New filings in Faith Hedgepeth murder case claim roommate may have been present
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Defense filings contends roommate Karen Rosario could have been present during murder.
- Attorneys seek permission to compare Rosario’s prints to key crime scene prints.
- DNA from apartment led police to charge Miguel Salguero Olivares with Hedgepeth’s murder.
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Faith Hedgepeth Murder
Faith Hedgepeth was a UNC sophomore when she was killed on Sept. 7, 2012. Her murder was unsolved until Sept. 16, 2021, when Chapel Hill police made an arrest in her case. Here are stories about Hedgepeth and the case from The News & Observer and The Herald-Sun.
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New court filings by the man accused in the 2012 killing of UNC-Chapel HIll student Faith Hedgepeth claim there is evidence that her roommate could have been at home when she was killed.
Documents filed July 3 on behalf of Miguel Salguero Olivares add yet another tangle to the long and twisted investigation into the killing of the UNC sophomore, a member of the Haliwa-Saponi tribal community who grew up in an area on the border of Warren and Halifax counties.
They say Hedgepeth’s roommate Karen Rosario had blood on her finger the morning of her death. They also contend that Rosario could have been in the apartment when Hedgepeth, 19, was killed and want to test her and others’ fingerprints and compare them to those police found in the apartment.
Based on witness statements, and toxicology findings in the autopsy, the Chapel Hill Police Department “estimated that Faith’s death would have occurred before Rosario left the apartment” after asking another fellow student to pick her up, the filing alleges. Rosariotold police Hedgepeth was asleep in the bedroom when she left, according to previously released investigation documents.
The filings could be laying groundwork for a someone-else-did-it defense, or they could be highlighting holes in the case if Salguero Olivares, 32, is pushing for a favorable plea deal, said Daniel Meier, a longtime Durham defense attorney who isn’t involved in the case.
Chapel Hill police charged Salguero Olivares in 2021. Local and state investigators did thousands of interviews and tested hundreds of DNA samples that eventually lead them to Salguero Olivares, according to court documents.
Former Orange County Judge Carl Fox on Wednesday said the filings, as well as the length of time that has passed since the killing, could make it easier for Salguero Olivares to argue his innocence and highlight anyproblems in the case. But it will be a challenge for his attorneys to overcome the DNA evidence found in her apartment.
The News & Observer on Tuesday and Wednesday sent emails and left telephone messages at an account and phone number associated with Rosario, which were found in a commercial database built with public records. No messages were returned.
A start to the 2012 UNC semester
Before Hedgepeth’s murder at the start of the school year in September 2012, Hedgepeth had temporarily moved into Rosario’s one-bedroom apartment on the Chapel Hill and Durham border until she could move into her own place. The women were together hours before the murder, according to police and court documents.
Around midnight on Sept. 7, 2012, Hedgepeth and Rosario went to The Thrill, a now-closed Chapel Hill nightclub on Rosemary Street. They left the club around 2:06 a.m. and returned to the apartment, according to court documents.
A text message was sent from Hedgepeth’s cell phone at 3:41 a.m. to Brandon Edwards, who Rosario had previously dated.
“Hey, b, Can you come over here please. Karena needs you more aha. You know. Please let her know you care.”
Rosario told police she left the apartment around 4:25 in the morning, after she called Jordan McCrary, who she had seen at the club, to pick her up, according to court documents.
Rosario returned to her apartment at around 11 a.m. the next day. She called 911 frantic, trying to explain she found an unresponsive Hedgepeth laying on her back.
“I think she fell off the bed because she is like off the bed,” Rosario told a 911 operator. “There is blood all over the pillows, like in the comforter. I just don’t know what happened.”
Hedgepeth was naked from the waist down and her shirt was pulled over her head. In the middle of the bed there was a hand scribbled note on a fast food bag, court documents state.
“I’M NOT STUPID BITCH”
“JEALOUS.”
Police believe a Bacardi Peach Rum bottle, found beneath the comforter and marked with two bloody thumb prints, was the murder weapon, according to court documents.
