KEEP THE FAITH

Cops Say They’ve Finally Cracked This UNC Student’s Brutal Murder Nine Years Ago

Faith Hedgepeth was just 19 when a roommate found her dead inside their Chapel Hill apartment.

The Chapel Hill Police Department announced Thursday they have arrested a man in connection with the death of Faith Hedgepeth, a University of North Carolina student who was found brutally murdered in her off-campus apartment in 2012. Miguel Enrique Salguero-Olivares, 28, was arrested and charged with first-degree murder of then-19-year-old Hedgepeth. He was not a suspect from the very beginning, police say, but he does match a sketch released by the department in 2016. Hedgepeth was found beaten to death in her Chapel Hill bedroom, with “blood everywhere,” according to roommate Karena Rosario, who found her. Initial autopsy results concluded Hedgepeth had been beaten and raped, but police have not yet commented on whether Salguero-Olivares will be charged for a sex crime. It’s unclear if the pair knew each other. “When I got the news this morning I didn’t do anything but cry. And thank God and praise God because I put it in his hands and it was his timing,” Hedgepeth’s mom, Connie, said.