‘Louder Than the Noise’: Trial Opens 14 Years After UNC Student Faith Hedgepeth Was Killed

Fourteen years after University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill student Faith Hedgepeth was found dead in her off-campus apartment, the man accused of killing her went on trial in Durham, North Carolina, on Wednesday, Oct. 7, 2026, according to The Associated Press and WRAL.

Miguel Salguero Olivares is charged with first-degree murder, rape and burglary in her death, the AP and WRAL reported. The allegations have not been proven in court.

Hedgepeth, 19, was a sophomore at UNC-Chapel Hill. She was found dead on Sept. 7, 2012, according to WRAL and ABC7. Salguero Olivares was arrested in 2021, more than nine years later, after a DNA match, the AP reported.

What prosecutors told the jury

“The evidence in this case is louder than the noise around it,” Assistant District Attorney Angela Garcia-Lamarca told jurors, according to the AP and WRAL.

She said the defendant’s DNA was found on a blood-covered rum bottle that prosecutors say was the murder weapon, on a fast-food bag at the scene and on Hedgepeth’s body, the AP and WRAL reported.

Prosecutors say Salguero Olivares and Hedgepeth did not know each other. Garcia-Lamarca told jurors that was the reason it took years to find him, according to WRAL, and the AP reported that she described the killing as an attack by a stranger in a fit of rage.

“This case is not complicated,” she told jurors, according to both outlets.

Garcia-Lamarca also described Hedgepeth as hoping to become the first person in her family to graduate from college, the AP and WRAL reported.

What the defense argued

Defense attorney James Rainsford told jurors the DNA evidence does not prove what prosecutors claim. “Finding something doesn’t mean a crime occurred,” he said, according to the AP and WRAL. “You have to connect them.”

Rainsford pointed jurors to details he said do not add up, including a friend’s statement to police that he saw what appeared to be blood on the hand of Hedgepeth’s roommate that night, and evidence of what appeared to be blood in the apartment’s bathroom that police later lost, according to the AP and WRAL. “Maybe that’s noise to some people,” Rainsford said, according to both outlets.

What comes next

A 12-member jury will decide the case, WRAL and ABC7 reported.