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

[Simplestarz86]

Did any local news affiliate cover this story on the anniversary?

No. None at all.

 

[faithx]

According to an order posted today on the North Carolina eCourts portal (case number 21CR054671-310), MESO is no longer represented by the public defender as he has now "retained the law firms of Chris Barnes, PLLC and Coleman, Merritt, Murphy and Rainsford, P.C. as his attorneys."

 

[Webthrush]

According to an order posted today on the North Carolina eCourts portal (case number 21CR054671-310), MESO is no longer represented by the public defender as he has now "retained the law firms of Chris Barnes, PLLC and Coleman, Merritt, Murphy and Rainsford, P.C. as his attorneys."

Wow, thanks again for noting this! Does this mean another long (sort of re-set) delay in proceedings, or does it mean we are closer than ever to a trial date? And HOW is MESO, after all this time, suddenly able to afford the services of a private attorney office (from Hillsborough)?
I guess we’ll all learn more soon enough, but I sure hope the press gets onto this.

 

[Webthrush]

According to an order posted today on the North Carolina eCourts portal (case number 21CR054671-310), MESO is no longer represented by the public defender as he has now "retained the law firms of Chris Barnes, PLLC and Coleman, Merritt, Murphy and Rainsford, P.C. as his attorneys."

Someone has mentioned to me that MESO is now represented by TWO separate law firms (one Chapel Hill and one Hillsborough) — I didn’t catch that when “faithx” originally posted the name of the new defenders. Seems a bit bizarre, 3 years after arrest; I can imagine things it might imply but don’t want to speculate…

 

[Webthrush]

Someone has mentioned to me that MESO is now represented by TWO separate law firms (one Chapel Hill and one Hillsborough) — I didn’t catch that when “faithx” originally posted the name of the new defenders. Seems a bit bizarre, 3 years after arrest; I can imagine things it might imply but don’t want to speculate…

just to be more specific, MESO’s defense lawyers are now listed as Chris Barnes (fluent in both English & Spanish, and from a Chapel Hill office focusing “on the fields immigration, criminal, and traffic law.”) and James Rainsford, Samuel Coleman, and Jason Murphy from a Hillsborough office.
Seems like a lot of legal firepower!? (though, while all the attorneys have experience with criminal defense and civil litigation matters, I can’t tell if they’ve ever taken on a case with the magnitude and gravity of this one?) In any event, does anyone have a sense of how long it normally takes new lawyers to get 'up to speed' on a case that is already 3 years old with 1000s of documents to review/digest???

 

[Webthrush]

MESO’s “Administrative Hearing” (Durham courthouse) is scheduled for tomorrow (Oct 10)… I sent a notice of such to 3 local news outlets in hopes they might cover it (if anyone else cares to do so, feel free) — for all I know it may be a 5-minute procedural nothing-burger of an event(?), but in case anything of note happens it would be nice to have press coverage.

 

[I am not Sherlock H.]

Apologies as I am quite late to this case. But do have to concede the apparent extended time delay is worrisome IMO. And hope something might occur at tomorrow’s hearing, October 10.

IIUC the slaying occurred at an off-campus apartment or housing. So an initial theory of mine is gutted - i .e. perhaps some confusion between investigating local police and campus police. (In those scenarios sometimes there can be confusion, overlap, misses, or ambiguities and uncertainty.) Other than that, no clear idea why this is prolonged and not widely publicized.

Also interesting that the defendant MES-O now has legal representation other than a public defender. Wonder how that might manifest in tomorrow’s hearing?

As @Boodles notes in post 626 above with other unsolved area crimes wonder why there isn’t more emphasis on attempts to solve them? Has there been any discussion of links to other unsolved crimes? Is this defendant possibly linked to others? Not new to sleuthers here, but IIUC MES-O was arrested September 2021; this FH case dates from September 2012. That is a 9 years time period. A lot can occur in that time. SMH. MOO