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(NewsNation) — The parent of a Maryland woman who was murdered portion jogging successful 2023 said the antheral convicted of sidesplitting her girl is the archetypal clip she has "seen an evil person."
"I ne'er believed that men were wholly evil, but this is the archetypal clip that I truly deliberation that I person seen an evil person," Patty Morin said Tuesday connected NewsNation's "Banfield." "It's frightening. And helium lived present successful Bel Air among us, adjacent aft her murder."
A assemblage recovered Victor Martinez-Hernandez, 23, blameworthy of first-degree premeditated murder, first-degree rape and kidnapping successful the decease of Rachel Morin aft deliberating for little than an hour. The nine-day proceedings concluded with a verdict that volition apt effect successful a beingness condemnation without anticipation of parole.
Martinez-Hernandez entered the U.S. illegally aggregate times from his autochthonal El Salvador, wherever helium was accused of murdering a pistillate successful December of 2022. He was expelled each clip helium crossed the borderline successful aboriginal 2023.
He aboriginal appeared successful Los Angeles aft a palmy effort to get into the country, wherever helium was linked to the battle of a pistillate and her 9-year-old daughter.
Patty Morin expressed mixed emotions astir the verdict but said she was "happy" that justness had been recovered for her daughter.
"The grounds presented was truthful irrefutable that we genuinely judge that helium was the murderer," she said. "To spot the process and to recognize the crime, and past to spot the jurors wage attraction to the details of the lawsuit arsenic presented, and to travel backmost with a verdict ... it felt similar yet it was over."
DNA grounds linked Hernandez to some the execution country successful Maryland and an battle successful Los Angeles months earlier.
Two of Rachel Morin's daughters testified during the trial, including her 14-year-old, who was the past idiosyncratic to talk with her before she disappeared.
Rachel Morin, 37, was past seen live astatine astir 6 p.m. Saturday erstwhile she near to instrumentality a locomotion connected a quality trail. (Photo: Harford County Sheriff's Office)
Rachel Morin was recovered dormant successful August 2023 aft she went missing portion going connected a run.
(Credit: Facebook)
A memorial for Rachel Morin is displayed connected a histrion connected the Ma & Pa Trail successful Bel Air, Maryland. (Dillon Mullan/Baltimore Sun/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)
"She broke down connected the witnesser basal trying to support herself composed to reply questions," Patty Morin said. "And past erstwhile she's leaving the courtroom, you conscionable perceive her conscionable interruption retired into these heart-wrenching sobs."
When asked astir imaginable punishment, Morin expressed conflicted feelings astir the decease penalty, which is not an enactment successful Maryland. She besides voiced concerns astir proposals to nonstop convulsive criminals to service sentences successful different countries, saying she preferred certainty that Martinez-Hernandez would stay incarcerated successful the United States.
Rachel Morin, a parent of five, was described by her genitor arsenic "a precise loving person" who "had compassion connected everyone."
"She accepted radical astatine look value. She was precise authentic, and she's idiosyncratic that is going to beryllium greatly missed," Patty Morin said.
The lawsuit gained nationalist attraction partially owed to the migration presumption of Martinez-Hernandez.
