The Daily Signal - How Police Found Illegal Alien Accused of Raping, Murdering Maryland Mother

Episode Date: July 8, 2024

Harford County, Maryland, Sheriff Jeffrey Gahler says he doesn't wonder if another American will become the victim of a violent crime at the hands of an illegal alien, but rather, when.  “I don't ask myself if it's going to happen. I just ask when it's going to happen,” Gahler said, adding that as was recently the case in his own community, it's often women who are the victims of “this failure of the federal immigration system.”  The sheriff received notification on Aug. 5, 2023, that a woman had gone missing. Rachel Morin, a mother of five, had left to run errands and to exercise on a local trail, but never returned home. The next day, law enforcement found her body off the trail in a culvert.  An investigation involving local, state, and federal authorities was launched, and in June, Victor Antonio Martinez-Hernandez, an illegal alien from El Salvador, was arrested in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and charged in the rape and murder of Morin.  Martinez-Hernandez, 23, crossed the U.S. southern border illegally in February 2023, according to Gahler. “The current administration came in with a message of 'come to our country, the borders are open,' Gahler said, adding “way too many people heard that, too many criminals, too many terrorists listen loud and clear, and they did just that.”  Gahler joins “The Daily Signal Podcast” to discuss the investigation that led to Martinez-Hernandez’s arrest, and what the Biden administration can and should do to prevent the loss of future American lives at the hands of illegal immigrants.  Enjoy the show! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The border was much more secure for a period of four years with the last administration. The current administration came in with a message of, come to our country, the borders are open, and way too many people heard that, too many criminals, too many terrorists listened loud and clear, and they did just that. This is the Daily Signal podcast for Monday, July 8th. I'm Virginia Allen, and that was Sheriff Jeffrey Gaylor of Hartford County, Maryland. tragedy struck Hartford County, Maryland last August when a mother of five went missing. Rachel Moran's body was found off of a local walking trail after her family notified authorities

that she had not returned home after going out to exercise. When her body was found, it was discovered that she had been raped and murdered. In June, after a lengthy investigation, an illegal alien from El Salvador was arrested for Rachel's murder. Sheriff Jeffrey Gaylor joins the show today to discuss the case how law enforcement track down the suspect and why the border crisis is affecting communities across the United States, even though those communities are hundreds of miles away from the southern border. Stay tuned for my conversation with Sheriff Gaylor after this. Hi, I'm John Carlo Canaparo. And I'm Zach Smith. And we host Scotus 101.

It's a podcast where you'll get a breakdown. of top cases in the highest court in the land. Hear from some of the greatest legal minds. And of course, get a healthy dose of Supreme Court trivia. Want to listen? Find us wherever you get your podcasts or just head to heritage.org slash podcasts. I am so pleased today to welcome to the Daily Signal podcast, Harford County, Maryland Sheriff, Jeffrey Gaylor.

Sheriff, thank you so much for being with us today. I really, really appreciate your time. Sure. Thank you for the invite to come on. It's a sad case to talk about, but I, you know, glad people have been interested in following Rachel's story and, you know, pleased that we're able to have a conclusion, at least to the arrest. And hopefully the rest of the story will play out just as well with the prosecution. Yeah, that closure I know is so, so significant for the family to know who carried out the crime. And we're going to talk more about that in just a minute. Sheriff, how long have you served as the sheriff in your county? I'm in my third term, 10 years. So two more years remaining in this term. Before that, I did 28 years with the Maryland State Police.

So I'm in my 40th year of law enforcement. It looks like I'm in my 60th or 70th. The years haven't been easy, but I'm in my 40th year now. Wow. Ways on you. What is the situation regarding crime in Herford County, Maryland? Is violent crime a major issue and has it been an issue for a long time in the county? No, we are thankfully in a very peaceful community, a very peaceful county, you know, not immune

from some of the worst things that we can see, as in Rachel's case. And we lost two of our deputies in 2016. We've had several high-profile incidents during my tenure as sheriff. overall, we average five or six homicides a year, many of them domestic violence related or related to drugs and criminal activity. We're 30 minutes north of Baltimore, so we certainly get spillover from that community. But this case was just so far out of the norm for anything that we normally see. Yeah.

