Content warning: this article contains mention of sexual assault, violence and other details some readers may find disturbing.
Testimony continued Tuesday in the Durham County Courthouse in the trial of Miguel Salguero-Olivares for the murder of Faith Hedgepeth — with the prosecution calling forward additional investigators and forensic experts to share details of how law enforcement handled the 2012 case and its evidence.
Following testimony from Hedgepeth’s former roommate, Karena Rosario, and several other witnesses who either saw the crime scene or saw the pair of roommates around September 7, 2012, the state’s attorneys turned the jury’s attention toward how evidence found in the apartment and on Hedgepeth’s body was processed and handled by law enforcement staff. In addition to setting up the prosecution’s argument of why Salguero-Olivares is guilty of the first-degree murder and sexual assault charges, the testimony also appears important to the defense’s argument of how key pieces of evidence from the scene were either mishandled or omitted from the investigation.
Here are the highlights from testimony delivered Thursday, Oct. 8 through Tuesday, Oct. 13:
Latent Print Expert Details Identifying Palm Print on Blue Wine Bottle
While the murder weapon in the case — a Bacardi rum bottle — has long been identified as a key piece of evidence in the case, testimony on Tuesday detailed how it was a second wine bottle in the bedroom of the Chapel Hill apartment that helped build evidence for the prosecution’s argument of Salguero-Olivares’ guilt.
A blue Riesling bottle found on the floor at the foot of the bed where Hedgepeth lay had a palm print on its neck captured by the State Crime Lab in 2014. Latent print analyst Summer Maffett testified to the jury how she examined several pieces of evidence in the murder case, as provided by the Chapel Hill Police Department — including the Barcardi bottle, which only had “fragmentary” prints on it and not enough to make a clear identification. But the Riesling bottle’s palm print was complete enough to evaluate against other prints and rule out both Hedgepeth and Rosario’s prints, which had been collected by police.
Maffett said she then examined her 2014 photo of the palm print against Salguero-Olivares’ left palm print following his 2021 arrest at the request of case investigators.
“The palm print was compared to lab item 77 [the submitted, standard print] and identified as the left palm of Miguel Enrique Salguero-Olivares,” Maffett said. “That means this palm print, this latent palm print, was left by the individual who created the known standards that I compared it to.”
A portion of the Crime Lab report generated by Summer Maffett in September 2021, showing the latent print collected in 2014 from the blue wine bottle (top) and the palm print collected from Miguel Salguero-Olivares after his arrest (bottom). The red dots, Maffett testified, are areas she determined as corresponding ridge events in both palm prints, leading to the identification of the two prints. (Photo via courtroom pool footage.)
Much of Maffett’s testimony on Tuesday leading up to the palm print identification was spent explaining her process of examining latent prints to jurors and the level of detail needed for comparing and identifying matching finger and palm markings. It also followed a pair of other state-level law enforcement workers’s testimony, Candice Lanham and Javed Quadri, who documented the fingerprints and palm prints of Salguero-Olivares. Lanham also testified to executing the search warrant at the suspect’s home in 2021 and taking DNA swabs that were sent to Chapel Hill police.
Maffett’s recollection of identifying Salguero-Olivares’ print closed out Tuesday’s session in court, meaning she will likely still be on the stand and facing cross-examination from the defense on Wednesday.
Police Video from Rosario 2012 interview and Salguero-Olivares 2021 questioning
Part of the evidence submitted to the jury were two video files covering important steps in the investigation: an interview with Karena Rosario on September 8, 2012 at the Chapel Hill Police Department, and the confrontation and questioning of Salguero-Olivares by investigators on the day he was arrested.
Footage from the 2012 video showed Rosario sitting in a room at the police department with Chapel Hill Sgt. Rodney Matthews, recounting the events of September 6 and 7 — ranging from Rosario and Hedgepeth studying together at UNC’s Davis Library before Hedgepeth left to spend time with an intimate partner Taaliv Cochrane, the pair of women then going out to The Thrill nightclub together, and Hedgepeth driving Rosario back to their shared apartment after Rosario had gotten drunk. She told the investigator did not remember interacting with Hedgepeth much after getting back to the apartment off Old Durham-Chapel Hill Boulevard around 3 a.m. Having thrown up and seen family members of her ex-boyfriend at The Thrill, Rosario sat in the bathroom for around an hour texting with her friend Jordan McCrary before asking him to come pick her up to spend the rest of the night together. She testified to leaving the apartment without grabbing its key or additional belongings and not returning until late the next morning to grab essay papers before a class. It was at that time that Rosario and a mutual friend, Marisol Rangel, found Hedgepeth’s body in the bed.
A screenshot of video footage from Sept. 8, 2012, of Karena Rosario (left) at the Chapel Hill Police Department being interviewed by Sgt. Rodney Matthews. (Photo via courtroom pool footage.)
The video reiterated much of Rosario’s testimony delivered in court on Thursday. The defense team for Salguero-Olivares — who attempted during pre-trial hearings to argue third-party guilt to exonerate their client before Judge Keith Gregory denied bringing in evidence to inculpate Rosario — heavily questioned Hedgepeth’s roommate about details of her actions in the lead-up and aftermath of leaving the apartment on September 7. Specifically, they questioned why Rosario would stay in the bathroom for so long and asked about McCrary’s memory of her saying when he picked her up, “Why do I have blood on my hand?” To her best recollection, Rosario said she did not remember saying that phrase, having an injury, or there being any reason to have blood on her — telling the defense attorneys what she told investigators in 2012: the red substance may have been a red slushie she drank and vomited earlier in the night.
