NC NC - Faith Hedgepeth, 19, UNC student, Chapel Hill, 7 Sept 2012 #1

[Webthrush]

Regarding #2 and #3: I've often wondered if the person who did this is even alive anymore. It's literally the only other reason someone could have not been found by now (that or maybe they're already in jail or a hospital for something that wouldn't require submitting a DNA sample). I remember thinking how surely they would find who did it and it would most likely be after this person hurt someone else. Honestly surprised it hasn't happened by now.

That’s an interesting, simple thought that never even occurred to me — that the perp could be deceased… he commits a horrendous crime and then gets killed in a car crash, or a drug deal gone bad, commits suicide, or, or, or; never again seen nor heard from.
On a similar note I’m wondering now about a Latino who didn’t die but has long since moved back to Central or South America; had no criminal record here (in the States) but maybe does in his homeland — do the DNA searches done for the case only cover U.S. population records or do they include other nations?

 

[CADwrest]

OK, if we go with this line of thinking, then surely they also left some prints behind- on a doorknob, faucet, sink, etc. Yet still nothing, at least nothing LE has mentioned on prints. So that's why I think they did take some measures to cover up after themselves, yet strangely left the bottle. Maybe the bottle itself is of some significance?

Interestingly, there are reasons that ones' prints may be on file, but not ones' DNA. DNA is only taken from felons, but there are professions out there where prints are taken as a matter of course. Of course, we don't know for sure there are no prints, just that LE hadn't mentioned them. Unlike DNA, though, the prints themselves don't really tell you much about the person who left them (gender, ethnicity, etc), so LE wouldn't really have any reason to say they were found.

I wonder if the killer leaving the DNA all over the place can tell us something. Either A) the killer is completely ignorant about modern forensics or B) the killer felt confident he'd never be connected with murder. If it's B, that points to a more random killer.

 

[CADwrest]

Any chance the FBI could get involved on this case? I feel like the CHPD has botched aspects of the investigation and doesn't know how to move forward. Faith was a member of a Native American tribe; could this somehow allow the FBI to get involved?

I know the CHPD consulted with the FBI and SBI early on, but I don't think the FBI has any way of claiming jurisdiction over the case. She was a member of Haliwa-Saponi but she was killed in Durham County (though for reasons that have never been entirely clear to me, CHPD worked the case and not Durham), so the local government would naturally have jurisdiction, and there's not really an element to it that would invite FBI involvement.

 

[youlostone]

The apartment is very close to the border between Orange and Durham counties so I imagine maybe that’s how CHPD initially got involved.

 

[Skigirl]

I know the CHPD consulted with the FBI and SBI early on, but I don't think the FBI has any way of claiming jurisdiction over the case. She was a member of Haliwa-Saponi but she was killed in Durham County (though for reasons that have never been entirely clear to me, CHPD worked the case and not Durham), so the local government would naturally have jurisdiction, and there's not really an element to it that would invite FBI involvement.

I think that the apartments may actually be in that little part of Chapel Hill that's in Durham County instead of Orange (Chapel Hill also bleeds over into Chatham County because of the way little communities were annexed, as I'm sure many of ya'll know). Maybe that's why Chapel Hill PD took the lead.

 

[Doghairrules]

I think that the apartments may actually be in that little part of Chapel Hill that's in Durham County instead of Orange (Chapel Hill also bleeds over into Chatham County because of the way little communities were annexed, as I'm sure many of ya'll know). Maybe that's why Chapel Hill PD took the lead.

I think that’s right. Close friends of mine lived in the neighborhood adjacent to this complex. They had a Chapel Hill address and a durham
Phone number. Chapel Hill responded to 911 calls though.


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[raiders444]

Interestingly, there are reasons that ones' prints may be on file, but not ones' DNA. DNA is only taken from felons, but there are professions out there where prints are taken as a matter of course. Of course, we don't know for sure there are no prints, just that LE hadn't mentioned them. Unlike DNA, though, the prints themselves don't really tell you much about the person who left them (gender, ethnicity, etc), so LE wouldn't really have any reason to say they were found.

I wonder if the killer leaving the DNA all over the place can tell us something. Either A) the killer is completely ignorant about modern forensics or B) the killer felt confident he'd never be connected with murder. If it's B, that points to a more random killer.

When I was a child, my fingerprints were all taken as part of a school wide movement. I always thought this was a national thing, for a national registry or something. Perhaps stemming from the Adam Walsh abduction (i'm in my 40's). At any rate, I also always believed one's prints didn't change over time as they aged? So if I were to commit a crime and leave behind my prints, I would be identified based on the prints I gave as a 5 year old. True or false? I really don't know. So lifting prints from a crime scene I figured would be an easy way to identify who did it-assuming all American citizens have given their prints for this registry at some point. However, if we are referring to a first generation Latin American immigrant, I doubt they have prints in a US registry.

