Man wanted for murder in Central America and Maryland arrested in Tulsa

By John Dobberstein, editor

Tulsa police arrested an El Salvador native wanted last year for a crime spree that spread from his own country to at least two U.S. states.

Victor Antonio Martinez Hernandez, 23, was arrested Friday evening while sitting at an East Tulsa bar and is preparing for extradition proceedings.

Authorities said Hernandez was wanted in El Salvador on murder charges. After that incident, he appeared in Los Angeles where he violently attacked a 9-year-old girl and her mother during a home invasion, Tulsa police said Saturday.

Hernandez then appeared in Harford County, Maryland, near Baltimore, where authorities said he killed Rachel Morin, a mother of 5, as she walked on a trail.

Authorities believe Hernandez was hiding next to a trail where Morin was walking and attacked and killed her before fleeing the state.

The FBI contacted detectives with the Tulsa Police Department's Special Investigations Division because they were working on information that the suspect was in the Tulsa area.

FBI and TPD detectives and patrol officers converged on a bar at 21st Street and Garnett Road and found Hernandez “casually sitting at the bar” and placed him under arrest. At first, the suspect lied about his true identity and denied knowledge of the crimes for which he was wanted, police said.

The suspect was booked into the Tulsa County Jail and is awaiting extradition for his various crimes.

Tulsa police said the arrest was the culmination of “extensive efforts by multiple agencies across the United States.” We are proud of our Tulsa police officers for stopping Hernandez’s violent attacks on innocent people.”

At a news conference announcing the arrest Saturday, reported by Fox News in Baltimore, Harford County Sheriff Jeffery Gahler said Martinez-Hernandez was charged with first-degree murder and first-degree rape.

He said Martinez-Hernandez crossed the U.S. border in February 2023 and believed Morin was not his first victim.

“It is my understanding that this suspect, this monster, fled to the United States after the murder of a young woman in El Salvador a month earlier, in January 2023,” Sheriff Gahler said. “Once in our country, he brutally attacked a nine-year-old girl and her mother during a March 2023 home invasion in Los Angeles. »

Fox News reported that the Los Angeles case was the hotline that allowed investigators to link DNA samples from the murder scene in Harford County to surveillance video of the suspect in California. That gave local and federal investigators their first images of Martinez-Hernandez, authorities said.

“After watching the video, we knew what he looked like, but we didn’t know who he was,” Gahler said.

FBI Baltimore Special Agent William DelBagno explained that they were able to trace his DNA to potential family members in El Salvador to help identify the suspect: Fox News reported.