Post by hi224 on Aug 20, 2020 23:00:56 GMT
In 2012, Faith Hedgepeth was a 19-year-old undergraduate in her third year at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She wanted to be a pediatrician or a teacher. Faith was also a member of the Haliwa-Saponi tribe; "Haliwa" is not a Native American word, it is a combination of "Halifax and Warren," the counties that the tribe is centered in. She took the spring semester of 2012 off, and lived in an off-campus apartment at the Hawthorne at the View apartment complex, which is on the county line between Orange County and Durham County. She was planning on moving into another apartment in the fall. Her roommate at Hawthorne at the View was a girl named Karena Rosario, who had been friends with Faith since freshman year. Also sharing the apartment was Karena's boyfriend, Eriq Takoy Jones. Their relationship had a history of domestic violence that ended with Karena moving out in July, however, Eriq attempted to break into the apartment twice, even after Faith had changed the locks. After moving out, the two women continued to spend a lot of time together, and Karena was often over at the apartment. Faith drove Karena to the courthouse to get a protective order against Eriq, and he reportedly was resentful of Faith's influence over his ex-girlfriend. Apparently, he had even threatened to kill her at one point, if he could not get back together with Karena.
The Murder:
On September 6th, 2012, Faith attended a sorority rush at Alpha Pi Omega, a traditionally Native American sorority, at around 5:45 PM. She left at 7:15, claiming that she needed to work on a paper she was writing about the Haliwa-Saponi. She went to Davis Library with her friend Karena to study at 8 PM, and texted with her father from 8:30 to 9. She then left Karena there and returned at around 11:30, at which point they returned to their apartment together. After half an hour, they left again and went to The Thrill, a nightclub in downtown Chapel Hill that admitted people under 21 to dance. They entered The Thrill at around 12:40 PM, and left at 2 AM; the security cam footage from the club is the last visual record of Faith alive. They made it back to the apartment at 3 AM, and a woman who lived downstairs described hearing "three thumping noises, similar to a bag being dropped on the floor," shortly afterwards. Faith's Facebook profile was accessed around this time. At 3:40 AM, a text was sent from her phone to a former boyfriend, Brandon Edwards, that read:
Hey b. Can you come over here please. Rosario needs you more aha. You know. Please let her know you care.
Three minutes later, another text was sent, which was only the word "than." It was probably intended as a correction for the word "aha" in the previous text, resulting in this intended message:
Hey b. Can you come over here please. Rosario needs you more than. You know. Please let her know you care.
At 4:16 AM, Brandon wrote back, asking who sent the text. Phone records indicate that Karena was trying to call him at the same time, and when he did not answer, she tried to call Jordan McCrary, a UNC soccer player she knew. At 4:25 AM, she left the apartment in his car, leaving the apartment unlocked with Faith inside. They went to a friend's apartment and stayed there for the night. At 10:30 the following morning, she returned to the apartment with her friend, Marisol Rangel, and found the body, partially nude and wrapped in a quilt, at around 11 AM. They immediately called 911.
The Evidence:
As previously stated, the body was partially nude and wrapped in a quilt. There was significant blood spatter in the bedroom, where the body was found. The cause of death was blunt force trauma to the head, likely inflicted with an empty rum bottle found in the apartment. She had cuts and bruises as well as blood under her fingernails, indicating that she had fought with her attacker. There was evidence of sexual assault; male DNA was recovered from the scene. At first, Eriq was the prime suspect for the attack. He had texted a friend the evening of the attack, asking for forgiveness "for what I am about to do," and posted the same thing on Twitter. Three days later, he changed his Facebook banner to read "Dear Lord, Forgive me for all of my sins and the sins I may commit today. Protect me from the girls who don't deserve me and the ones who wish me dead today." After the murder, he complied with the police's request for a DNA sample, which did not match the DNA found at the scene. He was thus exonerated as a suspect. They also tested the DNA of many men who were recorded at The Thrill that night, and all came back negative, as did the DNA of Brandon Edwards. A combined $39,000 in reward money for leads revealed nothing.
The 911 call put in by Karena and Marisol has come under scrutiny- it has been theorized that the caller heard crying in the recording sounded more like Marisol than Karena, and only identified herself as "Karena Rosario" after numerous requests for her name from the dispatcher. The caller also never mentions Faith by name in the call, only referring to the victim as "her friend." She also never touched the body to see if she was still breathing, despite the instructor asking her to do so. Neither woman touched the body or made an effort to see if she was still alive.