Well, let's go ahead and talk about Rachel Morin's case. Let's go back to August 2023. When did your office learn that Rachel was missing? This is a mom of five lives in the community. She went out for a jog. When did you all get the call? Hey, we can't find Rachel. Yeah, I want to say, and the dates you're getting all confused in my head.

August 5th was a weekend day, I believe it was a Saturday. And she was reported missing later in the day, according to family members who reported her missing she had gone for a errands and then for a walk on the trail, which was part of her routine walk run jogging on the hiking trail. It's one of the converted old railroad trails that say hiking, biking path now, a very popular, very, very safe. In fact, I've said in many interviews that my backyard, my wife and I built our house 22 years ago on a portion of this trail because our backyard hit a portion of this trail. I have two adult daughters now, but we never worried about them being out along the trail. My wife and I walk it often, and just that safe.

So sadly, we took the missing person report. Ironically, Rachel's case was one of two women that were reported missing overnight, and there were concerns in the community that perhaps they were related. We knew from the circumstances that they were not. But unfortunately, in Rachel's case, the other one ended fine. The woman was located. She had gone missing of her own volition. In Rachel's case, however, these were all like five miles apart. But in Rachel's case, unfortunately, the next morning her body was discovered a short distance off the trail near a highway that runs over top of the trail in the woods.

And she had been murdered. Talk a little bit about what those immediate days after Rachel Moran's body is found, it's discovered not only was she killed, she was also raped. What were the immediate steps that your office took in the investigation? Were there any leads right away? The investigators went out, and of course, we were doing everything you would normally do. The scene was processed by our crime lab personnel. Investigators immediately went to work. We've been doing canvases.

Her vehicle was found where she normally parked it in a parking lot here, actually in town, the town of Bel Air, where my office is located. It's right behind a popular brewery and some other businesses there that are frequenting, and near some condos. Her car was found in the parking lot there the night before. So, you know, processing the car, processing the scene, interviewing family members, looking for witnesses, doing business canvases, looking for cameras. All that, I'll say normal investigation was underway very aggressively by our men and women, our detectives.

And the big break, I think, in the case came about two weeks later when one of the DNA evidence that was collected at the homicide scene here hit against the case in Los Angeles, California from March of 2023. Wow. Okay. So there's a matching DNA test that comes back. Did that reveal the identity of the suspect? Now, many people were confused about that. When we released a short, we recovered, thankfully, what happened there in March of 23 was a home invasion in Los Angeles where the individual is suspected to have entered the house, not through the front door. And this is someone else's investigation, so I'm always a leery about discussing their case. But from what we know about it and what we can discuss, a home invasion where they entered,

not through the front door, and then attacked. a nine and a half year old girl in that house. That was interrupted by another individual in the house. That assault was stopped. And the suspect walked out the front door and in a very calm manner walked out and you see his side profile in the back of him as he walked away with his shirt off. And many people, including our investigators, you know, thought that he looked awful calm, leaving that residence after having just committed a violent assault. And we agreed. But everyone out there was interviewed. The story has held over time and consistent, and we believe that is exactly what happened. That police department is working that case. But thankfully, those police officers who responded

to that home that night did recover some evidence from that scene submitted in the property, and DNA was lifted and entered into the FBI's CODA system. And of course, we got the hit back to our crime here in August, six months later in Maryland. Wow. So ultimately, the lead suspect in Rachel's death and in that situation that we just spoke of in California, that suspect was arrested, but not in Maryland, not in California, but actually in Tulsa, Oklahoma. And this individual is an illegal alien from El Salvador. How did you all find him? How did investigators find him in Tulsa? Well, and the investigation lasted 10 months. You know, I think many, you know, our community, we have great, great community support. But you can't go 10 months without, you know, having the moments of doubt where, you know, you wonder whether you're going to successfully be able to find, you know, we live in a world of billions of people.

And all we had was the DNA hit that it was associated with no name. So, you know, we knew what the person looked like. We knew he was of Hispanic descent, but he had not been arrested and processed where his DNA had been taken to put a name with the video image that we had. So we're looking for the literal needle in a haystack anywhere in the world. And, of course, the major concern is he did something out there. Six months later, he killed Rachel here. What else is he up to out in the world? Who else is at risk?