 

[CADwrest]

When I was a child, my fingerprints were all taken as part of a school wide movement. I always thought this was a national thing, for a national registry or something. Perhaps stemming from the Adam Walsh abduction (i'm in my 40's). At any rate, I also always believed one's prints didn't change over time as they aged? So if I were to commit a crime and leave behind my prints, I would be identified based on the prints I gave as a 5 year old. True or false? I really don't know. So lifting prints from a crime scene I figured would be an easy way to identify who did it-assuming all American citizens have given their prints for this registry at some point. However, if we are referring to a first generation Latin American immigrant, I doubt they have prints in a US registry.

I had never heard of what you're describing, but found this article from 1983:
http://www.nytimes.com/1983/02/22/us/fingerprinting-of-children-spreading.html

I have no idea what became of these programs, but it sounds like it was done state by state with no central database, with the cards mostly being kept by the parents. Since this was ostensibly done to aid in recovering lost children, I doubt these cards (if they still exist, and remain in police custody) are consulted about criminal cases. I could definitely see a constitutional issue being raised if they were.

ETA: Apparently, it's still around in some form: http://www.childidprogram.com/about-us I'm surprised I've never heard of this before. I grew up in the 80s and I definitely never had my fingerprints taken as a child.

 

[raiders444]

Do we know if LE has ever looked into the alibi/DNA of ER, relative of MR?

 

[raiders444]

I had never heard of what you're describing, but found this article from 1983:
http://www.nytimes.com/1983/02/22/us/fingerprinting-of-children-spreading.html

I have no idea what became of these programs, but it sounds like it was done state by state with no central database, with the cards mostly being kept by the parents. Since this was ostensibly done to aid in recovering lost children, I doubt these cards (if they still exist, and remain in police custody) are consulted about criminal cases. I could definitely see a constitutional issue being raised if they were.

WOW! Very nice find! And thinking back, it makes sense they would be given to the parents. It was also well before any sort of computer database or scanning of these could ever be implemented.

I guess it's a bit of a Catch 22- we all want criminals to be caught, but when it comes to everyone volunteering to have their DNA recorded, or having cameras on every street corner, suddenly people get very hesitant and start talking about civil liberties. I can only imagine how many other cold cases are out there because LE wasn't able to obtain DNA- probably thousands

 

[raiders444]

This also answers a huge question for me of: why not just dust for fingerprints and easily find the killer via some fingerprint database. I now know no such database exists, unless it's some sort of criminal database kept by LE. Based on this as well as the DNA left at the scene we can obviously conclude our perp has no prior convictions. An elementary discovery I am aware but until now I had held out hope that an intact fingerprint would reveal who did this :coldcase:

 

[CADwrest]

This also answers a huge question for me of: why not just dust for fingerprints and easily find the killer via some fingerprint database. I now know no such database exists, unless it's some sort of criminal database kept by LE. Based on this as well as the DNA left at the scene we can obviously conclude our perp has no prior convictions. An elementary discovery I am aware but until now I had held out hope that an intact fingerprint would reveal who did this :coldcase:

I believe there is a massive LE database for fingerprints connected to felons and unsolved crimes (like this one). I don't know how/if some of those other, non-criminal fingerprint databases tie into it, though. I can see the objection to searching such records, since the people in them aren't criminals; but on the other hand, if you can't search them, why bother having them at all?

 

[youlostone]

When I was a child, my fingerprints were all taken as part of a school wide movement. I always thought this was a national thing, for a national registry or something. Perhaps stemming from the Adam Walsh abduction (i'm in my 40's). At any rate, I also always believed one's prints didn't change over time as they aged? So if I were to commit a crime and leave behind my prints, I would be identified based on the prints I gave as a 5 year old. True or false? I really don't know. So lifting prints from a crime scene I figured would be an easy way to identify who did it-assuming all American citizens have given their prints for this registry at some point. However, if we are referring to a first generation Latin American immigrant, I doubt they have prints in a US registry.

I did this one time as a kid but it didn't go into a registry. At least in the instance I remember they gave the card to the parents to keep in the instance that the kid ever goes missing. There have been some moves to do fingerprinting on kids and keep it in a registry, but some lawyers have taken issue with this for this very reason. The argument is that it shouldn't be used to find people guilty of crimes. There was an article about this in the past few years that I'm going to try to find.

 

[youlostone]

I believe there is a massive LE database for fingerprints connected to felons and unsolved crimes (like this one). I don't know how/if some of those other, non-criminal fingerprint databases tie into it, though. I can see the objection to searching such records, since the people in them aren't criminals; but on the other hand, if you can't search them, why bother having them at all?

There is AFIS

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrated_Automated_Fingerprint_Identification_System

Who knows whether CHPD has access to something like this. Now that would be one thing the FBI could bring to the table, for sure. Maybe SBI has access to these kind of databases, too. Who knows, really. The unfortunate thing is this relies on the perpetrator being someone who's either already committed a crime before or already in the system for employment reasons.

