Killing of Faith Hedgepeth

Faith Hedgepeth was born September 26, 1992, in Warren County, North Carolina, and was a member of the Haliwa-Saponi tribe. An honor student and cheerleader in high school, she won a Gates Millennium Scholarship to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she was in her third year and hoped to be the first in her family to graduate college. After a hiatus for the spring 2012 semester, she stayed in the Chapel Hill area that summer, sharing an apartment with her roommate while awaiting fall financial aid to move to a new one.

On the evening of September 6, 2012, Hedgepeth attended a sorority rush event, studied with her roommate at a UNC library, and later went with her to The Thrill, a Chapel Hill nightclub. Security cameras there recorded the two leaving at 2:06 a.m., the last confirmed sighting of Hedgepeth alive. By 3 a.m. they were back at the apartment; a neighbor below reported hearing thumping noises soon after, and Hedgepeth's phone last recorded activity at 3:40 and 3:43 a.m. Around 4:25 a.m., her roommate left the apartment, believing Hedgepeth was asleep, and left the door unlocked. Returning with a friend shortly before 11 a.m. on September 7, the roommate found Hedgepeth's body — partially nude and wrapped in a quilt — in her bedroom, and called 9-1-1.

An autopsy found that Hedgepeth died of blunt force trauma to the head, inflicted with an empty rum bottle; she also had cuts, bruises, and blood under her fingernails consistent with a struggle. Police recovered semen and male DNA from the scene and built a DNA profile. A handwritten note on a torn piece of a paper carry-out bag was found near her body; investigators have not said whether its handwriting was analyzed, and its origin remains unresolved. One early suspect, who had a history of domestic violence toward Hedgepeth's roommate and had reportedly threatened Hedgepeth, was cleared when his DNA did not match scene evidence; DNA from many other men was also tested and excluded.

A court sealed the investigation's records soon after the killing; police disclosed few details for nearly two years despite media petitions to unseal them. Police said in January 2013 that crime-scene DNA belonged to a male, and the FBI developed a profile of the likely suspect. The Chapel Hill Police Department requested the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation's assistance in September 2013. A court ordered the records unsealed in July 2014, and the full autopsy report followed that September, confirming the cause of death and that DNA from the recovered semen matched other DNA at the scene. The university, a Crime Stoppers chapter, and the Haliwa-Saponi tribe offered $29,000 in reward money within days of the killing.

In September 2016, Chapel Hill police released a DNA phenotyping image depicting the suspect's likely appearance, indicating mixed Native American and European or Latino ancestry. Police said the killing was likely committed by someone in Hedgepeth's social circle rather than a stranger, having interviewed about 2,000 people and DNA-tested roughly 750. On September 16, 2021, police arrested Miguel Salguero-Olivares, 28, of Durham, and charged him with first-degree murder in Hedgepeth's death after DNA linked him to the case following a drunken-driving arrest the month before. Court documents released in January 2022 stated that DNA and a palm print on the murder weapon matched him. In November 2024, prosecutors amended the indictment to add first-degree burglary, first-degree rape, and first-degree sexual offense charges. Chapel Hill Police Chief Chris Blue said, "This story will take time to completely unfold."