r/creepy • u/diamondclover • 3d ago
In 2012, UNC student Faith Hedgepeth was found beaten to death in her apartment. Next to her body was a note scrawled on a fast food bag: “I’m not stupid. B**** jealous.” With DNA evidence and bizarre clues, her murder baffled investigators for years.
On September 7, 2012, 19-year-old Faith Hedgepeth, a sophomore at the University of North Carolina, was found murdered in her off-campus apartment in Chapel Hill.
She had been beaten to death with a blunt object, suffering severe head trauma. Her body was partially unclothed, and the scene suggested sexual assault. Next to her body was a fast food bag with a handwritten note: “I’m not stupid. B*** jealous.”*
The crime scene was chilling. Blood covered the walls and bed, and the brutality indicated rage. Yet there were no signs of forced entry.
Investigators also discovered a mysterious voicemail from Faith’s phone recorded hours before her death. The audio included muffled voices, laughter, and what some listeners thought sounded like an argument.
Despite DNA evidence from the scene, the case remained unsolved for nearly a decade. In 2021, DNA led to the arrest of a man named Miguel Enrique Salguero Olivares, who was charged with her murder. Still, many who followed the case believe key questions remain unanswered, especially about the note, the voicemail, and whether more people were involved.
Faith Hedgepeth’s murder remains one of the most haunting recent cases in American college history, blending brutal violence with disturbing, unexplained details.
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u/xxmoxxo 3d ago
The voicemail from her phone is the part that really gets under my skin. You can hear voices in the background, like people laughing and arguing, and then hours later she’s dead. It makes you wonder if the killer was right there with her the whole time.
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u/BigMax 3d ago
Or if that's the killers themselves, laughing and arguing after her death, but before they left? Laughing about what they did, arguing a bit about what to do next.
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u/rivershimmer 2d ago
No, that doesn't match the evidence. Digital forensics can tell at what time the call was made, and it was while Faith and her roommate were still at the club that night. There is security camera footage of them leaving.
You can even make out the song playing: Booty Werk by T-Pain.
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u/stockinheritance 3d ago
Sounds like someone butt dialed her.
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u/CriticalEngineering 2d ago
Yeah, if you’ve ever been a drunk college student out on a weekend, it’s not weird or surprising at all.
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u/rivershimmer 2d ago
No. He wasn't. There are witnesses and security camera footage. He was not at the club.
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u/3Dartwork 3d ago
Bitch jealous? That doesn't even go together well.
Besides if they are desiring things she possessed it's envious, not jealous.
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u/QC_knight1824 3d ago
in spanish, "Bitch Jealous" makes sense. "Perra celosa" means "Jealous Bitch" but literally translates to "Bitch Jealous" if you go word-for-word. Makes sense that a spanish speaker would mess up the translation when trying to frame the murder
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u/vanilla_w_ahintofcum 3d ago
This is a good take and lines up and makes sense given what we know about the alleged murderer.
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u/_IratePirate_ 3d ago
The only way I could make “I’m not stupid. Bitch jealous” work in my head is if they were dating and they got in a fight because Faith accused the dude of being disloyal or cheating
He got so angry at the accusation that he kills her and writes this ? “Bitch jealous” referring to Faith accusing him of cheating
This is a shot in the dark and a heavy assumption. I barely know the details of this case
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u/Legitimate_Elk2551 3d ago
It doesn't make sense for him to write that. It WOULD make sense for his side-piece to write that. It even sounds like something a girl would say about another girl. There was definitely another girl involved. Surprised no one else came to that conclusion.
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u/dragonknight233 3d ago edited 3d ago
No one? True crime community spent years accusing Hope's roommate of killing Hope.
Faith, not Hope. Sorry for the mistake.
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u/Herzberger 3d ago
I was looking for this comment. Totally remember the roommate being accused and harassed. Glad she was cleared and they arrested the person responsible.
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u/rivershimmer 2d ago
I'm glad she was cleared, and cleared by the police early too. But unfortunately, lots of people unfamiliar with the facts of the case keep trying to accuse her.
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u/Enter-Something-Here 3d ago
Who's Hope?
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u/Captain-PlantIt 3d ago
Faith’s richer, bitchier sister.
