Moments after the sentencing was read for Miguel Salguero-Olivares — life in prison for the 2012 murder of Faith Hedgepeth — the members of the Hedgepeth family in the room began embracing each other and letting out tears that had welled up since the jury read its verdict.
Amid the moment of release, Faith’s mother Connie saw Chapel Hill Police Chief Celisa Lehew approaching her.
“Celisa said to me,” Hedgepeth recalled, “that she was sorry that it took this long, over 14 years, for justice. But I told her, ‘Don’t be sorry. It’s God’s plan. I thought when it happened, we’d have the answers soon. It was over 14 years…but I say, ‘Everything has a purpose.’ And I think her death has served its purpose, because so many people know her story.”
Hedgepeth and her family, as well as Lehew, state investigators, and the prosecution team, shared public thoughts with the media on Friday after court proceedings finished. Family members had changed into t-shirts with the message “Faith Over Fear,” which they sold as fundraisers to help cover travel and lodging costs during the trial. Despite not knowing who was responsible for more than a decade after the Hollister, N.C. resident’s death, Hedgepeth’s family and community have long sought to show a unified front in sharing the story of her life before her death. To a person, they described Hedgepeth as someone who brought joy to each person she knew.
“We [collectively] tried to represent Faith for the whole trial,” Hedgepeth’s father, Roland, said. “Not just as individuals, but we tried to represent her with dignity.”
Now with some resolution to the tragedy, Durham County District Attorney Satana Deberry thanked the Hedgepeth family for trusting the investigators and prosecutors with the case and for “holding our feet to the fire” to ensure justice was served.
“We’ve become close with them,” Deberry said about the Hedgepeth family and her office. “This case is personal for me because at the time we really started working on it, my youngest daughter was a 19-year-old at UNC-Chapel Hill and she had just moved off-campus. And I could not imagine what it would feel like to get that telephone call. We just all knew that we could not let this family down.”
Durham County District Attorney Satana Deberry (center) speaks to the gathered media on Friday, October 23, after the conviction and sentencing of Miguel Salguero-Olivares in the murder of Faith Hedgepeth. Chapel Hill Police Chief Celisa Lehew (left) and Faith’s mother, Connie Hedgepeth (right) stand nearby. (Photo by Brighton McConnell/Chapel Hill Media Group.)
Deberry said the prosecutorial team started preparing for the trial of Salguero-Olivares “daily” about two years ago — but she credited some of the origins of that preparation to a Sexual Assault Kit Initiative grant from the U.S. Department of Justice. Its funding helped add prosecutors Angela Garcia-Lamarca and Charles Sole as the office called in specialists Lisa Coltrain from the North Carolina Conference of District Attorneys and Brooks Stone from the Alamance County District Attorney’s Office. Together, they formed the team that argued to the jury that the DNA and forensic evidence left at the crime scene proved Salguero-Olivares was the man responsible for Hedgepeth’s murder and rape.
While Salguero-Olivares’ defense team brought no witnesses themselves in front of the jury, they used their cross-examination opportunities to question whether the evidence was handled correctly in 2012 and the ensuing years as investigators requested new tests. Lehew said she stood by how the department conducted its investigation — and thanked all the law enforcement employees who worked “countless hours” to honor Hedgepeth by holding her killer accountable.
“This was definitely new for us, in terms of how long the case [lasted],” said Lehew. “It really impacts me when people say, ‘Oh, it was a cold case.’ Faith’s case was never cold. We literally worked it every way we could for those 14 years, and I’m just so proud of the team. There was never really a doubt that our work was good, and we did the best we did, and that we would have a conviction.”
Faith’s niece and close friend Alexis Evans acknowledged the time, resources, and attention around Hedgepeth’s case are not something afforded to all victims. Because of the 19-year-old being a UNC student, the crime happening in Chapel Hill, and the details slowly released as investigators sought suspects, the murder drew significant attention from across the community and country. Evans was quick to point out how indigenous women experience violence in their life at a significantly higher rate — four out of five women — than other demographics and Faith was one of them.
“I want to speak to all the families and individuals who are secondary victims of homicide [or people] who are missing and murdered,” Hedgepeth’s niece said. “Today we have seen justice for [Faith]. And that fight will continue today and beyond…through every appeal, through every trial, through anything that presents after this. But today we have a semblance of peace. And I want to recognize every story that isn’t able to be heard up here.”
And yet, at least for a few hours, the Hedgepeth family was able to begin feeling a semblance of closure with an answer to whether justice would bookend Faith’s story.
“Today’s guilty verdict brings accountability for Faith’s death — that matters, and we have worked hard toward this day for a very long time,” Lehew said to punctuate her comments. “We hope today brings some of the answers you have waited so long for, and will we continue to stand beside everyone. Above all, today is about Faith: the life she lived, the people she touched, and the future she deserved.”
Featured image by Brighton McConnell/Chapel Hill Media Group.
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