Opening statements and testimony in the trial of Victor Martinez-Hernandez, the man accused of raping and killing Rachel Morin, began on Friday morning.People b
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'A mother's worst nightmare' | Opening statements delivered in Rachel Morin murder trial
Opening statements and testimony in the trial of Victor Martinez-Hernandez, the man accused of raping and killing Rachel Morin, began on Friday morning.
On Friday, the State's Attorney walked jurors through the case, calling it "a mother's worst nightmare."
She said Morin went to the Ma and Pa trail around 6:58 p.m. on August 5, 2023 and stopped responding to texts from family members shortly after.
Officials said that data from Morin's watch and phone show that sometime between 7:04 p.m. and 7:10 p.m., Morin was killed.
Authorities said her body was found in a storm drain after she had been brutally beaten.
The State's Attorney said during opening statements on Friday that officials were able to track down DNA from clothes and other belongings from family members that Martinez-Hernandez had lived with in Prince George's County.
Prosecutors say that that DNA matched what was found on Morin.
Martinez-Hernandez was later arrested in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and the prosecutions said that investigators found photos of Morin and web searches related to her and her death on his phone.
Officials say that Martinez-Hernandez claimed he was "never in Maryland."
Martinez-Hernandez's defense used opening statements to address the jury, and spent time talking to them about being fair and impartial.
They claimed that Martinez-Hernandez was not the man who committed the crime, and they even claimed that Morin had "attracted male attention."
The defense went on to question what the motive in the crime was, where the connection between Morin and Martinez-Hernandez lies, and asked about Morin's boyfriend, Richard Tobin, who had admitted to having sex with her on the day she died.