A digital forensics examiner rebuilt Rachel Morin’s destroyed cellphone and recovered her health data, including heart rate and calories burned leading up to the moment she was killed on the Ma & Ma Heritage Trail in August 2023.

The process to rebuild Morin’s iPhone XR, found shattered in water near her body, was outlined by Megan Waltimyer of the Harford County Sheriff’s Office Wednesday during the murder trial of Victor Antonio Martinez-Hernandez, who is charged in Morin’s killing.

Morin went missing on Aug. 5, 2023 after she went for a run on the Ma & Pa Trail in Bel Air. At about 7 p.m., that day Morin’s heart rate was at 95 beats per minute. At 7:02 p.m., her heart rate increased to 102 beats per minute, indicating that she was exercising, Waltimyer testified.

Using software, Waltimyer said she was able to extract all of the data from Morin’s phone and build a chronological timeline of data recorded on Morin’s phone such as her heart rate, and the last text message she sent to her daughter, Faye, at 7:04 p.m.

Investigators believe the attack occurred between 7:04 and 7:10 p.m.

Waltimyer testified in Harford County Circuit Court that Morin’s heart rate at 7:07 p.m. peaked at 115 beats per minute before dropping to 69 beats per minute two minutes later at 7:09 p.m. Calorie data showed that around 7:07 p.m. Morin was burning 136 calories. The data dropped to zero then went up to more than 200 calories burned seconds later. Morin’s devices stopped recording data at 7:10 p.m.

Waltimyer detailed the process she and other detectives went through after Morin’s broken cellphone was discovered in water near her body. Waltimyer said she instructed detectives to recover the phone in the water it was found in to protect what remained of the broken cellphone.

“The moment that phone comes out of the water and interacts with the air, starts the corrosion process,” Waltimyer said.

Morin’s phone had sustained the majority of the damage to the center left of the front screen, bending the battery. The phone was placed in a bag of 99% isopropyl alcohol for about 15 minutes to disperse any water and dirt, Waltimyer said. Once dried, Waltimyer removed the screen and focused on recovering the phone’s logic board — the area that stores the phone’s data. Since the logic board in an Iphone XR is a slim, rectangular piece Waltmyer said it was not damaged when the rest of the phone was.

She cleaned the logic board and placed it inside a different iPhone XR that she said served as a “shell” that would allow her to extract the data from the logic board. When the phone was powered on, Waltimyer said she was met with a screensaver photo of Morin and a prompt to enter a six-digit passcode. Morin’s children provided detectives with the passcode used to unlock the phone.

In June, Waltimyer was also tasked with analyzing a Samsung Galaxy A15 that was taken from Martinez-Hernandez when he was arrested in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Waltimyer said she tried six times to analyze the phone, but was unable to since she did not have the phone’s passcode.

Waltimyer testified that she was able to determine that Morin’s phone and Martinez-Hernandez’s phone had not communicated.

Defense attorneys did not cross examine Waltimyer, but did say that she could be called back to testify at a later date.

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