Closing arguments are scheduled for Thursday in the trial of a man accused of killing a North Carolina college student 14 years ago.
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.
He has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder, rape and burglary charges.
Testimony began Oct. 7 following eight days of jury selection. Salguero Olivares did not testify and his attorneys rested their case Wednesday without calling any witnesses. 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.
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.
Prosecutors allege Salguero Olivares, now 33, was a stranger who killed Hedgepeth in a fit of rage. They said 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.
In cross-examining witnesses, 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.
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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The story has been updated to correct the spelling of Faith Hedgepeth’s last name in one reference.
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Ramer reported from Concord, New Hampshire.
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