Jury convicts man of rape, murder 14 years after UNC-Chapel Hill student’s death

Jury Finds Miguel Salguero Olivares Guilty in 2012 Killing of Faith Hedgepeth

Sandego.net – Fourteen years after University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill student Faith Hedgepeth was killed in her off-campus apartment, a jury has found Miguel Salguero Olivares guilty of first-degree murder, rape, sexual offense and burglary.

The verdict came Friday after roughly six hours of deliberations spread across two days. Salguero Olivares, now 33, was convicted in the death of Hedgepeth, who was 19 and a UNC-Chapel Hill sophomore when she was attacked in September 2012.

The case centered heavily on forensic findings gathered from the apartment, including DNA, fingerprints and a palm print. Prosecutors argued that the physical evidence directly connected Salguero Olivares to the crime. His attorneys challenged the investigation, the handling of potential evidence and the meaning of DNA recovered years after the events in question.

A Long-Unsolved Case

Hedgepeth was beaten to death inside her apartment after returning home with her roommate, Karena Rosario, during the early hours of September 7, 2012. Rosario testified that she had become sick after drinking and that Hedgepeth drove them home from a club at about 2 a.m.

Rosario later contacted a friend to pick her up, leaving Hedgepeth alone in the apartment. When Rosario came back several hours later, she found Hedgepeth’s body.

The investigation remained unresolved for years. Salguero Olivares was arrested nine years after the killing, following a traffic stop for suspected drunken driving in which he gave a DNA sample. Prosecutors said that sample matched material recovered at the crime scene.

Nearly two dozen prosecution witnesses took the stand. Their testimony included accounts from Hedgepeth’s friends, crime-scene personnel, law enforcement officers and a state DNA specialist. Salguero Olivares did not testify, and the defense concluded without presenting witnesses of its own.

Forensic Evidence at the Center of the Trial

Prosecutors presented evidence that Salguero Olivares’ fingerprints and palm print were located on a wine bottle found in the apartment. They also said his DNA was recovered from Hedgepeth’s body, a note on a fast-food bag at the scene and a blood-covered rum bottle investigators identified as the weapon used in the killing.

An autopsy found severe injuries, including extensive fractures to Hedgepeth’s skull and wounds on her face and head. She also had major bruising and injuries on her arms and legs.

“He beat her until her skull cracked like an egg,” special prosecutor Lisa Coltrane said during closing arguments. “That is what the last moments of this vibrant young woman’s life was.”

Erin Ermish, a forensic scientist with the state crime laboratory, described the statistical strength of the DNA evidence. DNA taken from Hedgepeth’s body was 170 septillion times more likely to represent a mixture involving Hedgepeth and Salguero Olivares than a mixture involving Hedgepeth and an unidentified person, she testified.

A septillion is represented by a 1 followed by 24 zeroes. For perspective, NASA has estimated that the universe contains about 1 septillion stars.

Ermish also testified that DNA from the top of the rum bottle was 48.6 tredecillion times more likely to come from Hedgepeth and Salguero Olivares than from two unrelated, unknown people. A tredecillion is a 1 followed by 42 zeroes.

Competing Accounts of the Evidence

Defense lawyers maintained that investigators had focused too narrowly on their client. In closing arguments, they said authorities treated him as a monster instead of considering the possibility that he had consensual sex with Hedgepeth in the 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.”

The defense questioned Rosario’s recollection of the night, how the apartment was processed and the reliability of certain DNA conclusions. Attorneys highlighted areas of the apartment that police did not search, as well as possible blood evidence that was later lost. They also emphasized that DNA from sexual contact can remain for several days.

Prosecutors acknowledged that the defense had raised issues about missed leads and investigative mistakes, but argued that those concerns did not overcome the forensic record. Coltrane characterized the defense arguments as “noise.”

Prosecutors also suggested that Salguero Olivares may have been at a barbecue held by Hedgepeth’s neighbor that evening. They proposed that he unsuccessfully tried to flirt with young women in a parking lot, then returned after Rosario left the apartment, angry and embarrassed. No witness confirmed that sequence of events.

Garcia-Lamarca told jurors they did not need to accept that proposed motive or timeline to conclude that Salguero Olivares was responsible.

“We know who did it. The forensic evidence is screaming his name,” prosecutor Angela Garcia-Lamarca said.

Garcia-Lamarca described the lasting pain endured by Hedgepeth’s relatives and framed the verdict as a moment of accountability after years without an answer.

“He sentenced her to death. He sentenced everybody else who loved her to life,” Garcia-Lamarca said. “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.”

The conviction closes the trial phase of a case that remained unresolved for nearly a decade before DNA evidence led investigators to Salguero Olivares. For Hedgepeth’s family, friends and the Chapel Hill community, the verdict marks a legal conclusion in the killing of a young student whose death had remained an open wound for years.