A man accused of killing a North Carolina college student 14 years ago was found guilty Friday of first-degree murder, rape and additional charges after prosecutors argued that DNA and other forensic evidence pointed directly to him.
Faith Hedgepeth was 19 and in her sophomore year at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill when she was beaten to death inside her off-campus apartment in September 2012.
Miguel Salguero Olivares was taken into custody nine years later following a driving-while-intoxicated stop. Prosecutors said a DNA sample collected after the arrest matched evidence recovered from the apartment where Hedgepeth was killed.
Salguero Olivares, now 33, chose not to testify. His defense team concluded its case without presenting any witnesses.
After roughly six hours of deliberation spread across two days, jurors convicted him of murder, rape, sexual offense and burglary.
The judge sentenced him to life in prison without parole for the murder, followed by an additional 45 to 65 years for the remaining convictions.
Faith’s mother, Connie Hedgepeth, told the court that she had chosen to forgive her daughter’s killer years ago.
“It was just three weeks after her death. It didn’t matter who done it, I knew that I had to forgive, and I do forgive, but my heart aches for his family,” she said. “It was just such a senseless and cruel act, but we have to go on, and we just have to trust God and go on with our lives.”
Faith’s father, Roland Hedgepeth, described her death as feeling like his heart had been torn from his chest.
He remembered his daughter as a beacon of hope who entered his life during one of its darkest periods. He said that for the past 5,158 days, it had been easier to say he forgave an unknown killer.
“Today it got very real,” he said. “Nevertheless, I say it without reservation, I forgive Miguel for what he did.”
Defense lawyer James Rainsford described the Hedgepeths’ remarks as “powerful and kind.” He said he could have addressed the court about Salguero Olivares and his family, but decided against it. “For me to try to blend the two things, I don’t think that’s what everybody needs at this point,” he said.
Defense argued the client was falsely accused
During closing arguments Thursday, defense attorneys accused investigators of developing “tunnel vision” and treating their client as a monster rather than considering their claim that he was a “19-year-old boy” who had consensual sex with Hedgepeth days before her death.
Prosecutors countered that jurors should focus on the DNA evidence rather than what they characterized as distractions raised by the defense.
“We know who did it. The forensic evidence is screaming his name,” prosecutor Angela Garcia-Lamarca said. She also spoke about the “uncurable agony” Hedgepeth’s family has endured since her death.
“When the defendant brought that bottle down on her head and she started to bleed, that was the start of a bleeding that still hasn’t stopped,” Garcia-Lamarca said. “He sentenced her to death. He sentenced everybody else who loved her to life. There was no one there to protect her. There was no one there to stop him — until now. Y’all are here. You’re here now, and you can stop him.”
Prosecution suggests victim spurned defendant’s advances
The prosecution called nearly two dozen witnesses, including crime scene specialists, state and local police officers, a DNA expert and several of Hedgepeth’s friends.
Karena Rosario, Hedgepeth’s roommate, testified that she was intoxicated and ill when Hedgepeth drove them home from a club at about 2 a.m. on Sept. 7.
Rosario said she later contacted a friend for a ride, leaving Hedgepeth alone inside the apartment.
When she came back several hours later, Rosario found her roommate’s body.
Though no witnesses corroborated the theory, prosecutors suggested Salguero Olivares may have attended a barbecue hosted by Hedgepeth’s neighbor that night, unsuccessfully hit on the young women in the parking lot and then returned, embarrassed and angry, after Rosario left.
Forensic evidence was a focus
Experts testified that the defendant’s fingerprints and palm print were found on a wine bottle at the scene and that his DNA was found in Hedgepeth’s body, on a note written on a fast-food bag found at the scene and on a rum bottle covered in blood that investigators identified as the weapon in the killing.
Defense attorneys questioned Rosario’s account of that night, the processing of the crime scene and the reliability of some DNA evidence.
They pointed out that police failed to search some areas of the apartment and later lost some possible blood evidence and emphasized that DNA from sexual intercourse can remain for days afterward.
“Maybe he was living the same life as other 19- and 20-year-old children that we’ve heard about in this case,” defense attorney Jason Murphy said. “Maybe he had too much to drink, maybe he forgot about an encounter.”
But special prosecutor Lisa Coltrane dismissed that as “noise.”
“No matter what kind of mistakes were made or things that were missed, it doesn’t erase the palm print; it doesn’t somehow lift the DNA out of Faith,” she said. “They didn’t talk to every single person in Chapel Hill, and it doesn’t matter. They still got the guy because he left his DNA like confetti all over that room.”