Police recovered a note from the scene, written in black ballpoint ink on the torn-off bottom of a fast-food takeout bag. They think the bag came from Time-Out, a 24 hour biscuit restaurant in Chapel Hill that would have been the only place open at the time. It was only a short walk from The Thrill. The note read:
I'M NOT STUPID
BITCH
JEALOUS
It's unclear if the intended message is "I'm not stupid, jealous bitch . . . " or "I'm not jealous, stupid bitch . . . " due to the sloppy, scrawled writing. It may have been written using the writer's non-dominant hand to throw off handwriting analysis. There was no blood on the note, despite the blood apparently covering the scene of the crime, making it seem as though the note was written elsewhere and then left near the body. The writing of the word "stupid" seemed more carefully written than the rest of the note, suggesting a female writer, or at least a less enraged one. Because it makes no sense to leave a message like that near a dead body, there is speculation that the note was written as an intentional red herring, meant to confuse.
Faith's phone pocket-dialed at 1:23 AM. The resulting recording was three minutes long, and consisted of a conversation between Faith, a man, and a woman. Crime Watch Daily hired an audio expert to enhance the audio, and claimed he could hear "Hedgepeth crying for help while the male says 'I think she's dying' and the female says 'Do it anyhow' after a long discussion in which the female seems to get angrier. The male and female use the name 'Eriq' and 'Rosie.'" Faith's father is convinced that the recording is of his daughter's death. Apparently, the type of phone she had is capable of time stamping phone calls inaccurately, meaning that the recording could have been made at any point during the night.
In 2016, the Chapel Hill police released a phenotype of the killer, based on his DNA profile. The murderer is of mixed Native American and European ancestry; specifically a mix of Mexican, Colombian, and Iberian heritage, with smaller amount of other South American and African ancestry. It is very likely that he would be considered Latino, and would have olive or tan skin, black hair, and few freckles.
The Suspects:
Out of an original pool of a thousand suspects, the police have whittled it down to ten potential killers. The obvious suspect, Eriq Takoy Jones, was not a DNA match. Chapel Hill police declared that the perpetrator was probably someone she knew, but was not close to- a friend of a friend, an acquaintance, a classmate. It's unclear if more than one person was involved. One of the main figures of interest in the case is Faith's roommate, Karena Rosario. Why would she try to text or call two people so late in the night, and with such urgency? Why did she leave her friend sleeping in an unlocked apartment? What was up with the 911 call she made? The police are still in contact with her, even after she's moved out of the state. She reportedly cooperates with them, and otherwise keeps a low profile. According to local reporter Tom Gasparoli, "They do believe there is more Rosario can tell them, [It] sounds to me like [Rosario] has been in the crosshairs . . . as a key figure who knows more than she says she knows."
Sources:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faith_Hedgepeth_homicide
web.archive.org/web/20190830140005/http://www.gaspowrites.com/2017/09/new-info-from-law-enforcement-clip-of.html
The Murder:
On September 6th, 2012, Faith attended a sorority rush at Alpha Pi Omega, a traditionally Native American sorority, at around 5:45 PM. She left at 7:15, claiming that she needed to work on a paper she was writing about the Haliwa-Saponi. She went to Davis Library with her friend Karena to study at 8 PM, and texted with her father from 8:30 to 9. She then left Karena there and returned at around 11:30, at which point they returned to their apartment together. After half an hour, they left again and went to The Thrill, a nightclub in downtown Chapel Hill that admitted people under 21 to dance. They entered The Thrill at around 12:40 PM, and left at 2 AM; the security cam footage from the club is the last visual record of Faith alive. They made it back to the apartment at 3 AM, and a woman who lived downstairs described hearing "three thumping noises, similar to a bag being dropped on the floor," shortly afterwards. Faith's Facebook profile was accessed around this time. At 3:40 AM, a text was sent from her phone to a former boyfriend, Brandon Edwards, that read:
Hey b. Can you come over here please. Rosario needs you more aha. You know. Please let her know you care.
Three minutes later, another text was sent, which was only the word "than." It was probably intended as a correction for the word "aha" in the previous text, resulting in this intended message:
Hey b. Can you come over here please. Rosario needs you more than. You know. Please let her know you care.
At 4:16 AM, Brandon wrote back, asking who sent the text. Phone records indicate that Karena was trying to call him at the same time, and when he did not answer, she tried to call Jordan McCrary, a UNC soccer player she knew. At 4:25 AM, she left the apartment in his car, leaving the apartment unlocked with Faith inside. They went to a friend's apartment and stayed there for the night. At 10:30 the following morning, she returned to the apartment with her friend, Marisol Rangel, and found the body, partially nude and wrapped in a quilt, at around 11 AM. They immediately called 911.
