Faith Hedgepeth’s Killer Gets Life Sentence After 14 Years
WHO:
WRAL - Judge Keith Gregory said his son, who was one year younger than Faith Hedgepeth, was also a UNC-Chapel Hill student when she was killed.
WRAL - Salguero-Olivares’s mother cried during the verdict proceedings; he shook his head at times.
WRAL - Miguel Salguero-Olivares was convicted of first-degree murder, first-degree rape, first-degree sexual offense, and first-degree burglary in Faith Hedgepeth’s killing.
CNN - Miguel Salguero Olivares, 33, was convicted of murder, rape, sexual offense, and burglary.
WRAL - Hedgepeth was a 19-year-old UNC-Chapel Hill junior majoring in biology and a member of the Haliwa-Saponi tribe; she grew up in Hollister, North Carolina.
CNN - Hedgepeth was a 19-year-old UNC-Chapel Hill sophomore.
WRAL - Hedgepeth’s parents were Connie Hedgepeth and Roland Hedgepeth; Judge Keith Gregory presided over sentencing.
CNN - Prosecutors included Angela Garcia-Lamarca and Lisa Coltrane; defense attorney Jason Murphy represented Salguero Olivares.
CNN - Hedgepeth’s roommate, Karena Rosario, testified, as did nearly two dozen prosecution witnesses, including law-enforcement personnel, crime-scene technicians, a DNA expert, and Hedgepeth’s friends.
WHAT:
WRAL - Prosecutor Lisa Coltrain said Salguero-Olivares left his DNA “like confetti all over that room” and showed jurors a crime-scene photo, saying, “he turned that beautiful woman into this corpse.”
CNN - Salguero Olivares did not testify, and the defense rested without calling witnesses.
CNN - Prosecutor Angela Garcia-Lamarca described the family’s “uncurable agony” and said, “He sentenced her to death. He sentenced everybody else who loved her to life.”
WRAL - Salguero-Olivares received life in prison without parole for murder, plus 64 to 89 months for burglary and 240 to 348 months each for rape and sexual offense. The judge ordered the sentences to run consecutively.
WRAL - Salguero-Olivares is appealing his convictions and sentences. As the verdict was read, he said, “It’s not fair.”
WRAL - Connie Hedgepeth said the family had waited “over 14 years” and was glad to have “the closure we need” and “peace”; she also said she had forgiven what happened.
WRAL - Roland Hedgepeth described the wait as “14 years, six weeks and four days or 169 months and 18 days and 5,158 days.”
CNN - Rosario testified that she was drunk and sick when Hedgepeth drove them home from a club around 2 a.m.; Rosario later left, and returned hours later to find Hedgepeth dead.
CNN - Prosecutors said Salguero Olivares’s fingerprints and palm print were on a wine bottle; his DNA was found in Hedgepeth’s body, on a fast-food-bag note, and on a blood-covered rum bottle identified as the weapon.
WRAL - Erin Ermish testified that DNA from Hedgepeth’s body was 170 septillion times more likely to be a mixture from Hedgepeth and Salguero-Olivares than from Hedgepeth and an unknown person.
CNN - Ermish said DNA from the rum bottle was 48.6 tredecillion times more likely to be from Hedgepeth and Salguero Olivares than from two unknown, unrelated people.
CNN - Defense attorneys challenged the investigation, Rosario’s account, and DNA evidence; they said police failed to search some areas and later lost possible blood evidence. They argued DNA from sex can remain for days.
WRAL - More than 25 SBI special agents worked on the case, and the SBI collected more than 400 DNA samples.
WHERE:
WRAL - Hedgepeth was found dead in her off-campus apartment at Hawthorne at the View Apartments on Old Chapel Hill Road, Chapel Hill.
WRAL - The verdict and sentencing proceedings took place in Durham County court.
CNN - Hedgepeth attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
WHEN:
WRAL - Jurors requested summaries of lab reports and fingerprint readings before proceedings ended for the day.
WRAL - The defense rested on Wednesday; Salguero-Olivares told Judge Gregory he would not testify.
WRAL - Hedgepeth was found dead in 2012; Salguero-Olivares was arrested in 2021, after a drunk-driving stop the previous month.
WRAL - The verdict marked the 19th day of trial, including jury selection; jurors began deliberating Thursday and returned their verdict Friday.
CNN - Jurors deliberated for six hours over two days.
CNN - Rosario said she and Hedgepeth returned from the club around 2 a.m. on September 7.
WHY:
CNN - Prosecutors argued forensic evidence connected Salguero Olivares to the killing. They suggested he may have returned to the apartment angry and embarrassed after unsuccessfully hitting on women at a neighbor’s barbecue; prosecutors said jurors did not need to accept that theory to find him guilty.
CNN - Defense attorneys argued investigators had “tunnel vision” and questioned whether DNA could have remained from consensual sex days earlier.
HOW:
WRAL - Investigators linked Salguero-Olivares to the murder through DNA evidence collected during a drunk-driving stop.
CNN - An autopsy found extensive skull fractures and cuts to Hedgepeth’s face and head, as well as injuries to her arms and legs.
(UPDATED October 24, 2026 08:00 UTC)
Miguel Salguero-Olivares has been convicted of first-degree murder, rape, sexual offense and burglary in the killing of Faith Hedgepeth, a 19-year-old UNC-Chapel Hill student and member of the Haliwa-Saponi tribe. He was sentenced to life in prison without parole for murder, with additional prison terms for the other crimes, all to be served consecutively. Hedgepeth was found dead in her off-campus Chapel Hill apartment in 2012. Prosecutors presented DNA evidence linking Salguero-Olivares to Hedgepeth and a blood-covered rum bottle, along with fingerprints and a palm print on a wine bottle. The defense challenged the investigation and argued DNA could have remained from consensual sex days earlier. Hedgepeth’s roommate testified she returned to the apartment hours after leaving and found her dead. Her mother said the verdict brought the family peace and closure after a long wait. Salguero-Olivares is appealing his convictions and sentences.
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(UPDATED October 24, 2026 01:28 UTC)
Miguel Salguero-Olivares has been convicted of killing 19-year-old Faith Hedgepeth, a University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill student, and sentenced to life in prison without parole. A Durham County judge also imposed additional consecutive sentences for rape, a sexual offense and burglary. Hedgepeth was found dead in her off-campus apartment in Chapel Hill in 2012. Prosecutors said DNA and fingerprints linked Salguero-Olivares to the crime, including DNA from Hedgepeth’s body and from a blood-covered rum bottle identified as the weapon. The DNA match was described by an expert as extraordinarily strong. The defense challenged the investigation and argued that DNA could have remained from consensual sex days earlier. Hedgepeth’s roommate testified that she returned to the apartment hours after leaving and found her dead. Her mother said the verdict brought the family closure and peace. Salguero-Olivares is appealing his convictions and sentences.