Everybody's at risk until he was apprehended. So you have moments of doubt, but our investigators continue to work the case. And I don't think that they ever had a moment of doubt. I don't think our men and women ever had a moment of doubt. But they continued to work the case aggressively. They worked with our state partners, particularly the Maryland State Police, the organization I previously served in, their crime lab. I can't say enough good about their assistance. The FBI and Department of Homeland Security, but the FBI field office, specifically the

work at Baltimore Field Office, specifically all the work that they did. And the FBI SAC, the special agent in charge of the Baltimore office, came to our press conference announcing the arrest. And he explained the DNA, the genealogy associated with the DNA tracking, how they were able to narrow it down to a very specific pool. And then we recovered some evidence from following the leads that they gave us. They tied us directly to physical evidence recovered from a house down in Prince George's County, Maryland, which is down near D.C., the other side of our state, with a direct match, and that's what gave us the name of our suspect, gave us that direct match, took us from a planet of billions of people that

were looking for to one person with a specific name, the suspect in this case, and we obtained an arrest warrant. And I thought it would take maybe a couple weeks to find him. But again, working with our federal partners, Department of Homeland Security, a true team effort at state, local, and federal level. Within five hours, they were able to use technology to track him cell phones and IP addresses and such, not to a bar in Tulsa, Oklahoma. And they sent the officers in there, located him, identified him, and brought him into custody just, I guess now, a week and a half ago. Okay. Wow. And right after that arrest, your office, you all held a press conference announcing that a suspect, lead suspect, has been arrested for the murder, the rape

of Rachel Moran. Talk a little bit about that coordination, for one, and also I know you said during that press conference that this is not actually tragically the first time in your county that a citizen has been murdered by someone who entered the country illegally. How many other times this has happened in your county? Well, the only one I'm familiar with is 2022, the year before Rachel's case, a local municipal agency Aberdeen here in our county. There's three municipal jurisdictions that have their own police departments. They handled the case, a homicide of a 20-year-old young lady in their community, and that was committed by, they arrested a 17-year-old MS-13 member illegally in the country from El Salvador.

In that case, he currently sits in our detention center up the road here, my jail, awaiting trial on her murder. As with Rachel's murder, he's also in our jail now. But talking about the press conference when we announced it, as I said, we had met with the family earlier to let them know that we had identified and obtained an arrest warrant for the suspect, but we asked them, thinking it would take days or weeks perhaps to locate him, we asked them not to share. And a very tough thing.

You know, the family has been waiting on pins and needles for 10 months, and they hear this news that we now have a name and an arrest warrant. And we asked them not to share that because we don't want to, you know, him to become aware through any association and skip out of or try to hide more than what he is doing from us. So, you know, we asked almost the impossible of them. But at the press conference, Rachel's family members came. Patty spoke. And if you heard, you know, the mom's broken heart, you know, how can it not touch you? Just so tragic and, again, so unnecessary. And one of the facts that we shared in that is that it wasn't the first case for our suspect.

Rachel wasn't his first homicide victim either. He's accused of killing a woman in his home country of El Salvador in jail. January of 23 and most likely why he fled that jurisdiction, that that's area to come here to the United States. And I've said several times, he didn't come here to make a better life for himself or his family or things like that. He came here to be a criminal fleeing a crime, a horrific crime, to be a criminal to prey on people. I'm thankful that the young girl in Los Angeles didn't suffer anymore, that that crime was interrupted, or we probably be talking about three murdered women instead of just two. But again, Rachel's case is a tragic example what's wrong with our immigration

system in the country. Yeah. Maryland is not a border state, and yet you all are dealing firsthand with the fallout of illegal immigration. Why do you think that is? Well, I've sat on the border committee for National Sheriffs for my entire 10 years. As soon as I came into office, I ran on one of the, I ran on the fact that we needed to do a better job at the federal level on our immigration system. And that was mostly surrounding the flow of heroin and fentanyl into our country across the southern border. And, of course, through different presidential administrations and different priorities,

the border was much more secure for a period of four years with the last administration. The current administration came in with a message of come to our country, the borders are open, and way too many people heard that, too many criminals. criminals to me terrorists listened loud and clear, and they did just that. I've been to the border myself and seen the problems, talk to the experts, the cartels are trafficking people, you know, the horrific murders of Lake and Riley, you know, you just name them all in Georgia, what happened to Rachel, just case after case that we continue to see in the news. I think that pales in comparison to the women and the children that are lost coming across, you know, trying to be smuggled

