DURHAM, N.C. (Court TV) — A man sat silently, shaking his head on Friday as a jury found him guilty of killing a UNC student who was found beaten to death in her bed.
Miguel Salguero-Olivares sits in court. (Court TV)
Miguel Salguero-Olivares, 33, was found guilty of first-degree murder, rape, sexual offense and burglary in the death of 19-year-old Faith Hedgepeth. Hedgepeth, who was a student at the University of North Carolina when she was killed, was beaten to death while she was asleep in the home she shared with a friend.
As the jury was polled and each juror confirmed their guilty verdict, Salguero-Olivares sat shaking his head. Salguero-Olivares did not testify at his trial, and his attorneys presented no evidence on his behalf. In closing arguments to the jury, Salguero-Olivares’ attorneys emphasized reasonable doubt in the case and insisted that Salguero-Olivares’ DNA found at the scene could have been the result of consensual sexual contact with the victim days before.
Prosecutors said that Salguero-Olivares’ DNA was found inside the victim as well as on the glass Bacardi bottle that investigators said was the weapon used to kill her. In her closing argument to the jury, prosecutor Angela Garcia-Lamarca suggested that Salguero-Olivares had attacked Hedgepeth after seeing her in the parking lot when the victim and her roommate returned home early on Sept. 7, 2012. “It’s not a leap to suggest that [the defendant] came up to try to engage and Faith said, ‘What are you, stupid? Can you not see? She’s sick. Go away,'” Garcia-Lamarca said. “And then [Hedgepeth takes her roommate] upstairs and he’s angry and embarrassed and humiliated in front of his friends.”
The jury rejected suggestions from Salguero-Olivares’ defense that Hedgepeth’s roommate had been the person who killed her. That roommate was the person who called 911 after finding the victim’s body the next morning. She testified at the trial, and the jury saw a video of her talking to police, in which she described her relationship with Hedgepeth, saying, “She’s more than a best friend. … She’s everything to me.”
Immediately after the verdict, Judge Keith Gregory began sentencing proceedings. Prosecutors asked that Salguero-Olivares be sentenced to consecutive sentences totaling 348 months in addition to life without parole.
In a victim impact statement, Hedgepeth’s father said he forgave the defendant. “I say it without reservation,” he said. “I do forgive Miguel for what he did. Now, I can forgive the person, but well, first of all I don’t know how to forgive the act, but I don’t have the right to forgive the act because all the things that were done to her were sinful, and only God has the right to forgive shame.”
Salguero-Olivares’ defense asked for the sentences to run concurrently and told the judge they had advised their client not to speak.
Gregory sentenced Salguero-Olivares to the mandatory sentence of life without parole for murder, to be followed by consecutive sentences for the other charges totaling more than 65 years.