 

[Rhino-Esq]

I don't know if this has been talked about before, but I noticed that the Red Robin receipt that Faith last posted on her instagram is for some reason printed partially in French. (I am guessing it's an option for the server to print receipts out in different languages for their customers).

Could the phenotype of a suspect of Latino decent come from either a South American or European country that speaks French? Or simply of Latino decent that grew up or that lives in a French-speaking country? A well traveled suspect?

I kind of went down a rabbit hole with this based on the information shown on the receipt... just wondering if this has been discussed or ruled out.

https://www.instagram.com/p/PFdKmlGcWc/?taken-by=ole_faithful

 

[Skigirl]

I don't know if this has been talked about before, but I noticed that the Red Robin receipt that Faith last posted on her instagram is for some reason printed partially in French. (I am guessing it's an option for the server to print receipts out in different languages for their customers).

Could the phenotype of a suspect of Latino decent come from either a South American or European country that speaks French? Or simply of Latino decent that grew up or that lives in a French-speaking country? A well traveled suspect?

I kind of went down a rabbit hole with this based on the information shown on the receipt... just wondering if this has been discussed or ruled out.

https://www.instagram.com/p/PFdKmlGcWc/?taken-by=ole_faithful

View attachment 124992

Your ideas are novel and haven't been discussed/ruled out...

I noticed the receipt in French, too, but I assumed that someone just bumped the wrong setting that day and everyone was just printing their receipts in French because no one really cared (having waited tables I can definitely see no one caring/bothering to fix it)... But the idea that Faith did it on purpose for that particular customer is very intriguing and the idea that the person could have been French-speaking but of Latino ancestry is also really interesting. and that's some very creative thinking on your part!

Seems from the Parabon report that the person who left the DNA at the scene was probably was not from Europe (e.g., Spain) because a high proportion of genes seem to be from Central America -- I would assume that would mean ancestors who were native and ancestors who immigrated from Spain many generations ago, given what we know of immigration patterns. If I recall, areas of South/Central America that are primarily French speaking or have sizeable French-speaking populations include French Guyana, parts of Brazil, and Haiti; I'm sure that I'm missing some if not many (e.g., many Caribbean islands).

Other possibile reasons for the French receipt (in addition to accident and French-speaking guest) would include someone who had taken French in school and was playfully using it to flirt.

I wonder if Faith had any casual friends in her broader circle that fit any of the above (e.g., from a French-speaking part of S. America) or a friend from Europe or Quebec with Central American ancestry.

 

[youlostone]

I don't know if this has been talked about before, but I noticed that the Red Robin receipt that Faith last posted on her instagram is for some reason printed partially in French. (I am guessing it's an option for the server to print receipts out in different languages for their customers).

Could the phenotype of a suspect of Latino decent come from either a South American or European country that speaks French? Or simply of Latino decent that grew up or that lives in a French-speaking country? A well traveled suspect?

I kind of went down a rabbit hole with this based on the information shown on the receipt... just wondering if this has been discussed or ruled out.

https://www.instagram.com/p/PFdKmlGcWc/?taken-by=ole_faithful

View attachment 124992

Hopefully that isn't the person's name listed on the receipt!!! I tried to google that name but couldn't find anything.

 

[Webthrush]

Hopefully that isn't the person's name listed on the receipt!!! I tried to google that name but couldn't find anything.

actually from googling around at other receipts it looks like that would be the name, in some order -- I've tried the name in various permutations and do find some individuals but nothing I can link back to the NC Triangle area (though if someone wants to go down the rabbit hole deeper, who knows!) I assume the police, looking at Faith's workplace pretty deeply have already investigated the receipt long ago (but again, who knows). It is further interesting that the date of the receipt is less than a week away from the crime.

 

[youlostone]

actually from googling around at other receipts it looks like that would be the name, in some order -- I've tried the name in various permutations and do find some individuals but nothing I can link back to the NC Triangle area (though if someone wants to go down the rabbit hole deeper, who knows!) I assume the police, looking at Faith's workplace pretty deeply have already investigated the receipt long ago (but again, who knows). It is further interesting that the date of the receipt is less than a week away from the crime.

This probably makes the French origin theory less likely just based on that name. I agree that LE has probably worked this angle already. Scary that it was taken just in the week prior.



Also if I had to guess I would say christo is just cut off and it’s probably actually Christopher

 

[Skigirl]

There is AFIS

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrated_Automated_Fingerprint_Identification_System

Who knows whether CHPD has access to something like this. Now that would be one thing the FBI could bring to the table, for sure. Maybe SBI has access to these kind of databases, too. Who knows, really. The unfortunate thing is this relies on the perpetrator being someone who's either already committed a crime before or already in the system for employment reasons.

I'm pretty sure that if AFIS isn't directly accessible to local enforcement (and I think it might be), that local LE are routinely able to submit prints to the AFIS administrators for comparison. Namus (database for missing people that includes DNA, dental charts, pictures of evidence, etc) has different levels of permissions such that what can be seen by people like me is a subset of what is viewable to members of law enforcement so that it can be used broadly.


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