Cecilia Occorso heard there was a missing person in Harford County, and she wanted to help.

She found out about the search for Rachel Morin, a 37-year-old mother of five who owned a housecleaning business, on Facebook. So Occorso said she told her friend, Evan Knapp, and they decided on Aug. 6, 2023, to go to the Ma & Pa Heritage Trail in Bel Air.

Occorso said the two walked down what she described as a deer path. That’s when they stumbled upon a bloody rock and leaves.

Knapp walked around a sticker bush, she said, and peered into a drainage tunnel that ran under Maryland Route 24.

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“He got quiet for a moment. I asked him if he was OK,” Occorso testified. “And he had told me that she was lying there in the tunnel.”

Read more coverage of the trial of Victor Martinez-Hernandez

Prosecutors continued presenting their case on Monday against the man arrested in the killing, Victor Martinez-Hernandez, who’s 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. Several witnesses testified on Monday about the search and collection of evidence at the crime scene.

Martinez-Hernandez is being held in the Harford County Detention Center without bail. Prosecutors are seeking life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Circuit Judge Yolanda L. Curtin is presiding over the trial, which will resume on Tuesday.

Occorso testified that she immediately called 911.

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Harford County State’s Attorney Alison Healey played a recording of the 911 call to the jury.

“Hey. We found the missing woman. She’s dead,” Occorso told a dispatcher. “She’s in the tunnel.”

Occorso seemed distraught and hysterical on the phone. At one point, she remarked that she might pass out.

She said she was “just trying to help.”

“Thank you very much for searching and finding her,” the dispatcher replied.

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Harford County Sheriff’s Deputy First Class Joshua Danmyer responded to the call and saw Morin’s body 10 to 15 feet inside the tunnel.

“Was the female moving?” Deputy State’s Attorney David Ryden asked.

“No,” Danmyer responded. “The female was motionless. She was laying mostly unclothed.”

Morin, he said, was “obviously deceased.”

Later, Deputy First Class Christopher McGann took part in a search for evidence and found an Apple Watch.

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The face of the watch, he said, had been shattered.

Detectives also located an iPhone XR inside the tunnel and collected the phone. The screen had been smashed.

Meanwhile, law enforcement discovered one Apple AirPod inside the tunnel.

Detective Michael Wilsynski, in consultation with the Maryland Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, swabbed Morin’s body for DNA.

Law enforcement, he testified, “didn’t want to lose any potential evidence from the scene.”

Those swabs would later prove crucial in the investigation.