'Who Killed the Co-ed?: An ID Murder Mystery': Faith Hedgepeth's 2012 murder remains unsolved, can DNA tech help?
On the morning of September 7, 2012, 19-year-old Faith Hedgepeth's bruised and battered body was found in her off-campus apartment by a friend. She was bludgeoned to death, and bled out on her bed, only a mere weeks before her 20th birthday. The news of her murder has been on the front page for years and even to this day, it has remained unsolved with no leads whatsoever pointing to the perpetrator. Investigation Discovery's new show is taking another look at the case in 'Who Killed the Co-Ed?: An ID Murder Mystery', recounting the events surrounding her death and hoping to find new information prompting clues to unanswered questions.
Who was Faith Hedgepeth?
Faith was a college student - a junior at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. At the time of her death, she was studying to be a pediatrician and hoped to bring back to her Native American tribe, the Haliwa Saponi from Hollister, North Carolina. She was a bright student who excelled in her studies and earned a Gates Millenium Scholarship to attend UNC. She was an active student with a keen interest in the historical Native American Sorority on campus, Alpha Pi Omega, and participated in many other extracurricular clubs and was a cheerleader as well.
She would have been the first person in her family to graduate from college and has been on the honor roll in high school. She lived off-campus in a shared apartment at View Apartment Complex on Old Chapel Hill Road with her roommate and Karena Rosario. Eriq Takoy Jones, Rosario's boyfriend also initially lived with them, but the couple's relationship was marred by domestic violence and eventually, he moved after she ended it. Jones emerged as an immediate suspect when it came to light that he resented Faith for her influence on his former girlfriend and reportedly even threatened to kill her over a phone call if he could not get back together with Rosario.
Timeline of events before Faith's murder
The evening before her death, Faith attended a rush event for the campus chapter of Alpha Pi Omega but left about two hours later saying she had to work on her paper that she was writing about the history of her Native American Tribe. She and Rosario went to the university's Library at around 7.30 pm to study together and even texted her father during that time, about her hopes of joining the sorority. They returned to their apartment around 11.30 pm before getting ready and leaving for a night out at about 1 am. They went to a club called 'The Thrill', where they met up with friends, but left within the next hour when Rosario reportedly told her roommate she was suddenly feeling unwell.
Faith drove them home in her car, helped Rosario to bed and then went to bed herself. She had reportedly accessed her Facebook account right around that time. About twenty minutes before the clock struck 4 am, a message was sent to Brandon Edwards, a former boyfriend of Faith from her phone, which was the last activity on her phone. Edwards' response to her went unchecked. Rosario's phone records showed that she was also trying to contact Edwards around the same time as the text was sent to him but he didn't answer. So she called Jordan McCrary, another friend, who arrived at about 4.30 am at the apartment to pick Rosario up. She left Faith home alone and asleep in her bedroom, with the apartment door unlocked. McCrary took her to the home of another acquaintance where she spent the night and returned the following morning. It took her some time to arrange a ride back home after her call to Faith hoping to ask to be picked up went unanswered. She called another friend, Marisol Rangel, who came to pick her up and dropped her back to her apartment.
Rosario and Rangel arrived at the former's apartment at around 11 am on September 7, 2012, calling out for Faith who never responded. Instead, they found her in her bed, lying in a pool of her own blood, wrapped in a quilt and partially nude. They immediately called 911 and informed the police.
Investigation
The investigation was kept confidential initially and the town obtained a court order to seal all records as they were collected. The Chapel Hill Police Department found a note from beside Faith's body that read "I'M NOT STUPID BITCH JEALOUS." They even collected samples of semen from the scene, which was used to develop a DNA profile and it was reportedly also consistent with the male DNA found elsewhere in the apartment. A bloody tampon was found near Faith's body, which also sported cuts and bruises.
Jones was considered a person of interest when police learned of his history of domestic violence and threatening Faith. Furthermore, they also discovered that he had texted an acquaintance asking for forgiveness "for what I am about to do", and also posted it on his Twitter handle, the night before Faith's death. Three days later he changed his Facebook header 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."
The police took a DNA sample from Jones, but it didn't match the samples from the apartment so he was effectively ruled out as a suspect. They even sampled DNA from Edwards and the other men that Faith and Rosario met at 'The Thrill' that night but the results didn't match. The university's board of trustees, the local Crime Stoppers chapter, the Haliwa-Saponi tribe, the apartment complex and the office of governor Bev Perdue offered a combined $39,000 reward to anyone that had information on the killer. The police hoped to resolve the case quickly, but to no avail.
Police also tracked down a voicemail that was left on the phone of another one of Faith's acquaintances. It was a plausible butt-dial left by Faith on the night of her murder, however it hard to make out what exactly was said. The voicemail was timestamped at 1:23 am and was three-minute-long, featuring a three-way conversation between Faith, a male, and a female with music blaring in the background.
Nothing could be made out of the mostly inaudible voicemail until Crime Watch Daily hired audio expert Arlo West, who enhanced the recording and claimed he heard Faith's cry for help while a male voice said "I think she's dying", and a female voice said, "Do it anyhow". The female voice sounded angry and West alleged the two voices used the name 'Eriq' and 'Rosie' (short for Rosario), respectively. Faith's father was convinced it was an audio recording of her murder and West asserted the same. But the police had qualms about it because the timing of the voicemail seemed off, as it did not correspond with her reported time of death.
In 2014, the court order to seal all records was lifted and many investigative reports and search warrants from the case were made public, including the audio transcript from Rosario's 911 phone call, the text messages from Faith's phone and the autopsy report. In addition, the police department employed a sketch constructed by Parabon Nanolabs through Snapshot DNA Phenotyping using the DNA found at the scene. It is not an accurate DMV photo of the murderer but was aimed at giving the public a rough idea as to who they should keep an eye out for.
The case of Faith Hedgepeth's murder still remains unsolved and the investigation continues.
'Who Killed the Co-Ed?: An ID Murder Mystery', airs May 28, and is a part of 'ID Presents: Nine at 9', with new premieres running nightly at 9 pm on Investigation Discovery.