This day in history: The body of Faith Hedgepeth, an undergraduate student in her third year at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC), was found in her apartment by a friend on this day in 2012. She had been beaten over the head with a blunt instrument, later found to be an empty liquor bottle, and evidence of semen and male DNA was present at the crime scene. The last time she was known for certain to be alive was much earlier that morning, when she went to bed after returning from a local nightclub with her roommate.
Police have recovered considerable forensic evidence in the case, but so far it has served to eliminate one likely suspect, a former boyfriend of her roommate who reportedly expressed anger and resentment toward Hedgepeth, even supposedly threatening to kill her if he could not reunite with her roommate. His DNA, however, did not match that left at the scene. A note left at the scene, suggesting the writer was jealous, is also believed to have been written by the killer; it was among a large group of documents released by police two years after the crime, following a court action brought by several local media outlets.
Four years after the killing, a Virginia DNA testing company prepared and released, at police's behest, an image showing what the suspect might look like based on his genetic phenotype. A voicemail possibly accidentally recorded by Hedgepeth may also capture some of the events that led to her death.
On September 16, 2021, the Chapel Hill Police Department arrested Miguel Salguero-Olivares, 28, of Durham, on a first-degree murder charge in Hedgepeth's death. He had not been a suspect originally, but was identified through DNA samples after he had been arrested on a drunken-driving charge in Wake County the preceding month. According to court documents released in January 2022, the DNA found at the scene and the palm print on the murder weapon match Salguero-Olivares. In a statement, the police asked the public to bear with them as they sorted the details out. "This story will take time to completely unfold", said Chief Blue.
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