breaks in, assaults them both, but they survive. They fight back. His DNA gets collected, it goes into the system. Summer twenty twenty three, he's in Maryland, living with relatives in Temple Hills, working at Popeyes, then Barrett's on the Pike.

5:00 Both restaurants are near the Maw and Paw Trail. He learns the trail, studies it plans, His phone tells the story, searches for the bel Air area, photos of the trail, photos of Rachel Morin, Yeah, photos of his victim on his phone. He'd been watching her, following her routine. She ran that trail almost every day at the same time, he knew exactly when she'd be there, but he told police he'd never been to Maryland. When they arrested him in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in June twenty twenty four, he insisted his name was Juan Carlos, said he'd never heard of Rachel morn never been to Maryland. Suggested someone planted his DNA.

5:41 Someone planted his DNA on her body, on her neck, her chest, her wrist, her Apple watch. Someone planted it under her fingernails where she fought back. Someone planted it in the most intimate places where he violated her. The prosecution laid it out perfectly. You don't accomplish a race, sape, and a murder in four to six minutes unless you have a plan the crime scene. Let me paint you the picture the jury saw. Fair warning. This is brutal. One hundred fifty feet of blood. That's the trail from where he attacked her to where he left her body. She fought God did She fight defensive wounds on her wrists, bruising where she tried to block the blows. The medical examiner testified she was struck in the head at least fifteen to twenty times with a blunt object a rock.

6:32 He beat her with a rock fifteen to twenty times. Her skull was fractured. Her face was so destroyed that Justin Knapp, the man who found her body, said I couldn't recognize her face. He dragged her to a drainage culvert that runs under root twenty four concrete tunnel, dark isolated. Her feet were twenty four feet into that tunnel. Her left shoe was missing, her clothes were torn. One AirPod was found fifty two feet from the entrance. Her iPhone, smashed to pieces, was two hundred and twenty five feet into the tunnel in shallow water. Detective Michael Wilsinski, first on scene with a drone, testified it was obvious this was not a slip and fall injury. This was a serious attack. This was a massive attack. Back in a moment, Welcome back to celebrity trials. I'm Red Carter, and we're discussing the sentencing of Victor Martinez Hernandez for the murder of Rachel Morin. The manhunt for ten months. He was out there free, working in restaurants, living with relatives, a killer, walking around Maryland like nothing happened. The investigation was massive, over one thousand tips. Every lead went nowhere. They interviewed everyone in Rachel's life. Her boyfriend, Richard Tobin, gave DNA, surrendered his phone cooperated fully. He'd actually thought she was

8:05 cheating on him that night, went to local bars looking for her before realizing something was really wrong. The break came from California. Remember that assault in Los Angeles, the nine year old girl and her mother that DNA was in the system. When Maryland ran the DNA from Rachel's body, it matched. They had a profile, but no name, just unknown Hispanic mail. Then came the relatives. June twenty twenty four, detectives tracked down his aunt in Temple Hills, his cousins. They'd been wondering where Victor went. He'd left suddenly about a month after Rachel's murder, left behind shoes, a toothbrush, dirty clothes. The FBI collected it all, swabbed everything. June fourteenth, twenty twenty four, the DNA matches. They have their killer, but where is he? They ping his phone through T mobile Tulsa, Oklahoma. At a bar, Tulsa police detective Stephen Sanders testified about the arrest. Martinez Hernandez kept insisting his name was Juan Carlos, over and over. Finally he gave up.

9:15 They had him. The trial nine days in April twenty twenty five. That's all it took. The prosecution's case was devastating, DNA on her body, photos of her on his phone, searches of the trail area, witnesses who saw him near the trail, the timeline from her Apple Watch showing the exact moment of death. The defense tried to argue mistaken identity. Kyle Stacy had described the man in the woods as tall, muscular with a blonde beard. Martinez Hernandez is five feet nine inches one hundred and sixty pounds with black hair, but Stacy only saw him for two seconds, two seconds in fading light, and when shown the shovel, Stacy said that appsence sslutely was what the man was holding. The defense suggested other men might have been interested in Rachel, that she attracted male attention, that her relationship with her new boyfriend might have upset someone else. The jury didn't buy it, less than fifty minutes, guilty on all counts, first degree murder, first degree rape, third degree sex offense, kidnapping.

