New court filings detail how much the State of North Carolina will pay out-of-state witnesses to testify in the trial of Miguel Salguero-Olivares in Durham County.
Olivares is charged in the September 2012 murder of Faith Hedgepeth.
Other WRAL Top Stories
Defense attorneys are calling two out-of-state witnesses to testify: Karena Rosario, who was Faith Hedgepeth's roommate, and Jordan McCrary, who was also a UNC student at the time.
McCrary currently lives in the state of Washington, and Rosario now lives in New Jersey.
The state will pay $200 for McCrary's attendance, $4,125.25 for his travel and $5,724 for his lodging and meals. The state will also pay $200 for Rosario's attendance, $706.15 for her travel and $5,724 for her lodging and meals. That totals to $16,499.40. McCrary and Rosario are required to be present for 30 days, from Oct. 1 to Oct. 30, 2026.
Motions previously filed by defense attorneys said Rosario and Hedgepeth went to a club in Chapel Hill on the night that Hedgepeth was killed. Hedgepeth shared Rosario’s one-bedroom apartment.
According to the motions, Rosario told law enforcement that after the two returned home, she was in the apartment, texting and calling people from 3 a.m. on, before Jordan McCrary came to pick her up.
The documents said at 3:05 a.m., Rosario texted McCrary saying she had been “hit” for “no (expletive) reason, and at 4:04 a.m., she asked him to pick her up, saying “Please come.”
This motion pointed to blood on Rosario's hand when she was picked up by McCrary at the apartment.
Blood was found on the wall of the bathroom doorframe where Rosario said she was sitting; the motion includes a photo of the blood.
The motion said Rosario claimed to have left the apartment and gotten in McCrary’s car around 4:25 a.m.
According to the documents, the medical examiner said given Hedgepeth's blood alcohol content, she was likely dead before 3 a.m.
Defense attorneys made multiple claims in the filings, including alleging that the final text from Hedgepeth's phone -- sent at 3:51 a.m. -- was written and sent by Rosario. That message, investigators said, was "uncharacteristic" of Hedgepeth, and the writing matched more closely to Rosario's style than to Hedgepeth's. The recipient of that last message from Hedgepeth's phone also described the message as out of the ordinary. He told investigators that neither the timing nor the content of the message made sense to him.
Defense attorneys also pointed to the fact that Rosario's story changed multiple times, and to a white bag found next to Hedgepeth's body on which were the words, “I’m not stupid (expletive) jealous,” over three lines.
Attorneys said that Rosario used the phrase “I’m not stupid” multiple times in her interviews with law enforcement.
In the new filings, the defense attorneys pointed out the shirt Rosario wore to the Thrill that night was found near Hedgepeth’s body, rather than at McCrary’s home as she previously claimed.
They said they want to ask her about these statements on the stand at Olivares’ trial.
Karena Rosario has not been charged with anything in this case.
Miguel Salguero-Olivares is charged with first-degree murder, burglary, rape, and sexual offense.
He was arrested in 2021, after police matched a DNA sample from the crime scene to him.
This case is set to go to trial in September of 2026.