Judge limits suspect’s alleging roommate involvement in Faith Hedgepeth murder

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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. Here’s ongoing coverage about Hedgepeth and the case.

A Durham County judge’s ruling Monday will limit the evidence Miguel Salguero Olivares can introduce to support allegations that Faith Hedgepeth’s roommate was involved in her murder.

Judge Keith O. Gregory granted the prosecution’s request to prevent Salguero Olivares’ attorneys from arguing that a third party killed the 19-year-old UNC-Chapel Hill student in 2012. It was the last pre-trial hearing before jury selection is set to start Monday, Sept. 28.

Using DNA collected from Hedgepeth’s body, police used ancestrytechnology to find and charge Salguero Olivares in 2021 with Hedgepeth’s murde.

The prosecution’s request followed filings by Salguero Olivares’ attorneys over the past year raising questions about whether Hedgepeth’s roommate, Karena Rosario, was in the apartment when Hedgepeth was killed on the morning of Sept. 7, 2012.

To overcome the prosecution’s motion, Salguero Olivares’ defense team would have had to meet a two-prong legal test.

The test requires the defense to introduce evidence that implicates another person or points directly to that person’s guilt. The evidence must also be inconsistent with the defendant’s guilt.

One of Salguero Olivares’ attorneys, James Rainsford, attempted to meet that legal test by outlining an alleged trail of blood that he said Rosario left behind after she left the apartment on the morning of Hedgepeth’s death.

Rosario told police that after Hedgepeth drove the two young women home from the Thrill nightclub around 2:40 a.m., and the two went upstairs. Rosario said she threw up in a trash can that Hedgepeth put beside the bed that they shared.

Then Rosario said she moved into the bathroom, which is where she stayed until she left with Jordan McCrary around 4:25 p.m. Rosario told police that she left the door unlocked and Hedgepeth asleep in the bed.

The first blood evidence Rainsford pointed to came from the morning Rosario left the apartment and got into the Lexus driven by McCrary.

McCrary told police that, within seconds of Rosario getting into his car, she looked down at her hand and said, “I don’t know why I have blood on my finger,” according to statements in court.

McCrary responded, “Yeah, why do you have that on your finger?”

Later that morning, after spending the night at McCrary’s, Rosario returned around 11 a.m. to the one-bedroom apartment on the Durham-Chapel Hill line. She called 911 and said she had found Hedgepeth unresponsive in the bedroom and covered in blood.

An investigator later inspected McCrary’s car and saw what appeared to be dried blood on the interior passenger-side door handle. A test of the substance was positive for blood. There was insufficient material to generate a DNA profile, and the entire sample was used during testing.

In police interviews shown in court, Rosario initially said she didn’t remember talking about the blood on her finger. She said it was likely from the red slushy drinks she had consumed at the bar and later vomited.

The next piece of evidence Rainsford pointed to was a red stain on the bathroom door frame. Chapel Hill police collected a sample of the stain, but it was lost before it could be tested.

Rainsford also noted that Rosario said she had left her shirt at McCrary’s house before returning home. Police, however, found the shirt in the apartment beneath a bloody comforter. The shirt and Rosario’s shorts had red spots that looked like blood, he said.

Rainsford also said a downstairs neighbor told police that she heard thumps between 3 and 4 p.m., which was before Rosario left the apartment, that sounded like more than footsteps.

In response, Lisa Coltrain, a special prosecutor working with the Durham County District Attorney’s Office, said evidence such as McCrary’s account of the blood on Rosario’s finger and the spots on her clothes would be shared with jurors and explained.

Coltrain, however, said she wants to prevent the defense from presenting “insinuations” and “speculation” as evidence of Rosario’s guilt. That includes suggestions that Rosario could have sent texts from Hedgepeth’s phone or written the note found in the apartment, as well as arguments about Rosario’s seemingly unemotional demeanor.

“If this defendant wants a not guilty verdict and he wants a fair trial, he can accomplish that or attempt to accomplish that by showing the insufficiency of the state’s evidence, not by casting some spurious allegations on a person who is not charged,” Coltrain said.

The judge agreed, saying Rainsford had not met the legal test. Still, Gregory said the issue could be discussed again once the trial starts if warranted.

This story was originally published September 21, 2026 at 4:46 PM with the headline “Judge limits suspect’s alleging roommate involvement in Faith Hedgepeth murder.”