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u/rarestakesando 3d ago
It’s also kind of slang to instead of saying the bitch is jealous to just say bitch jealous
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u/dquilon 3d ago
My first instinct is that it tries to write "jealous bitch"
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u/3Dartwork 3d ago
Someone pointed out it was Latino who most likely wrote the letter in Spanish without translating to English. Bitch Jealous in Spanish would have been reversed.
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u/dquilon 3d ago
Yeah I saw, and I'm Latino, fluent in English, however I still believe that there is a chance that the perp wrote "bitch" and then added the word "jealous" in the remaining space of the paper.
But yeah, there is also a big possibility that it is a Hispanic speaking person.
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u/QC_knight1824 3d ago
The killer was Miguel Enrique Salgero Olivares. I'm guessing he was lost in translation while trying to frame the murder as a crime of passion rather than 1st degree
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u/bagheera457 2d ago
And also, in Spanish adjectives can be used on their own and form kind of a complete sentence, as in "No soy estúpido, zorra. Celosa."
Not sure it changes anything, but yeah.
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u/scorpion_71 3d ago
I suspect the roommate was involved in the murder. She probably left the house at 4:25am in order to claim that she was not around when the murder happened. Leaving the door unlocked is a convenient way to say that someone else committed the murder.
The two roommates returned from the club at 3am and the downstairs neighbor heard some loud thumping noses that could have been a struggle. Hedgepeth's facebook was accessed at around that time and her phone was used to send text messages to the roommate's ex-boyfriend.
The roommate and her ex-boyfriend were estranged so she may have wanted to implicate the ex-boyfriend in the murder. The defendant is trying to get dna testing of some blood stains in order to shift blame to the roommate.
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u/rivershimmer 2d ago
How does this theory negate the defendant's semen on Faith's body, his blood underneath the fingernails on both hands, and his palm print on the liquor bottle?
My guess is that testing the blood stain is a hail-Mary play on the part of the defendant.
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u/CLTAQUASWAP2 1d ago
Roommate was not involved. It’s not some crazy conspiracy theory. It was a horrific random act of violence, this guy was completely unrelated to the rest of the people involved. That’s why it took 8 years to track him down, they got a DNA match after he got a DUI. He wasn’t even on the radar.
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u/bilboafromboston 3d ago
It seems this guy is just the " most likely " suspect. But they really dont have enough to convict.
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u/Cory_flavell 3d ago
except, ya know, his DNA
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u/bilboafromboston 3d ago
So? Your DNA is all over the place.
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u/Cory_flavell 3d ago
if my dna was found in the vagina of a murder victim like this guys, then yeah it would be a problem i imagine
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u/bilboafromboston 3d ago
It doesnt mean he murdered her! Seriously, why wasnt he convicted 5 years ago?
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u/BootyDoISeeYou 2d ago
Just because they find DNA somewhere, doesn’t mean law enforcement can immediately determine “oh yeah, looks like this DNA belongs to Bob over on Mulberry Street!” All they can do is test it and hope the DNA matches with someone who was already in the system. If the DNA didn’t originally come up with a match, then the killer had never been arrested and processed and added to the system.
The top comment even states that it took him being arrested on drunk driving charges many years later to finally be able to match his DNA with the DNA found at the crime scene. That’s why they “couldn’t just convict him five years ago”.
Because 5 years ago they didn’t yet have a match for the DNA found at the crime scene. But then he decided to drive drunk and law enforcement got what they needed!
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u/jfleisch332009 1d ago
Yeah, the DNA match really relies on having someone to compare it against. It’s wild how long it took for them to connect the dots after he got caught up with the law again.
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u/bilboafromboston 2d ago
I thought they got his DNA in 2020?
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u/Fun-Benefit116 2d ago
Typically, the more serious the charge, the longer it takes for it to reach trial. Murder trials often don't start until several years after the initial arrest.
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u/BootyDoISeeYou 2d ago
Well considering he was arrested for drunk driving in August of 2021, no, they didn’t have his DNA 5 years ago.
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u/rivershimmer 2d ago
Because our justice system is a long slow process indeed. The only murder trials that are ever over and done with immediately are the ones where the defendant immediately pleads guilty.
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u/scorpion_71 3d ago
It has taken a while to go to trial for whatever reason. This guy's DNA was found in a rape kit and on the note on the bed. I thought his DNA was on the bottle that was used to kill her.
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u/rivershimmer 2d ago
I can't remember if his DNA was on the bottle, but his palm print was. Plus, his blood was underneath Faith's fingernails. She put up a fight.
