NC NC - Faith Hedgepeth, 19, UNC student, Chapel Hill, 7 Sep 2012 #3

[Boodles]

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Yeah, 19-year-old girls text their ex's sometimes. It's been known to happen. It would not surprise me if Faith typically sent 150+ texts per week to various people. This just isn't the conclusive evidence that you believe it to be.

But you know what is conclusive? MESO's semen being on the victim's murdered corpse. His DNA being on the murder weapon, his DNA being on the note, and his DNA being on the pen used to write the note.

Add in his palm print being on the murder weapon and that's a royal flush of forensic evidence. MESO did it. He's the person who raped and killed Faith Hedgepeth. And no jury will be convinced otherwise just because a 19-year-old girl sent a text to her ex-boyfriend.

fluffy, it’s been awhile since I caught up with this case. I know LE connected MESO to Faith’s murder with DNA, but I don’t recall them specifically saying it was on the note, bottle, etc. Do you have a link you could share with that source of info?

And I can’t even remember who TM is. Can someone please remind me?

I am astounded that nothing has happened with this case in terms of prosecution. I do believe there’s more to it than just MESO. But it’s outrageous if he’s been in custody all this time with nothing moving forward.

 

[CADwrest]

And I can’t even remember who TM is. Can someone please remind me?

Ty McNeil

 

[louvillian08]

fluffy, it’s been awhile since I caught up with this case. I know LE connected MESO to Faith’s murder with DNA, but I don’t recall them specifically saying it was on the note, bottle, etc. Do you have a link you could share with that source of info?

And I can’t even remember who TM is. Can someone please remind me?

I am astounded that nothing has happened with this case in terms of prosecution. I do believe there’s more to it than just MESO. But it’s outrageous if he’s been in custody all this time with nothing moving forward.

Court documents reveal how investigators linked suspect in Faith Hedgepeth's murder

"Authorities used DNA ancestry technology to find Hedgepeth's killer using DNA found in her rape kit, a wine bottle and a white take-out bag, with a vulgar message written by the killer."

"The warrants say the DNA found at the crime scene is a probable match to the suspect.

And a palm print on the murder weapon -- the wine bottle -- matches the suspect's left palm."

 

[Durhamncheese]

Court documents reveal how investigators linked suspect in Faith Hedgepeth's murder

"Authorities used DNA ancestry technology to find Hedgepeth's killer using DNA found in her rape kit, a wine bottle and a white take-out bag, with a vulgar message written by the killer."

"The warrants say the DNA found at the crime scene is a probable match to the suspect.

And a palm print on the murder weapon -- the wine bottle -- matches the suspect's left palm."

Except it wasn't the wine bottle, remember? It's the Bacardi bottle.

Family of slain UNC student Faith Hedgepeth desperate for answers nearly eight years after her brutal murder

Faith Hedgepeth was beaten to death with an empty liquor bottle in the early morning hours of September 7, 2012, at her off-campus apartment near Chapel Hill, North Carolina after returning from a nightclub. She was a junior at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a member of the...

www.nbcnews.com

 

[Durhamncheese]

It's the Bacardi bottle with the blood on it.

Faith Hedgepeth: Things hoped for, things unseen

Story by Cole Villena WARRENTON, N.C. — Faith Hedgepeth’s face is always the first thing her father, Roland, sees when he walks through his front door. It’s on his phone background, and it’s on his checkbook. It’s on a dozen framed photographs and paintings throughout his home in Newton. Her...

mediahub.unc.edu

A Bacardi Peach Red bottle sat near Faith’s bed and was determined to have been the murder weapon. Police suspected that blood on the bottle, as well as semen found nearby, belonged to the killer.

Supposedly MESO's fingerprints are on the wine bottle.
But the wine bottle has no blood on it.

 

[Durhamncheese]

For those paying attention, the empty wine bottle is most likely planted evidence.
How do we know that?
Nobody in their social circle knew MESO existed. He had never been to the apartment. An ignorant Central American immigrant day laborer isn't enjoying wine socially with the college girls. He definitely is not their type.
There's no way MESO or anyone else is hanging around the apartment sipping a fine vintage before or after the murder. And there's no blood on it, meaning it wasn't the murder weapon.
If that wine bottle really has his fingerprints, then he handled it prior to the girls arriving back to the apartment. How and why it got back to the apartment is the question. It would be interesting to know where the police "found" the wine bottle.

 

[Durhamncheese]

The autopsy says a bottle that was normally kept in the kitchen was found in the bedroom with tissue fragments and DNA on it. Search warrants say a wine bottle and a Bacardi bottle were collected into evidence at the scene.

