The Murder of Faith Hedgepeth: The Trial of Miguel Enrique Salguero-Olivares: Day Eight: Cookouts and Calls

So day eight started with continued testimony from Erin Ehrmisch, the North Carolina State Crime Lab forensic scientist who worked on this case since 2012.

Kevin, does it surprise you in this case that this forensic scientist was on the stand for three days? I mean, not entire days, but she she was on the stand at least at one point, you know, for three straight days.

It is absolutely crucial evidence and testimony that she's offering.

So, number one, it's important that the state have enough time with the witness to get that out there.

Then it's important that the defense have plenty of time to try to challenge it.

So, no, I'm not in the least bit surprised.

How about yourself?

No, yeah, I'm not either, especially in a case like this where it's purported by the state to be a stranger homicide and primarily forensics are what is linking Miguel Enrique Salguero Olivares to Faith Hedgepeth.

She's not working with him.

He's not a colleague.

He's not a neighbor.

He doesn't live in this apartment complex.

He's not someone in her community.

He's not a student going to classes with her.

He's not in any of her organizations.

She has no connection to this guy.

He's a perfect stranger.

So when you have a situation like that, it becomes very difficult to figure out, OK, who did this? What really weighs against him in this case is DNA and fingerprints.

We already heard from the fingerprints expert.

Ms. Ehrmisch is the DNA expert.

So it doesn't surprise me that we're really hearing a lot from her and that the state is really laser focused on having her speak to the jury, having her present You know, presentations on DNA almost about like how this works, how we do it, what's changed, what's happened.

And I think it is really important.

Now, I got some questions.

Predominantly in this case, I wanted to mostly focus on what was said at trial.

There's a reason for that.