Kristi Noem responds to life sentence for the Rachel Morin Killer affair

EXCLUSIVE: Internal security secretary Kristi Noem responded to the conviction of the killer of Rachel Morin on Monday.

Victor Martinez-Hernandez, an illegal immigrant from El Salvador, is sentenced to life without parole for murder, kidnapping and rape, the mother of Maryland, 37, in August 2023. He was found guilty of the accusations in April. More specifically, it is faced with two perpetuity sentences in more than an additional 40 years.

“Today, the killer of Rachel Morin was sentenced to life without parole for his brutal murder. This illegal criminal foreigner should never have been in our country in the first place. Rachel should still be here by looking at his 5 growing children,” Noem said in a shared statement with Fox News Digital.

Rachel Morin’s mother explains a careful editorial process to be read during the condemnation of Killer

Rachel Morin was dragged by a hiking trail on August 5, 2023 and brutally murdered. (Family document)

“We hear too much in the consumer media on stories of sobs of gang members and illegal criminals and not enough of their victims. May God bless Rachel and his family,” she added.

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Martinez-Hernandez entered the United States in 2023 during the border crisis of the Biden era. He was arrested in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in June 2024.

Morin disappeared on the MA & PA path in Bel Air, Maryland, and his remains were found the next day in a nearby drain hose, according to the police at the time. He beat Morin’s head with rocks, then violated his corpse before trying to hide it in the pipe, according to DHS.

The DHS stops five illegal immigrants found guilty of serious crimes, including the murder and mistreatment of children

Internal security secretary Kristi Noem, Cuddles Patty Morin, mother of the victim of the murder Rachel Morin, on June 20, 2025. (Department of Internal Security)

His family was vocal defenders in the public sphere after his murder.

“Unfortunately, Rachel’s story is not an isolated tragedy. It is one of the many victims of our state and our country who suffered in the hands of people who should never have been here because of the failures of Biden’s administration,” his mother wrote his mother in an article of opinion for Fox News on April 29.

The conviction comes as the Trump administration is continuing mass deportations, the agency highlighting the arrests of illegal immigrants who have been charged or recognized guilty of other crimes.

Patty Morin, mother of the victim of Homicide Rachel Morin, speaks during a press conference of the White House on April 16, 2025, next to Karoline Leavitt, press secretary of the White House. (Getty Images)

DHS also notes the reopening of the victims of the Immigration Crime Commitment Bureau who was launched during the first term of President Donald Trump. The office provides a hotline and services to victims and their families.

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“The presence of Rachel Morin was powerful in the courtroom today while his children, his brothers and sisters and his mother talked about the heart,” the lawyer for the Morin family, Randolph Rice, in Fox News Digital, said on Monday. “They shared their deep love for her, the irreplaceable emptiness that her absence left in their lives and their unwavering commitment to honor her memory by looking for justice today and protecting others against the same fate.”

Taylor Penley from Fox News Digital and Sarah Rumpf-Whitten contributed to this report.