Autopsy shows brutality of Faith Hedgepeth murder

Disturbing documents released Friday detail murder of 19-year-old UNC student in her off-campus apartment.

abc11.com

There is only person alive at that time who could say where the Bacardi bottle normally was.

 

[Durhamncheese]

I don't think they have it. "Inconclusive" fingerprints on the not-the-murder-weapon are pretty likely to have become "not a match" but the DA doesn't want to let that out because it makes them look bad after 12 years.
It takes all of one day to get a fingerprint and have it analyzed. The "inconclusive" related to MESO's prints, not what they had from the bottle. But it doesn't really matter anyway, since the wine bottle is not the murder weapon.

Here’s why it’s taking lawyers so long to prosecute the suspect in 2012 of UNC-Chapel Hill student Faith Hedgepeth

Attorneys are still waiting for digital forensic analysis and cell extractions in the 2012 murder case of University of North Carolina student Faith Hedgepeth.

www.wral.com

A search warrant, recently made public, shows investigators determined a palm print on a wine bottle found by Hedgepeth's body belongs to Salugero-Olivares.
Fingerprints on the bottle were inconclusive.
A warrant from December 2022 reveals police wanted to do a more thorough finger-printing of Olivares, in jail, for a better comparison to include "inked impressions with emphasis on the fully rolled fingers to include sides and tips."

 

[Webthrush]

It's the Bacardi bottle with the blood on it.

Faith Hedgepeth: Things hoped for, things unseen

Story by Cole Villena WARRENTON, N.C. — Faith Hedgepeth’s face is always the first thing her father, Roland, sees when he walks through his front door. It’s on his phone background, and it’s on his checkbook. It’s on a dozen framed photographs and paintings throughout his home in Newton. Her...

mediahub.unc.edu

A Bacardi Peach Red bottle sat near Faith’s bed and was determined to have been the murder weapon. Police suspected that blood on the bottle, as well as semen found nearby, belonged to the killer.

Supposedly MESO's fingerprints are on the wine bottle.
But the wine bottle has no blood on it.

Just a couple of miscellaneous things:
1) over time, there were press reports identifying both the wine bottle and the rum bottle as the murder weapon -- I'm not absolutely certain which were accurate, though I'm willing to accept the rum bottle as the case (although there are other ways blood may have gotten on it). As I recall they also collected touch-DNA from the 'murder weapon' (in addition to any palm prints).
2) I don't recall the maker of the wine bottle, but there are certainly many very cheap wines that are not "fine vintages" -- indeed many wines are cheaper than Bacardi rum would be, and yes many Central Americans enjoy wine.
3) The police surely know (from all their interviews) the origin of the wine bottle -- whether it was from the apt. or from outside the apt.
I just think you're making this way more complicated than it need to be in order to concoct a complex planned/staged scenario for what looks to be a very impulsive, brutal act of rage by someone (or I think likely 2 people) who are less than criminal geniuses.

 

[Webthrush]

"There is only [one] person alive at that time who could say where the Bacardi bottle normally was."

there were several regular visitors to that apt. who likely knew where the Bacardi was normally kept... Brandon was there just the night before. Again, you make these absolute certain statements as if there are NO other possible interpretations except for the one you choose. There are LOTS of interpretations and scenarios.

 

[CADwrest]

For those paying attention, the empty wine bottle is most likely planted evidence.
How do we know that?
Nobody in their social circle knew MESO existed. He had never been to the apartment. An ignorant Central American immigrant day laborer isn't enjoying wine socially with the college girls. He definitely is not their type.
There's no way MESO or anyone else is hanging around the apartment sipping a fine vintage before or after the murder. And there's no blood on it, meaning it wasn't the murder weapon.
If that wine bottle really has his fingerprints, then he handled it prior to the girls arriving back to the apartment. How and why it got back to the apartment is the question. It would be interesting to know where the police "found" the wine bottle.

I know it's an absurd scenario compared to the wine bottle being planted evidence, but he could have, you know... touched both bottles. Leaving DNA on one and a palm print on the other.

 

[fluffypaste]

For those paying attention, the empty wine bottle is most likely planted evidence.
How do we know that?
Nobody in their social circle knew MESO existed. He had never been to the apartment. An ignorant Central American immigrant day laborer isn't enjoying wine socially with the college girls. He definitely is not their type.
There's no way MESO or anyone else is hanging around the apartment sipping a fine vintage before or after the murder. And there's no blood on it, meaning it wasn't the murder weapon.
If that wine bottle really has his fingerprints, then he handled it prior to the girls arriving back to the apartment. How and why it got back to the apartment is the question. It would be interesting to know where the police "found" the wine bottle.

Why do you say there was no blood on the bottle? From what I've heard, a large part of it was completely caked in blood.