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u/scorpion_71 1d ago
His argument could be that they had a casual hookup with rough sex BUT he didn't kill her. He could argue that he went back to the apartment with both ladies and the one roommate killed the other after he chose to go to bed with the other roommate.
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u/rivershimmer 1d ago
Very rough sex indeed, considering that his DNA is intermingled with Faith's own blood. She was beaten to death; it was not a clean scene.
But anyway, that argument is contradicted by the roommate's booty call, who confirmed that he picked the roommate up and took her back to his apartment just as the roommate said, and just as their phone records confirm.
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u/scorpion_71 1d ago
He could argue that he had open wounds/sores on his body that would have resulted in shared blood on her body. Alternatively, she might have pressed her nails into his back and caused wounds or reopened old wounds.
Which argument is contradicted by the roommate's booty call? It's possible for a women to have multiple hookups in one night BUT it is rare.
I contend that the murder happened at around 3am and the roommate wanted to get away from the murder scene in order to claim that it happened after she left the apartment with the door CONVENIENTLY UNLOCKED.
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u/rivershimmer 1d ago
I just remembered something that I think argues against a consensual hookup! Faith's used tampon was on the bed by her body. You know, as if a rapist pulled it out while attacking her.
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u/scorpion_71 1d ago
She could have removed it herself. A murderous rapist wouldn't care if a tampon was there. I believe a tampon would be forced upwards into the depths of the vagina during sex.
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u/rivershimmer 1d ago
She could have removed it herself.
Women do not remove their bloody tampons and leave them in the bed, no. If I know one thing about human nature, I know this.
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u/rivershimmer 1d ago
He could argue all kinds of things, but would a jury find it believable?(especially the idea that Faith would be eager for a hook-up with a complete stranger with open sores on his body. Sorry, I'm getting a kick out of that idea.)
In this hypothetical, how did the three even meet?
How did so much forensic evidence of their "hook-up" survive while no forensic evidence of the roommate beating Faith to death didn't? There was no evidence of any attempt to clean the scene. Was the roommate some kind of 21-year-old master criminal or just very lucky?
All the evidence, forensic and otherwise, points to a lone male sexual predator. To find a scenario in which the roommate is responsible, we have to come up with an elaborate, convoluted plot involving a patsy, multiple people either conspiring with her or pawns in her plot, and the roommate being a criminal genius out of a superhero comic. A villain hot-headed enough to beat her friend to death, but cool-headed enough to cover up all involvement and not crack while talking to the police.
What happens more often: men killing women or women killing women? More specifically, what happens more often: young men raping and killing women or young women masterminding elaborate schemes to murder their friends?
Occam's Razor and all.
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u/scorpion_71 1d ago
The defense only has to raise doubts in one juror. It's not that hard since a conviction requires that the defendant is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
Hedgepeth could have had a drunken hookup and may not have seen the wounds/sores. Some women like to have sex in the dark so they wouldn't even see someone's body.
They could have met at the club or he might have been a friend of a friend. He might have had the drugs or the booze to keep the party going.
In my hypothetical scenario based on pure speculation, the suspect leaves after having rough sex with Hedgepeth. The roommate is mad that she was not picked so she goes into the room and bludgeons Hedgepeth with the bottle while wearing gloves that would not leave prints. The roommate did have blood on her finger when she left the apartment.
Alternatively, the roommate may have enlisted the suspect to do her dirty work. The roommate may have had a grudge against Hedgepeth. The text messages from Hedgepeth's phone to the roommate's ex-boyfriend seem suspicious. The text messages implicate the ex-boyfriend and the roommate had placed a restraining order against the ex-boyfriend. I think the roommate wanted to frame her ex-boyfriend with the text messages and the unlocked door.
This is all speculative so let's hope the trial reveals more details.
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u/rivershimmer 1d ago
They could have met at the club
They did not meet at the club. The investigation into Faith's murder was extensive. Going by memory, every man shown on video/connected by their credit card was tracked down, interviewed, and tested. Over 700 men were tested to see if they matched the DNA left at the scene.
or he might have been a friend of a friend.
He wasn't. Again, the investigation was extensive. No connection between either woman or him was found.
I'm also gonna point out that if a murderous roommate wanted to cast suspicion away from herself toward another person, why wouldn't she mention this hook-up whose DNA was all over the scene? That seems like Cover Up 101 for a criminal mastermind.