into the country by the cartel and being, you know, forced into human trafficking. The stories are horrific. And it's up to our federal government to get in there and fix these things because they are the lead on immigration. Do you worry that another situation like what happened to Rachel will happen again in your county or in the state of Maryland where a criminal illegal alien has entered the country and carries out criminal activity? Oh, I don't have to worry about it. It's going to happen. There's nothing special here. We are a small safe community, again, 30 minutes north of Baltimore, south of Pennsylvania. We, you know, 260,000 people. And we've had two of these cases in back-to-back years, 1 in 22 and Rachel's case in 23. It's happening, and we see it in the news. It's happening every day in our country. So I don't have to ask, you know, I don't ask myself if it's going to happen. I just ask when it's going to happen. and which, you know, in most cases, it's the women who is going to be the next victim of this failure of the federal immigration system. What can and should be done at both a state and federal level to help prevent and mitigate future situations where people like Rachel are targeted?

Well, I think first and foremost you have to secure the southern border. And that also addresses the fentanyl and heroin flowing in targeting. country across the southern border. And I wrote a letter back in 18 or 19 calling on that. So again, this is not a new issue of the border. It's just become more aggravated under the current administration because of more laxed policies or lack of enforcement of the policies and the laws that we have. So first and foremost, secure the southern border, come up with a process that actually works where people can come to our country. What makes our country great is that we are a blending pot of so many different cultures. But there needs to be a way to do that, to come through

the port of entries, to come in legally, to apply for citizenship, if that's what you desire, that follow the rules. And that's what we need to do instead of just saying, you know, come on through and do whatever you want to whoever you want. That is not good practice. I stood at my wife's grandmother's naturalization ceremony. She came here when her husband died in Taiwan. And she was in her late 70s then, but it was important enough to her to be in this country. She came legally to be in this country to apply for citizenship and become a naturalized citizen because she wanted to, you know, even that late in life, she wanted to follow the rules and take pride in the country she was now living in. And that's the people that we want to come here.

They want to contribute positively to our society, and they're out there, and we need them. But we have to look out for public safety first and foremost. is that's certainly my job. And any person who takes the oath of office, no matter what your job is, the protection of our citizens. And just letting people pour into our country, and we know terrorists are amongst them, is not doing your, following your oath of office. Yeah. Yeah. Sheriff, before we let you go, can you give us an update on how Rachel Morin's family is doing? She leaves behind five children, a mom, a community that loved her. How are they holding up? Well, and you saw Rachel's mom again, speak at the press conference.

We used the word closure, and I love that word, but I hate that word because nothing's going to, nothing other than bringing Rachel back, you know, nothing other than doing the impossible is going to make that family whole. They will all live with this the rest of their days. Her oldest daughter is now expecting. So it's just, you know, they are getting by. They have been, I think, you know, to speak, I hate to speak for them. They've done a great job speaking for themselves. but they are getting by. And I think the news of making sure that this monster is behind bars and not able to do this to anyone else is maybe a relief is the best word for them. But you can't say they're doing great because they'll never do great again. They'll carry this horrific memory with them for the rest of their days. But I've got to say, our community and the world has followed this story and they have been so great we've received. and I'm sure they have. We've received so many letters and packages, and I came to work last week. I was at National Sheriff's actually at the Border Committee meeting in Oklahoma. I drove up to Tulsa

and thanked the chief and the sheriff up there for their help during the investigation, but we were in Oklahoma City. And I came back and there were a box of hand-stitched teddy bears that some, a woman from California had sent here for the Moor and family. Just those touching acts, I think, are just so heartwarming and reassuring that, there are good people out there in the world after such a horrific event. Yeah, that's beautiful, really powerful. Sheriff, thank you for your time. We really appreciate your work. You're being willing to speak out on this issue, to speak the truth on this issue. And we really appreciate you being willing to join the show today. Thank you for having me on. With that, that's going to do it for today's episode. Thanks for joining us here on the Daily School podcast. We'll be back with you around

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