The suspected murderer of Rachel Morin crossed the border illegally at least three times within two months

The alleged Salvadoran gang member accused of raping and killing a Maryland mother of five entered the United States illegally three times in two months and was kicked out – before apparently finally evading agents on the fourth attempt.

Victor Antonio Martinez-Hernandez, 23, illegally crossed the southern border once near El Paso, Texas, in January 2023, a second time that same month in New Mexico, and a third time in New Mexico in February 2023, Department of Homeland Security sources told The Post on Monday.

Martinez-Hernandez – who is allegedly linked to a gang in El Salvador and is suspected of killing 37-year-old mother Rachel Morin on a hiking trail in Maryland – is believed to have murdered another woman in the Central American country before entering the United States.

After each of his illegal border crossings, the suspect was caught by border officials and thrown out of the country, according to the scant records on his case. There is no information about a possible immigration court hearing in which the suspected double murderer will seek asylum in the United States.

DHS sources believe Martinez-Hernandez may have been sent back to Mexico each time he attempted to cross the border and then crossed the border a fourth time as a “fugitive” who evaded capture to remain in the United States.

Neither Immigration and Customs Enforcement nor the Department of Homeland Security responded Monday to The Post’s request for comment on how Martinez-Hernandez was able to remain in the U.S., where he is accused of committing a series of heinous crimes, including Morin’s murder.

Martinez-Hernandez was in the U.S. for six months before allegedly killing Morin in August 2023 as she walked alone on the Ma & Pa Heritage Trail in Bel Air.

The mother’s naked body was found with signs of severe injuries. Her family said it appeared as if “her head had been smashed with a rock.”

Police were able to match the suspected murderer’s DNA from the crime scene to a DNA sample recovered from a burglary and subsequent assault of a young girl in Los Angeles about a month after the murder. Surveillance footage of the perpetrator from the burglary was also released.

A sketch of the suspect was released in February, but it took police another three months, until May, to finally identify the accused gang member as a suspect in both crimes.

Martinez-Hernandez was finally tracked down in Tulsa, Oklahoma, two weeks ago and arrested shortly before midnight on Friday.

Harford County Sheriff Jeffrey Gahler stressed during a press conference on Saturday that Martinez-Hernandez “did not come to this country to make a better life for himself or his family – he came here to escape the crimes he committed in El Salvador.”

“He came here to murder Rachel and, God willing, no one else,” he added.

“But that should never have happened.”