One winter day in late 2023, Victor Martinez-Hernandez sent a Facebook message to his family asking for help.
Using the alias Fernando Ismael, Martinez-Hernandez wrote that he was in Oxon Hill but had nowhere to live. Even though they were not particularly close, Jose Hernandez decided to let his cousin stay with him at his apartment at the time on 23rd Parkway in Temple Hills for about five months.
Then the FBI showed up.
Jose Hernandez later told his cousin about the visit. Without any warning, Martinez-Hernandez one day disappeared.
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“He took some clothing,” Jose Hernandez testified on Thursday through a Spanish language interpreter, “and he didn’t come back.”
The Harford County Sheriff’s Office soon after made a visit of its own, and Jose Hernandez provided investigators with footage from a video doorbell and a pair of shoes and clothing that his cousin left behind.
Detectives later obtained an arrest warrant for Martinez-Hernandez, 24, in the death of Rachel Morin, a 37-year-old mother of five who was killed on Aug. 5, 2023, on the Ma & Pa Heritage Trail in Bel Air. He’s now standing trial in Harford County Circuit Court on charges of first- and second-degree murder, first- and second-degree rape, third-degree sex offense and kidnapping.
Family members, coworkers and roommates testified about Martinez-Hernandez’s whereabouts before and after the killing. They cooperated with law enforcement and provided detectives with evidence that prosecutors allege ties him to the crime.
Circuit Judge Yolanda L. Curtin is presiding over the trial. Testimony is scheduled to resume on Friday.
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Prosecutors are seeking life in prison without the possibility of parole. He’s being held in the Harford County Detention Center without bail.
Martinez-Hernandez’s attorneys, Assistant Public Defenders Marcus Jenkins, Sawyer Hicks and Tara LeCompte, contend that there are unanswered questions and gaps in the case against their client.
Another one of Martinez-Hernandez’s cousins, Tania Hernandez, testified that he stayed with her in Alexandria, Virginia.
She said she provided the sheriff’s office with a toothbrush and blanket that her cousin left behind. That’s along with a selfie they took on Christmas in 2023.
“I collaborated with them, and I told them the truth,” she testified through a Spanish language interpreter.
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Testimony revealed that Martinez-Hernandez worked at Popeyes and Barrett’s On The Pike in Bel Air. From both restaurants, the trail is about 1 mile away.
The former general manager of the Popeyes, Ana Trejo, said Martinez-Hernandez applied using the name Roberto Campos.
Marcos Campos Guevara testified that he knew Martinez-Hernandez from El Salvador, and the two lived together at a house on George Street near Plumtree Park in Bel Air for about two years.
The home is also less than one mile away from the trail.
Guevara estimated that Martinez-Hernandez left in the summer of 2023.
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Harford County Sheriff’s Detective Michael Wilsynski testified that on June 13, 2024, he swabbed several items that Martinez-Hernandez’s cousins turned over to law enforcement for DNA.
They included a size 10 pair of Fila sneakers, a toothbrush and dirty clothes, including five black socks.
The lead investigator, Harford County Sheriff’s Detective Phil Golden, took those swabs the next day to the Maryland State Police for testing.
Golden testified that he later received the results. He had his primary suspect.
“Who was that suspect?” Harford County State’s Attorney Alison Healey asked.
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“Victor Antonio Martinez-Hernandez,” Golden replied.
He obtained an arrest warrant.
But the sheriff’s office did not know where Martinez-Hernandez was at that time. So, investigators asked T-Mobile to ping his cellphone for its location and received their answer: Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Detectives reached out to the Tulsa Police Department for assistance.
Tulsa Police Officer Kylee Delmont said the search that night for Martinez-Hernandez brought her to Los Dos Amigos Sports Bar.
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A security guard told police that Martinez-Hernandez was not there, she testified, but then reversed course.
“We ended up finding him,” Delmont said, “sitting at the bar.”
Delmont testified that Martinez-Hernandez repeatedly told her that his name was Juan Carlos. She asked him to smile because she’d noticed in photos that he had what she described as unique teeth.
Police arrested him.
Martinez-Hernandez eventually gave officers his real name, Tulsa Police Detective Steven Sanders said.
One of the security guards gave police a Samsung Galaxy A15, Sanders said.
Following his arrest, Martinez-Hernandez waived his Miranda rights after asking to have an attorney present and agreed to speak with detectives.
He denied that he had ever been to Maryland or Virginia.
Harford County Sheriff’s digital forensics supervisor Heather Marsh testified that she analyzed his phone and found evidence that Martinez-Hernandez watched news reports on YouTube about the investigation.
She said she also pulled out 12 specific words from the user dictionary, which included terms that people type or accept from predictive text.
They included “rachel,” “moring” and “asesino” — or Spanish for murderer.
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