10:24 When they read the verdict, Martinez Hernandez didn't react, stone faced, like he expected it, like he knew the evidence was overwhelming. The family, Let's talk about what this monster took away. Five children. Fay, the oldest, who texted her mom at seven o four pm and never got a response. In her victim impact statement, she said, before my mother was murdered, the world made sense to me. Violet fourteen, who testified at trial about the last text she got from her mom. Octavia, Declan and Lilah the youngest ones. They'll grow up with memories that fade more each year, graduate without her, get married without her, have children she'll never meet. Rachel's mother, Patty Morin became the face of this tragedy. She spoke at the Republican National Convention. Trump called her personally, not because this should be political, but because it became political.

11:26 An illegal immigrant who'd been deported three times murdered an American mother. The border debate in human form. Her brother Michael said at the convention, Rachel's murder was avoidable? Was it? If we'd kept him out the fourth time? Yes? If l Salvador had extradited him for murder. Yes. If he'd been caught after the Los Angeles assault, yes, if, if, if, But here's what kills me. Even if none of those systems had failed. He still chose to hide in those woods. He still chose to wait with a shovel. He still chose to attack a woman who was just trying to stay healthy for her kids. The sentencing Monday, August eleventh, twenty twenty five, four days ago, Prosecutor Alison Healy didn't mince words. The defendant is completely and entirely unamenable to treatment or rehabilitation. If he is released, our community is in grave danger. It's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when. Judge Yolanda Curtin agreed. Arguably, Harford County has never seen a case or a defendant more deserving of every single day of the maximum sentences. This court imposed life without parole for the murder, plus life for the rape, plus forty years for the sex offense and kidnapping. He's twenty four years old. He'll die in a Maryland prison. He'll never walk free again. His family tried to argue he had a difficult upbringing, that he deserved a chance at parole someday. The judge wasn't having it.

12:56 You don't get rehabilitation after what he did. You don't get second chances after you beat a mother to death with a rock. You know what haunts me about this case Kyle Stacy's testimony. I wish I said something. He saw Martinez Hernandez in the woods, felt something was wrong, got scared enough to leave, walked right past Rachel Moran thirty seconds later. What if he'd warned her, what if he'd called nine to one one? What if? What if? What if? But that's not on him. That's survivor's guilt talking. The only person responsible for Rachel Moran's death is the animal who got three life sentences this week. Here's what we know. Evil exists. It crosses borders, It hides in woods, It works at Popeyes. It looks normal until the moment it doesn't. And sometimes, despite all our systems and safeguards and deportations, it finds a thirty seven year old mother on a jogging trail and destroys everything. Rachel Moran ran that trail almost every day. It was her peace, her fitness routine, her moment away from the chaos of raising five kids and running a cleaning business. She was in the best shape of her life. She had a new boyfriend, her kids were thriving, She had plans, marathons to run, places to travel, grandchildren to meet someday. Five minutes, that's

14:26 all it took to end all of that. Five minutes between a spiking heart rate and silence. But here's the other side. It took the jury fifty minutes to convict him. It took the judge thirty seconds to sentence him to die in prison. It took a community ten months to track him down, but they never gave up. The system worked eventually, too late for Rachel, but in time to prevent the next victim, because there would have been a next victim. Prosecutor Heally was right. It wasn't a matter of if. But when men who beat women to death with rocks don't stop at one. So Victor Martinez Hernandez sits in a Maryland prison tonight, life without parole, no appeals, likely to succeed with that DNA evidence, No chance at freedom, no possibility of redemption, just decades of concrete and bars and remembering what he did. Meanwhile, five kids in Harford County are growing up without their mother, not because of a car accident or cancer or any of the random tragedies that strike families, but because a man with a murder warrant from El Salvador decided to hide in the woods with a shovel. Monday on celebrity trials were back to the Addleson Matriarch murder trial. Jury selection begins for the seventy five year old grandmother accused of orchestrating her son in law's murder. Plus updates on the Menendez brother's parole hearing. But today, remember Rachel Moren. Remember that she

15:59 fought back. Remember that she left DNA under her fingernails that caught her killer. Remember that she was more than a victim. She was a mother, a daughter, a sister, an athlete, an entrepreneur. And remember Kyle Stacy's words, I wish I said something. If you see something, say something. If someone makes you uncomfortable enough to leave, maybe warn the next person you see. Trust your instincts, they're usually right. I'm read Carter, and this is celebrity trials. Stay off isolated trails at dusk, keep your AirPods on low volume, and if you see someone in the woods with a shovel who makes your skin crawl, call nine one one