Jurors began deliberations Thursday in the trial of a man accused of killing a North Carolina college student 14 years ago, deciding whether he was a stranger who killed his victim in a fit of rage or was wrongfully accused after consensual sex.
Faith Hedgepeth was a 19-year-old sophomore at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill when she was beaten to death in her off-campus apartment in September 2012. Miguel Salguero Olivares was arrested nine years later after being pulled over for driving while intoxicated and providing a DNA sample that prosecutors say matched evidence from the crime scene.
In closing arguments, prosecutors urged jurors to rely on evidence “screaming the truth” instead of distractions from the defense team. Defense lawyers in turn accused investigators and prosecutors 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.
“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.”
Salguero Olivares, now 33, pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder, rape, sexual offense and burglary charges. He did not testify during the trial, and his attorneys rested their case without calling any witnesses. Jurors did, however, view video of a police interview in which he was shown a photo of Hedgepeth and denied knowing her.
Only the prosecution put on a case
Nearly two dozen witnesses testified for the prosecution, including Hedgepeth’s roommate and other friends, crime scene technicians, state and local law enforcement and a DNA expert.
Early testimony focused on Hedgepeth’s life and her last night alive, when she and her roommate returned home from a club around 2 a.m. Karena Rosario testified that she was drunk and sick when Hedgepeth drove them home but later called a friend to pick her up and she went out again, leaving Hedgepeth in the apartment alone. She returned hours later that Sept. 7 to find Hedgepeth’s body.
In her closing statement, prosecutor Angela Garcia-Lamarca suggested Salguero Olivares may have attended a barbecue hosted by Hedgepeth’s neighbor that night, had unsuccessfully made advances to the young women as they returned home and then returned, embarrassed and angry, after Rosario left. No witnesses corroborated that theory, but the prosecutor told jurors, “You don’t have to believe that to know he’s guilty.”
“For parents to lose a child and not know what happened or who did it is unbearable. Now we know,” she said. “The forensic evidence in this case is screaming the truth. We know who did it. The forensic evidence is screaming his name: Miguel Salguero Olivares. What we don’t know, and maybe will never know, and what can be the incurable agony is: Why?”
An autopsy showed Hedgepeth suffered extensive skull fractures and cuts to her face and head, and she was also badly beaten on her arms and legs.
“He beat her until her skull cracked like an egg,” special prosecutor Lisa Coltrane said in her portion of the closing arguments. “That is what the last moments of this vibrant young woman's life was.”
DNA 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 on a rum bottle covered in blood that investigators identified as the weapon in the killing, in Hedgepeth's body and on a note written on a fast-food bag found at the scene.
Erin Ermish, a forensic scientist with the state crime lab, testified that she could never say with 100% certainty that a DNA sample came from a particular person. But she said DNA swabbed from Hedgepeth’s body was 170 septillion times more likely to be a mixture of DNA from Hedgepeth and Salguero Olivares than from Hedgepeth and an unknown individual. One septillion is a 1 followed by 24 zeros. In contrast, NASA estimates the entire universe contains only 1 septillion stars.
Ermish also said the mixture of DNA from the top of the rum bottle was 48.6 tredecillion times more likely to be from Hedgepeth and Salguero Olivares than from two unknown, unrelated individuals. One tredecillion is a 1 followed by 42 zeros.
The defense raised questions about the investigation
In cross-examinations and closing statements, defense attorneys questioned Rosario’s account of that night, the processing of the crime scene and the reliability of some DNA evidence. They emphasized that DNA from sexual intercourse can remain for days afterward, pointed out that police failed to search some areas of the apartment and later lost some possible blood evidence. But Coltrane dismissed all 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.”
Several jurors cried after viewing autopsy photos of Hedgepeth, according to local media accounts. Salguero Olivares, meanwhile, cried when prosecutors played video of a jailhouse call between him and a friend who has since died.
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This story has been updated to correct the spelling of Faith Hedgepeth’s last name in one reference.
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