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Fourteen years after authorities found Faith Hedgepeth dead, the 19-year-old’s final hours played out in a North Carolina courtroom, where tearful testimony and questions about missing evidence marked the opening days of a murder trial.
Miguel Enrique Salguero-Olivares, 33, is on trial in Durham County Superior Court on charges of first-degree murder, rape, sexual offense and burglary in the 2012 killing of Hedgepeth, a biology student at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. Hedgepeth’s family members said they did not know his alleged killer and that the two had no known prior interactions.
The trial is in its second week, with Dr. Heather Waleski, a sexual assault nurse examiner at Atrium Health, testifying about the forensic evidence.
The first days of testimony brought witnesses, spectators and jurors to tears, the 9th Street Journal reported. A forensic technician showed the jury the murder weapon. Close-up photographs of Hedgepeth’s face and body prompted some court spectators to cover their faces.
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University of North Carolina student Faith Hedgepeth was murdered in 2012. (Courtesy of Ronald Hedgepeth)
Graphic descriptions of internal head trauma overwhelmed the jury box, prompting the judge to recess the hearing Friday.
Prosecutors and defense attorneys have clashed over whether the DNA evidence revealed the killer or whether it was an unreliable investigation in which key physical evidence disappeared.
Discovering a roommate
Hedgepeth’s roommate, Karena Rosario, now 34, sobbed Wednesday as she recalled finding Hedgepeth naked from the waist down in their shared bedroom in a nearby off-campus apartment off Old Chapel Hill Road.
“I walked around the bed and saw hair. I pulled down the comforter and saw she had a black eye,” Rosario said, ABC 11 reported.
Rosario took jurors back to Sept. 6, 2012, when she and Hedgepeth were studying in a campus library before returning to their apartment to change. The couple then went to The Thrill nightclub.
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Karena Rosario and Faith Hedgepeth are pictured together. (Courtesy of Ronald Hedgepeth)
They returned to the apartment around 3:40 a.m. Rosario said she became ill from the alcohol before leaving around 4:25 a.m. to stay at a friend’s house.
Rosario said Hedgepeth was conscious and breathing when she left.
Later, she called Hedgepeth for a ride. Hedgepeth did not return the call.
Another friend, Marisol Rangel, drove Rosario home. They entered the apartment around 11 a.m. and found Hedgepeth next to his bed, Rosario said.
Rosario described blood on the walls, bed and Hedgepeth’s arm. She told a 911 dispatcher that Hedgepeth was cold to the touch.
Rosario said she asked for an ambulance when police arrived.
“I asked if they were still going to bring the ambulance, but they said it was gone,” she testified.
DNA tests
Police collected DNA at the scene and tested hundreds of samples from people linked to Hedgepeth. None match.
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Investigators eventually turned to genetic genealogy, a technique that compares DNA from crime scenes with profiles in public ancestry databases. The information led to Salguero-Olivares, a stranger to Hedgepeth’s relatives.
Miguel Enrique Salguero-Olivares was charged with the 2012 murder of Faith Hedgepeth. (Raleigh County/Wake City Identification Bureau)
Authorities were granted a reprieve nearly a decade later. On September 16, 2021, police arrested Salguero-Olivares during a DUI stop in Wake County, North Carolina. After obtaining a DNA sample, they charged him with murder.
Prosecutors later added charges of rape, sexual offenses and burglary.
The proof
On Friday, prosecutors presented items recovered from the room, including a bottle of Bacardi rum, a bottle of wine and a crumpled bag of cookies from the Time-Out restaurant.
Investigators found a crude handwritten message on the fast food bag that read: “I’m not stupid, you bastard. Jealous.”
Chapel Hill police forensic technician Tamika Price presented the court with the 1.75-liter rum bottle, which prosecutors identified as the murder weapon used to deliver blows to Hedgepeth’s head.
“When I put my hands on his head, I could feel the side of his head which was very soft. It was indented,” Price testified, ABC 11 reported.
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The jury heard how investigators found the defendant’s DNA on the fast food bag and rum bottle.
Survey Questions
During cross-examination, defense attorney James J. Rainsford emphasized how they collected and preserved evidence at the crime scene.
Price admitted under oath that processing errors were made. She admitted she was still in training during the 2012 investigation.
From left, Faith’s sister Rolanda Hedgepeth, mother Connie Hedgepeth and cousin Jonathan Hedgepeth join other family, friends and community members at a candlelight vigil at the Haliwa-Saponi Tribal School in Hollister, North Carolina, to remember and pray for Faith Hedgepeth. (Corey Lowenstein/Raleigh News & Observer/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)
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Rainsford questioned why investigators didn’t photograph the rum bottle before recovering it, and asked why they didn’t recover other items from the apartment.
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The defense also focused on a missing sample taken from a reddish stain on a bathroom door frame. Price testified that an initial test indicated the stain might be blood, but investigators were unable to find the swab for further laboratory testing.
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Sheleathea Quick, a retired medical examiner, said she remembered investigators collecting and boxing a swab, but she didn’t know what happened to it.
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“We searched the evidence locker,” Quick said. “We searched the truck. We searched the lab.”
People walk on the campus of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill on June 29, 2023, in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. (Eros Hoagland/Getty Images)
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The trial continues
Prosecutors are not seeking the death penalty.
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Salguero-Olivares would face life in prison without the possibility of parole if convicted of first-degree murder, as well as possible prison time for rape, sex offense and burglary.
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Testimony from the state’s forensic and medical experts is expected to continue Tuesday morning.
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