Faith Hedgepeth murder: Witness recalls blood on roommate’s finger
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Faith Hedgepeth was a UNC sophomore when she was killed on Sept. 7, 2012. Her murder was unsolved until Sept. 16, 2021, when Chapel Hill police made an arrest in her case. The murder trial begins Sept. 28, 2026. Here’s ongoing coverage about Hedgepeth and the case.
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Jurors in Faith Hedgepeth’s murder trial heard Thursday from two people who were together during a critical window in the hours before her body was discovered.
One was Karena Rosario, Hedgepeth’s roommate, who returned to the witness stand Thursday and faced questions from defense attorneys about her account of that morning.
The other was Jordan McCrary, the UNC student and former soccer player, who picked Rosario up after she left the apartment around 4:25 a.m. on Sept. 7, 2012.
Their accounts overlapped on some details but differed on others, including whether Rosario said she had blood on her finger when she climbed into McCrary’s car.
Their testimony helps establish what happened in the hours before Hedgepeth was found dead. Prosecutors say Miguel Salguero Olivares entered the apartment after Rosario left with McCrary, beat Hedgepeth with a rum bottle, raped her and left her to die.
Rosario and other witnesses described the two women as best friends who were rarely apart. But in the 14 years since Hedgepeth’s killing, Rosario’s account of their final hours together has faced scrutiny.
Defense attorneys have questioned whether Rosario was still in the apartment when Hedgepeth was killed, pointing to McCrary’s account of seeing blood on her finger and inconsistencies in her recollections of that morning.
Rosario testified that police interviewed her repeatedly. Afterward, she would replay the conversations in her head, questioning her answers and wondering why investigators had asked certain questions.
On Thursday, she faced another round of questions, this time from James Rainsford, an attorney for Salguero Olivares, who pressed her about what she remembered and what she could not.
Salguero Olivares is charged with murdering and raping Hedgepeth, a 19-year-old UNC student, in the apartment she shared with Rosario. He has said he didn’t commit the crimes and did not know Hedgepeth.
McCrary testified Thursday that shortly after Rosario got into his car, she looked down at her finger and said she didn’t know why she had blood on it.
He described a small drop that did not smudge when she touched it.
Rosario, however, testified that she did not remember making that statement and believed what McCrary saw was likely residue from the red slushy drinks she had been vomiting earlier that morning.
“Do I believe it was blood? No,” Rosario testified. “Did I tell him I was throwing up red slushies all night? No.”
Rosario said she could not explain the difference between their recollections.
Rainsford began his cross-examination by questioning Rosario about what happened after she and Hedgepeth left The Thrill nightclub and returned to their apartment shortly before 3 a.m.
Rosario testified that she had been drinking heavily and was upset about issues involving two former boyfriends. She had seen a relative of one of the men and encountered the other at the club.
She remembered being emotional as she walked to Hedgepeth’s car but could not recall the drive home or climbing the stairs to their second-floor apartment on the Durham-Chapel Hill line.
Her next memory was being in bed, vomiting into a trash can, before moving to the bathroom, where she continued texting and calling one of her former boyfriends, who was not responding.
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The two women shared a one-bedroom apartment with a bathroom that had no door. Rosario said a former boyfriend who had lived with her had damaged the door. She often retreated to the bathroom when she was upset and considered it her “safe place.”
Rainsford questioned why Rosario had not washed her face or brushed her teeth after vomiting.
“I wasn’t thinking to look presentable to anybody,” Rosario said, explaining that she was drunk, upset and had not expected to leave the apartment.
He also questioned why Hedgepeth, whom Rosario had described as the “kindest soul that you ever met,” had not checked on her.
Rosario said Hedgepeth had already helped her after they left the nightclub, including placing a trash can beside her bed and helping her as she vomited.
“I think she was giving me space,” Rosario said.
McCrary testified that Rosario began texting him around 3 a.m. and later asked him to pick her up.
“She sent me her address,” he said, along with a text that read, “Please come.”
Around 4:21 a.m., McCrary called Rosario to say he had arrived.
Rosario said she grabbed her phone and walked straight out of the apartment.
“He was outside. I wanted to hurry and get out, so I left,” she testified.
Rosario and McCrary drove to his home, where they stayed in his bedroom and had sex.
Assistant District Attorney Brooks Stone asked McCrary whether he noticed any blood, bruises or anything else unusual on Rosario. McCrary said he did not.
McCrary testified that he got up the next morning and left for class around 8:45 a.m. Rosario told him Hedgepeth would pick her up.
But Hedgepeth never answered her phone, Rosario testified.
Between 8:45 and 10:13 a.m., Rosario called her roommate 14 times.
Rosario testified that she needed to know whether Hedgepeth was home or on campus. If Hedgepeth was home, Rosario wanted her to bring a notebook so she could finish some work before class. If she was on campus, Rosario worried that Hedgepeth might have locked their apartment door and taken their only key.
“I needed to know where she was, and she wasn’t picking up,” Rosario said. “I think 14 times in 90 minutes is actually kind of light for me to be pretty frank.”
Rosario eventually arranged for a friend to drive her home.
Around 11 a.m., Rosario and the friend discovered Hedgepeth lying on her bed, covered by a bloody comforter, and called 911.
Rainsford also asked about a red stain in the women’s bathroom that police photographed and swabbed, but later lost the sample.
Rosario said investigators had not asked her about the stain until 2026.
And when questioned about a gas cap found open on Hedgepeth’s car, Rosario said she knew nothing about it because she had been riding inside the car in the dark.
After discovering Hedgepeth’s body, Rosario said, police took her to speak with a counselor before she went to a friend’s house.
Later, Rosario returned to The Thrill with two other people to review surveillance footage, hoping to determine whether anyone had followed the women when they left the nightclub.
They did not see anyone following them, she testified.
This story was originally published October 8, 2026 at 3:09 PM with the headline “Faith Hedgepeth murder: Witness recalls blood on roommate’s finger.”
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