 

[Skigirl]

I’m curious about this. When you get time, can you give us some examples of fake text messages and what those looked like? It’d be nice to have a comparison.

Here are the last two texts from Gabby Petito's phone (both to her mother), widely believed to have been sent by her killer:

"Can you help Stan, I just keep getting his voicemails and missed calls”
"no service in Yosemite"

Both messages relatively brief, in a different style from her other texts, both trying to give the impression that she's still alive, one is trying to get her mother to respond to her grandfather so that he stops calling the phone, and the other is to throw people off the trail because she was not anywhere close to Yosemite.

 

[fluffypaste]

Remember when that screwball from Idaho was arrested? The guy who killed all of those college students in Moscow? Soon after he was arrested, the Moscow PD released something called a probable cause affidavit. Real nice document with a concise summary of the preliminary evidence. Is there.....anything.....like that for this case?

 

[Webthrush]

Remember when that screwball from Idaho was arrested? The guy who killed all of those college students in Moscow? Soon after he was arrested, the Moscow PD released something called a probable cause affidavit. Real nice document with a concise summary of the preliminary evidence. Is there.....anything.....like that for this case?

No one else has responded, so I'll just offer that, while I don't know about an "affidavit" I think all the police had on MESO at time of arrest (according to press) was the the DNA match (both semen and touch DNA) and partial palm print match -- potentially powerful evidence of his presence, but perhaps still questionable in some respects.

 

[Durhamncheese]

CHPD Releases Timeline, Suspect's DNA Discovery In Hedgepeth Murder Case - Chapelboro.com

CHAPEL HILL – The murder investigation of Faith Danielle Hedgepeth is still unsolved and theChapel Hill Police Department released additional information Tuesday morning in what has been a tightly locked case. Public information officer Sgt. Josh Mecimore says a timeline of the incident has been...

chapelboro.com

Faith was last known to be alive at around 3:00 a.m. Who else was there?
“The person responsible for this would be familiar with the victim,” Sgt. Mecimore says. “(He) may have lived nearby at some point in the past. The suspect would be unaccounted for during the early-morning hours of September 7, 2012. The suspect could have made comments regarding the victim to close associates or friends in the past. There may have been a change in the person responsible’s behavior after the murder—things like an unusual interest in the case or a change in performance at work or school.”
There is one individual who was very familiar with the victim, lived nearby, unaccounted for during the early-morning hours, made previous comments regarding the victim, and displayed unusual interest in the case. And it's not MESO.

INFORMATIONAL MESSAGE FROM ALERT CAROLINA: Death of a student – Alert Carolina – UNC-Chapel Hill

alertcarolina.unc.edu

Law enforcement officials did not believe that there was danger to other students, faculty or staff because it was not a random act. And there was not a danger, because nothing else happened. This was not random.

 

[louvillian08]

displayed unusual interest in the case.

That's a hell of a way to describe someone's interest in the murder of their close friend that happened in their own apartment

 

[Durhamncheese]

That's a hell of a way to describe someone's interest in the murder of their close friend that happened in their own apartment

Many people had an interest in the case. The key word is unusual, something out of the ordinary and something that a normal individual would not do. I think police are referring to how the individual would have been present at the crime scene, following and commenting about it on social media, seeking out opportunities to comment on the case, and things of that nature. There is someone who did that. It's not MESO.

 

[fluffypaste]

That's a hell of a way to describe someone's interest in the murder of their close friend that happened in their own apartment

He's quoting from an FBI profile that was released some time after the murder. I forget the time frame, but it was either 6 months or two years after the murder.

The profile is very general, it could be used as a profile for basically any unsolved murder. The profile is fine, the only problem with it is how some people have misapplied it.

In particular, some people seem to have misinterpreted the line "the killer is familiar with the victim" as meaning "the victim's best friend should be treated as the first and only suspect, regardless of any exculpatory evidence."

It's also important to note that the FBI profile was released fairly early in the investigation, before they'd DNA tested 800+ people. At that point, it was much more reasonable to think that the killer would probably be someone connected to FH/KR's social circle.

In unrelated news, I emailed the CHPD and asked for a copy of the PCA for MESO. They replied, saying that they don't have it anymore. They told me to contact the Durham District Attorney. I've written her a letter, but haven't mailed it yet.

 

[Durhamncheese]

UNC-CH is known for being very protective of the student body. They are overly paranoid and concerned about their good name.
This post Alert Carolina Crime Alert: UNC Police investigating multiple reports of larceny on campus – Alert Carolina – UNC-Chapel Hill
reminds students to lock their doors even if they are going a few doors down. About thefts. Very vigilant.
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