Rachel Morin, a 37-year-old mother of five, left for a jog in her sleepy Maryland community on Aug. 5, 2023, and never came home.
Police found her brutalized remains stuffed in a culvert and, after a months-long investigation, identified her suspected killer as an illegal immigrant from El Salvador who is also accused of murder in his home country and raping a mother and her 9-year-old daughter in Los Angeles.
The case attracted national attention even before the suspect was identified as a migrant from El Salvador, Victor Antonio Martinez-Hernandez, 23. Afterward, former President Trump expressed his condolences to the family and invited Morin's mother, Patty, as well as other victims' relatives to the southern border.
The House Judiciary Committee invited the same families to testify on Capitol Hill.
The panel's top-ranked Democrat, Rep. Jerrold Nadler of New York, appeared to nod off at one point, closing his eyes, lowering his head and irking spectators. More than a year after the murder, neither President Biden nor Vice President Harris have contacted the family, Patty Morin told Fox News Digital.
"It showed what the attitude of the entire Democratic Party is," said Cathie Groenewold, Morin's church friend who took the picture. "And they thought we were using this as a stunt, or the Republicans were using this as a stunt, but I’m sorry, these women are drawing attention to a serious issue."
BIDEN-HARRIS OPEN BORDER POLICY FREED ILLEGAL 3 WEEKS BEFORE JOCELYN NUNGARAY MURDER, MOTHER SAYS
Patty Morin said she traveled to the Capitol in a bid to get lawmakers to take the border crisis more seriously. If routine protocols had been followed – like taking a DNA swab and a photo of Martinez-Hernandez when he was stopped at the border – her daughter could still be alive.
That's because Interpol already had an arrest warrant with his name on it in connection with another woman's death.
"I realize some of you are disinterested in this because you just think it's a partisan thing, but these are American people," Morin told lawmakers at the hearing. "We need to close the borders. … These people that are coming over the border, if they're coming over illegally, it's because they have something to hide."
She said migrants who immigrate through the legal process are vetted to protect both themselves and the American public.
"I just left the southern border," she continued. "When I spoke to Border Patrol, and they showed me their gunshot wounds. They told me their stories about how they suffered broken necks, broken backs, fractured skulls. It's a war zone there, and we need to close it. We need to put those policies back into place that kept our citizens safe."
She even revealed publicly for the first time that she survived a kidnapping herself as a child in an effort to convince lawmakers to do something about the threat of violence against women.
BIDEN-HARRIS BORDER CRISIS: VICTIMS OF ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT CRIME TESTIFY IN HOUSE HEARING
TRUMP MEETS WITH RACHEL MORIN FAMILY AT BORDER
"I can tell you that what I suffered as a teenager at the hands of a criminally insane man is nothing compared to the horrors that my daughter suffered, and it's because of these open borders," she told the lawmakers.
Her daughter had been brutalized so badly, she testified, that even after the morticians tried to make her up for the funeral, she was unrecognizable.
"I wanted them to know from a victim's perspective that I, in a small way, understood some of the things that my daughter endured and the importance of speaking up and advocating for her and for all the women that don't have a voice here in America," he said. "The way that they just brush off this immigration like it's nothing when women are literally getting attacked every day."
After the hearing, however, Morin told Fox News Digital she believed her story had fallen on deaf ears. Few Democrats asked the witnesses questions, she said, she accused Nadler of falling asleep and said she felt slighted by California Rep. Eric Swalwell's demeanor, too.
"What I would really like to come across is that I really want the American people, members of Congress, senators, presidents … I want everyone to actually listen to our voices, listen to our words, listen to what we have to say and take it to heart," she said. "It’s hard to verbalize the message to them because they already have the mindset that this is a political thing, that you’re either for immigration or you're against immigration. I don’t think Americans are against immigration if it’s done correctly."
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
