Patty Morin, whose daughter Rachel was raped and murdered by an El Salvadorian fugitive in 2023, spoke with Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt at a White House briefing on Wednesday.
Morin described in detail the murder of her 37-year-old daughter, a mother of five, while she was exercising on a hiking trail outside Baltimore.
Victor Martinez-Hernandez, 24, was found guilty of the attack on Monday.
“This person took my daughter so violently and so gruesomely and so graphically that they sealed the pictures because I don’t want my granddaughters to see these pictures,” Morin told me.
President Trump has highlighted Rachel Morin’s story, arguing that the media should focus on her death rather than the mistaken deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who lived in Maryland before being sent to a notorious Salvadoran prison last month.
“There is no Maryland father,” Leavitt stated at the start of the briefing. “Kilmar Abrego Garcia is an illegal alien, MS-13 gang member, and foreign terrorist who was deported back to his home country.”
The government claims Abrego Garcia is affiliated with the Salvadoran gang MS-13, which his attorneys deny. Abrego Garcia has also not been charged with a crime, and his case is separate from that of Rachel Morin. A federal judge has ordered the Trump administration — which previously called his deportation a “administrative error” — to “facilitate” his return, which the Supreme Court has backed.
The White House added the Wednesday briefing late in the afternoon, announcing that a “special guest” would join the press secretary.
Morin asked reporters to tell the truth about her daughter’s story as she stepped down from the podium. “It’s about national security, protecting Americans, protecting our children,” Mr. Morin said.