Fourteen years after authorities found Faith Hedgepeth dead, the 19-year-old’s final hours have been unfolding 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 major at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. Family members of Hedgepeth said they did not know her alleged killer and the two had no known prior interactions.
The trial is in its second week, with Dr. Heather Waleski, a sexual assault nurse examiner with Atrium Health, testifying about forensic medical evidence.
The first days of testimony brought tears from witnesses, spectators and jurors, the 9th Street Journal reported. A forensic technician showed the murder weapon to the jury. Close-up photographs of Hedgepeth’s face and body prompted some court spectators to cover their faces.
The graphic descriptions of internal brain trauma overwhelmed the jury box, prompting the judge to call a recess Friday.
Prosecutors and defense attorneys have clashed over whether DNA evidence revealed the killer or an unreliable investigation where key physical evidence vanished.
Hedgepeth’s roommate, Karena Rosario, now 34, sobbed Wednesday as she recalled finding Hedgepeth nude from the waist down in their shared bedroom at a nearby off-campus apartment, off Old Chapel Hill Road.
“I walked around the bed and saw hair. I pulled the comforter down and saw she had a black eye,” Rosario said, ABC 11 reported.
Rosario took jurors back to Sept. 6, 2012, when she and Hedgepeth studied at a campus library before returning to their apartment to change. The pair then walked to The Thrill nightclub.
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They arrived back at the apartment at around 3:40 a.m. Rosario said she became sick from drinking before leaving at about 4:25 a.m. to stay with a friend.
Rosario said Hedgepeth was conscious and breathing when she left.
She later called Hedgepeth for a ride. Hedgepeth did not answer the call.
Another friend, Marisol Rangel, drove Rosario home. They entered the apartment around 11 a.m. and found Hedgepeth beside her bed, Rosario said.
Rosario described blood on the walls, the bed and Hedgepeth’s arm. She told a 911 dispatcher that Hedgepeth felt cold to the touch.
Rosario said she asked about an ambulance when police arrived.
“I asked if they were still going to bring the ambulance, but they said she was gone,” she testified.
Police collected DNA at the scene and tested hundreds of samples from people connected to Hedgepeth. None matched.
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Investigators eventually turned to genetic genealogy, a technique that compares crime-scene DNA with profiles in public ancestry databases. The information led to Salguero-Olivares, a stranger to Hedgepeth’s loved ones.
Authorities received a break nearly a decade later. On Sept. 16, 2021, police pulled Salguero-Olivares over during a DUI stop in Wake County, N.C. After obtaining a DNA sample, they charged him with murder.
Prosecutors later added the rape, sexual offense and burglary charges.
On Friday, prosecutors presented items recovered from the bedroom, including a Bacardi rum bottle, a wine bottle and a crumpled Time-Out restaurant biscuit bag.
Investigators found a profanity-laced handwritten message on the fast-food bag that read, “I’m not stupid, b—-. Jealous.”
Chapel Hill police forensic technician Tamika Price displayed the 1.75-liter rum bottle to the court, which prosecutors identified as the murder weapon used to deliver blows to Hedgepeth’s head.
“When I put my hands on her head, I could feel where the side of her head 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 the rum bottle.
Under cross-examination, defense attorney James J. Rainsford pressed investigators on how they collected and preserved crime scene evidence.
Price acknowledged under oath that processing mistakes were made. She admitted that she was still in training during the 2012 investigation.
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Rainsford questioned why investigators did not photograph the rum bottle before collecting it, and asked why they did not collect additional items from the apartment.
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The defense also focused on a missing swab gathered from a reddish stain on a bathroom doorframe. Price testified that an initial test indicated the stain could be blood, but investigators could not find the swab for further laboratory testing.
Retired forensic specialist Sheleathea Quick said she remembered investigators collecting and boxing a swab, but did not know what happened to it.
“We searched the evidence locker,” Quick said. “We searched the truck. We searched the lab.”
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Prosecutors are not seeking the death penalty.
Salguero-Olivares would face mandatory life in prison without parole if convicted of first-degree murder, along with possible prison sentences on the rape, sexual offense and burglary charges.
Testimony from state forensic and medical experts is scheduled to continue Tuesday morning.