Arrest of Hedgepeth’s alleged killer announced
Investigation documents released in 2014 showed that police interviewed and sought DNA from multiple men after the killing, but never commented on whether they were viable suspects.
In 2021, nine years after the killing, police charged Salguero Olivares with murder and placed him in the Durham jail, where he remains with no bond.
The arrest was a surprise to many because Salguero Olivares had never been mentioned in previously released investigation documents, nor the documentaries and podcasts that have reported on Hedgepeth’s death.
“Patience will be asked of you,” then Chapel Hill Police Chief Chris Blue said at the September 2021 news conference announcing the arrest. “This story will take time to completely unfold.”
Search warrants later revealed that investigators turned to ancestry technology to identify individuals associated with the DNA found at the scene. Distant family members were identified and interviewed, and their DNA was collected.
That information led investigators to Salguero Olivares.
A month before he was charged with murder in 2021, Raleigh police arrested him for driving while intoxicated. It was then that investigators obtained a DNA sample from Salguero Olivares, which they say matched sperm discovered at the murder scene.
In November 2024, prosecutors added burglary, rape and sexual offense charges, alleging Salguero Olivares broke into Hedgepeth’s home and raped her. A month ago, he picked up three drug charges, including possession of methamphetamine with intent to sell or deliver inside the Durham County Detention Center, where he has been detained since his arrest in 2021.
New information in Faith Hedgepeth case
The new court filings request to depose McCrary, the UNC student who picked up Rosario the morning of the killing, and use his testimony at trial.
McCrary is “a critical witness” who lives out of state, states a filing signed by Christopher Barnes, Jason Murphy and James Rainsford, three of the four attorneys Salguero Olivares hired a year ago.Murphy and Rainsford didn’t return The News & Observer’s phone messages seeking an interview.
According to the filings, McCrary told police he ran into Hedgepeth and Rosario at The Thrill between 1 a.m. and 2 a.m. He and Rosario continued texting between 2:20 a.m. and 4:10 a.m.
At 3:51 she texted him goodnight, the new filing states. About 10 minutes later, Rosario called McCrary, begging him to come get her and take her to his house. “Please come” she texted at 4:10 a.m. and provided him with her address, the filing states.
Karena called him three more times from 4:12 a.m. to 4:21 a.m. while he was on the way.
“Jordan said that during these phone calls that Karena seemed to be really upset and ‘dramatic’,” the filing says.
Within seconds of Rosario getting into the car, McCrary noticed a small amount of blood on Rosario’s finger, according to the filing.
“I asked her where it was from,” McCrary is quoted as saying in the filing.
“I don’t know,” she responded, according to the filing.
Police said Rosario didn’t have any cuts on her finger immediately after the killing and she wasn’t bleeding anywhere else, the filing states.
After Hedgepeth was found, McCrary asked Rosario what happened at the apartment.
“Karena told Jordan that she had been sitting in the bathroom of their apartment before leaving with him because she was not feeling well, while Faith had been in the bedroom,” the filing states.
Investigators found and tested blood on the front seat of McCrary’s car twice, but there was insufficient DNA, the filing states.
Request to compare bloody thumb prints
The new filings also indicate that the State Bureau of Investigation couldn’t identify any prints on the Bacardi rum bottle.
However, Salguero Olivares’s attorneys plan to call an expert in fingerprint identification “who will offer an expert opinion that there is sufficient detail to exclude the defendant from the person who left two bloody thumb prints on the neck of the bottle,” states a notice of an expert witness submitted to Durham County Superior Court.
One of the three new filings also requests the release of evidence for independent testing, including comparing Rosario’s prints to those on the Bacardi bottle, to determine whether she could be excluded.
Salguero Olivares also is seeking independent examination of a parking receipt, a key, empty wine bottle and other items.
News & Observer reporter David Raynor contributed to this report.
Virginia Bridges covers criminal justice in the Triangle and across North Carolina for The News & Observer. Her work is produced with financial support from the nonprofit The Just Trust. The N&O maintains full editorial control of its journalism.
This story was originally published July 10, 2025 at 5:30 AM.