Meanwhile, video evidence of Chapel Hill Police’s first encounter with Salguero-Olivares was entered into the record as well. The body camera footage of Sgt. Matthews showed him and former SBI special agent Cesar Gutierrez confronting the then-28-year-old at Salguero-Olivares’ mother’s apartment complex, asking him whether he recognized photos of Hedgepeth, Rosario and others in the case. The video shows Salguero-Olivares twice denying either recognizing or having sex with Hedgepeth before the investigators reveal they have evidence to indicate he is a suspect. The defense questioned Guiterrez on the stand why the interaction was handled the way it was — near the stairwell of the apartment complex, with the investigators suggesting to Salguero-Olivares to speak with them in their vehicle, and not mentioning specific details around Hedgepeth’s murder. The former SBI agent said they wanted to conduct the interview in the car instead of Salguero-Olivares’ mothers’ apartment for officer safety reasons and didn’t want it to be in the open where noise could impact their body camera recordings.
The video from September 16, 2021 presented to the jury did not show Salguero-Olivares being detained or ultimately agreeing to the questionnaire or DNA test investigators collected from men who may have crossed paths with Hedgepeth in the lead-up to her murder. Lead investigator Johnnie Britt with the Chapel Hill Police Department said during her time on the case, she helped conduct nearly 300 of such DNA collections and answers to questionnaires.
A screenshot of body camera football from Sept. 16, 2021 of investigators’ questioning of Miguel Salguero-Olivares. SBI special agent Cesar Gutierrez, the assisting officer, stands beside Salguero-Olivares while Chapel Hill Police Sgt. Rodney Matthews asks a question. (Photo via courtroom pool footage.)
How the scene was processed
Before its mention on Tuesday, the blue Riesling wine bottle made a physical appearance in the court room alongside several other pieces of evidence from the high-profile case. Chapel Hill Police Department evidence technician Tamika Price, who handled much of the crime scene processing on September 7, 2012, alongside her mentor Sheleathea Wright-Quick, presented physical evidence to the jurors found in Hedgepeth and Rosario’s apartment. That included the Riesling bottle, the bloody Bacardi bottle, Hedgepeth’s shorts and underwear she wore that night to bed, and the white takeout food bag left on the bed with a scrawled note.
During her time on the stand, Price testified to her work processing the crime scene and to photos taken of Rosario’s apartment. She also revealed to the jury that it was one of her first on-site homicide cases, having only started with the Chapel Hill Police Department two months prior — and admitted after the defense’s questioning that she did not take the proper amount of detailed notes she has in the 14 years since as an evidence tech.
Tamika Price (left) of the Chapel Hill Police Department listens to a question from Assistant District Attorney Brooks Burgess Stone during the trial on October 9. (Photo via courtroom pool footage.)
Defense attorney James Rainsford also pressed Price about a mark on the bathroom door frame believed to be blood — and which Price wrote in her 2012 report of the crime scene as such. But as he shared in his opening arguments, that piece of potential evidence was not included in subsequent reports and the swab of the substance never got tested. Price testified she remembered an initial test being completed on the stain and it coming back as a presumptive positive for blood. She said a clean swab should have been taken, but could not recall whether one ultimately was. The evidence tech did not realize it was not among the evidence items brought back to the police department until weeks later, when her supervisor requested it be sent to the state Crime Lab for testing and she could not find the swab’s item number in the computer system. At that time, Price testified, she notified her mentor, Wright-Quick.
During her time on the stand, Quick said she believed Price was responsible for taking a swab of the stain in the bathroom and has a clear recollection of it being swabbed and boxed. The pair looked in the police department’s evidence room, truck, and lab when they realized the sample was not in the system and could not be located.
When asked by Rainsford whether any other evidence went missing or items were not collected that should have been, Price said: “No, nothing else I recall or have observed in this case.”
Medical Examiner Details Cause of Death; Sexual Assault Examiner Shares Opinion
Among the experts called by the prosecution were a forensic pathologist and a sexual assault examination nurse. The pathologist, Dr. Lauren Scott, is the associate chief medical examiner with the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner of North Carolina and performed the autopsy on Hedgepeth. She testified to the state of the body as she received it in 2012, the processes of checking the body for injuries, and then going through those discovered. Scott said in her report, she marked down “multiple lacerations from a blunt force object,” which led to a “very large area of fracturing, including the entire right area of her skull.” Ultimately, Scott determined, Hedgepeth died from blunt force trauma to the head.
The testimony and photos cast a somber mood in the courtroom. Several jurors began crying while looking at the photos, causing Judge Gregory to call for a break. With the pool video not broadcasting the graphic images, it was fixed on Salguero-Olivares during the description of Hedgepeth’s body — with him occasionally wincing and frequently shaking his head while looking at the images.
Miguel Salguero-Olivares (second from left) and his defense team listen to testimony about the autopsy report of Faith Hedgepeth on Friday, October 9. (Photo via courtroom pool footage.)
On Monday, the prosecution called in Heather Waleski, a certified Sexual Assault Nurse Examination (SANE) expert who works as a family practitioner for Atrium Health. While not involved in the Hedgepeth investigation, Waleski testified she was asked by the prosecution team to create an opinion on the chance Hedgepeth was sexually assaulted based on the autopsy report. Scott performed a sexual assault kit on Hedgepeth’s body and reported that she did not identify any injuries to Hedgepeth’s genitals — but both she and Waleski testified to the jury that the lack of injuries does not rule out that Hedgepeth was sexually assaulted. The prosecution had previously said in its opening arguments that part of the DNA profile created and later identified as Salguero-Olivares came from Hedgepeth’s vagina and rectum, although that evidence and explanation has not yet been presented to the jury.
Court will resume at 9:30 a.m. Wednesday morning, as the sixth day of testimony continues.
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