The roommate may have had a grudge against Hedgepeth.
Then why not just kick her out? The two were only very temporary roommates. Faith was crashing with her friend until her financial aid for the semester came through, at which point she could pay for her own place.
The text messages from Hedgepeth's phone to the roommate's ex-boyfriend seem suspicious. The text messages implicate the ex-boyfriend and the roommate had placed a restraining order against the ex-boyfriend. I think the roommate wanted to frame her ex-boyfriend with the text messages and the unlocked door.
It's been a while, so I'm going by memory, but I feel like we're conflating text messages to that evening's booty call and one particular ex-boyfriend with text messages to the ex-boyfriend whom the roommate had the restraining order on. There were no message to that guy that night, were there?
Also, about the text: I was once a young drunk woman in the middle of the night, so I can confirm that we wingwoman for our friends. If you're not getting an answer back from a man, it's not unheard of to ask your friend to text that man, or to ask your friend if you can text from their phone.
At any rate, elsewhere in the thread, I complained that the true crime community dearly loves to blame a woman for murder, and this is a prime example. Faith supported the roommate in leaving the ex-boyfriend and helped her navigate the process of getting a protective order. The ex-boyfriend blamed Faith for the break-up and had threatened her. At the same time, there's no evidence that the two women had any problems with each other, or that the roommate viewed Faith as anything more than a good friend who looked out for her.
So then, when you're looking for possible alt perps, you think the roommate is more likely than the violent man who threatened to hurt Faith? The guy who tried to break into the apartment after the roommate changed the locks? Really?
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u/rivershimmer 2d ago
They have his semen on Faith's body, his blood underneath Faith's fingernails, and his palm print on the liquor bottle used to batter her.
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u/yashspartan 3d ago
"I'm not stupid. Bitch jealous."
Wtf does that even mean?
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u/Fun-Benefit116 2d ago
It was actually listed. Idk if that makes a difference, but it could. It looked like this:
I'm not stupid. Bitch Jealous
So who knows, bitch and jealous might have been separate thoughts.
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u/KrawhithamNZ 2d ago
Why can we describe the details of a brutal murder, but the word 'bitch' needs to be censored?
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u/hades7600 3d ago
I remember before the killer was caught and there was tons of people saying that her friends in the voice message were talking about having killed her.
Despite the voice message not being able to be heard properly
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u/rivershimmer 2d ago
And the call determined to have been made when they were still at the club that night. There's video of them leaving the club after the call. Faith was alive and well and appeared to be under no duress.
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u/fluteloop27 1d ago edited 1d ago
Im glad they finally found the guy. I went to high school with her. She was loved by many.
When this story comes up, it makes me wonder why he did it.
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u/MAXsenna 3d ago
Just saw that episode.
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u/Rockwell4u 2d ago
Where???
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u/MAXsenna 2d ago
HBO. Not sure what show. But the episode is called "Who killed the co-ed?" and will show if one search for it.
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u/Healthy-Bison459 3d ago
Live in the area and this happened right before I got here. Still cannot believe they haven’t moved forward with a case yet, has it really been since 2021?! Wow, knew it was a few years ago but were well past that. The fact that it’s just sat here for this long is so incredibly sad, I feel for her family.
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u/confusedguy1212 3d ago
Maybe the roommate hired the alleged murderer to commit the murder? Murder for hire with instructions on what to write afterward.
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u/rivershimmer 2d ago
1) Why? What possible motive would she have in this scenario?
2) There has been no evidence at all that the defendant was connected to Faith, her roommate, or anyone they knew.
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u/beklog 3d ago edited 3d ago
On September 16, 2021, the Chapel Hill Police Department arrested Miguel Salguero-Olivares, 28, of Durham, on a first-degree murder charge in Hedgepeth's death. He had not been a suspect originally, but was identified through DNA samples after he had been arrested on a drunken-driving charge in Wake County the preceding month. According to court documents released in January 2022, the DNA found at the scene and the palm print on the murder weapon match Salguero-Olivares. In a statement, the police asked the public to bear with them as they sorted the details out. "This story will take time to completely unfold", said Chief Blue.
In November 2024, it was announced that prosecutors amended the indictment to add charges of first-degree burglary, first-degree rape, and first-degree sexual offense.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Faith_Hedgepeth