Jury convicts Salguero Olivares of murder and rape in Hedgepeth killing

Defense rested without calling witnesses; DNA evidence was the trial’s focus

A jury convicted Miguel Salguero Olivares on Friday of first-degree murder, rape, sexual offense and burglary in the beating death of Faith Hedgepeth, a 19-year-old sophomore at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill killed in her off-campus apartment in September 2012. Salguero Olivares, 33, did not testify, and his attorneys rested their case without calling any witnesses. After deliberating for six hours over two days, the jury convicted him, and the judge sentenced him to life in prison without the possibility of parole on the murder charge plus 45-65 years on the other charges.

The verdict came 14 years after Hedgepeth’s death. Salguero Olivares was arrested nine years later, after he was pulled over for driving while intoxicated and provided a DNA sample that prosecutors say matched evidence from the crime scene.

Hedgepeth’s roommate, Karena Rosario, testified that she was drunk and sick when Hedgepeth drove them home from a club around 2 a.m. on Sept. 7. Rosario said she later called a friend to pick her up, leaving Hedgepeth alone in the apartment, and returned hours later to find her roommate’s body.

Prosecutors suggested that 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. No witnesses corroborated that theory.

Nearly two dozen witnesses testified for the prosecution, including crime scene technicians, state and local law enforcement, a DNA expert and Hedgepeth’s friends. 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.

In closing arguments on Thursday, defense attorneys accused investigators of having “tunnel vision” in assuming that their client was a monster and not a “19-year-old boy” who had consensual sex with the victim days before her death. Prosecutors urged jurors to rely on DNA evidence instead of distractions from the defense team.

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 they emphasized that DNA from sexual intercourse can remain for days afterward.

“We know who did it. The forensic evidence is screaming his name,” said prosecutor Angela Garcia-Lamarca, who described the “uncurable agony” Hedgepeth’s family has endured. “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,” she 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.”

“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.”

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.”

Hedgepeth’s mother, Connie Hedgepeth, told the judge that she forgave her daughter’s killer long 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.”

Hedgepeth’s father, Roland Hedgepeth, said losing his daughter was like having his heart ripped out. He called her a beacon of hope who was born at a low point in his life, and said it had been easier over the past 5,158 days to say he forgave someone he did not know. “Today it got very real,” he said. “Nevertheless, I say it without reservation, I forgive Miguel for what he did.”

Defense attorney James Rainsford called the parents’ statements “powerful and kind” and said he could also speak about his client and his client’s family but had decided not to. “For me to try to blend the two things, I don’t think that’s what everybody needs at this point.”