The Evidence:
As previously stated, the body was partially nude and wrapped in a quilt. There was significant blood spatter in the bedroom, where the body was found. The cause of death was blunt force trauma to the head, likely inflicted with an empty rum bottle found in the apartment. She had cuts and bruises as well as blood under her fingernails, indicating that she had fought with her attacker. There was evidence of sexual assault; male DNA was recovered from the scene. At first, Eriq was the prime suspect for the attack. He had texted a friend the evening of the attack, asking for forgiveness "for what I am about to do," and posted the same thing on Twitter. Three days later, he changed his Facebook banner to read "Dear Lord, Forgive me for all of my sins and the sins I may commit today. Protect me from the girls who don't deserve me and the ones who wish me dead today." After the murder, he complied with the police's request for a DNA sample, which did not match the DNA found at the scene. He was thus exonerated as a suspect. They also tested the DNA of many men who were recorded at The Thrill that night, and all came back negative, as did the DNA of Brandon Edwards. A combined $39,000 in reward money for leads revealed nothing.
The 911 call put in by Karena and Marisol has come under scrutiny- it has been theorized that the caller heard crying in the recording sounded more like Marisol than Karena, and only identified herself as "Karena Rosario" after numerous requests for her name from the dispatcher. The caller also never mentions Faith by name in the call, only referring to the victim as "her friend." She also never touched the body to see if she was still breathing, despite the instructor asking her to do so. Neither woman touched the body or made an effort to see if she was still alive.
Police recovered a note from the scene, written in black ballpoint ink on the torn-off bottom of a fast-food takeout bag. They think the bag came from Time-Out, a 24 hour biscuit restaurant in Chapel Hill that would have been the only place open at the time. It was only a short walk from The Thrill. The note read:
I'M NOT STUPID
BITCH
JEALOUS
It's unclear if the intended message is "I'm not stupid, jealous bitch . . . " or "I'm not jealous, stupid bitch . . . " due to the sloppy, scrawled writing. It may have been written using the writer's non-dominant hand to throw off handwriting analysis. There was no blood on the note, despite the blood apparently covering the scene of the crime, making it seem as though the note was written elsewhere and then left near the body. The writing of the word "stupid" seemed more carefully written than the rest of the note, suggesting a female writer, or at least a less enraged one. Because it makes no sense to leave a message like that near a dead body, there is speculation that the note was written as an intentional red herring, meant to confuse.
Faith's phone pocket-dialed at 1:23 AM. The resulting recording was three minutes long, and consisted of a conversation between Faith, a man, and a woman. Crime Watch Daily hired an audio expert to enhance the audio, and claimed he could hear "Hedgepeth crying for help while the male says 'I think she's dying' and the female says 'Do it anyhow' after a long discussion in which the female seems to get angrier. The male and female use the name 'Eriq' and 'Rosie.'" Faith's father is convinced that the recording is of his daughter's death. Apparently, the type of phone she had is capable of time stamping phone calls inaccurately, meaning that the recording could have been made at any point during the night.
In 2016, the Chapel Hill police released a phenotype of the killer, based on his DNA profile. The murderer is of mixed Native American and European ancestry; specifically a mix of Mexican, Colombian, and Iberian heritage, with smaller amount of other South American and African ancestry. It is very likely that he would be considered Latino, and would have olive or tan skin, black hair, and few freckles.
The Suspects:
Out of an original pool of a thousand suspects, the police have whittled it down to ten potential killers. The obvious suspect, Eriq Takoy Jones, was not a DNA match. Chapel Hill police declared that the perpetrator was probably someone she knew, but was not close to- a friend of a friend, an acquaintance, a classmate. It's unclear if more than one person was involved. One of the main figures of interest in the case is Faith's roommate, Karena Rosario. Why would she try to text or call two people so late in the night, and with such urgency? Why did she leave her friend sleeping in an unlocked apartment? What was up with the 911 call she made? The police are still in contact with her, even after she's moved out of the state. She reportedly cooperates with them, and otherwise keeps a low profile. According to local reporter Tom Gasparoli, "They do believe there is more Rosario can tell them, [It] sounds to me like [Rosario] has been in the crosshairs . . . as a key figure who knows more than she says she knows."
Sources:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faith_Hedgepeth_homicide
web.archive.org/web/20190830140005/http://www.gaspowrites.com/2017/09/new-info-from-law-enforcement-clip-of.html