The Killing of Faith Hedgepeth. Is Miguel Oliveras Guilty of Murder? | Profiling Evil

The prosecution opened the case the way prosecutors should, by making the jury feel the weight of the victim before a single piece of evidence gets discussed.

And then the prosecutor laid down her thesis for the entire trial.

And I want you to watch this opening stretch of her statement because everything she does from here on is built upon this foundation that she's gonna lay down.

The evidence in this case is louder than the noise around it.

Listen to the evidence, not the noise.

Faith Hedgepeth was 19 years old in September of 2012.

She was a student at UNC.

She came from a very loving family, part of a close-knit community, uh, the Haliwa-Saponi tribe in Hollister, North Carolina, where she grew up.

She was gonna be the first person in her family to graduate college, and she was on track.

Instead, in the early morning hours of September 7th of 2012, the defendant crept into her apartment, beat her in the head, sexually assaulted her, and left her bludgeoned, bloody, dead or still dying, alone.

He also left his DNA.

He left his DNA on the murder weapon, a Bacardi rum bottle that was otherwise covered in blood.

He left his DNA on the boxer shorts Faith used to sleep in.

He left her used, bloodied tampon on the floor next to the bed after he pulled it out of her body He left his DNA inside her vagina, his semen and sperm.

He left his DNA inside her rectum, his semen and his sperm.

He left his DNA and his palm print and his left thumb print on a blue Riesling bottle that was found on the floor at the foot of the bed.

He left his DNA on a white paper food bag that still had a partially eaten sandwich on the inside of it, with a note he left for the person who found her body, "I'm not stupid, bitch.

Jealous."

Did you catch when she said the word noise? Uh, it, it's really important because she's telling the jury right up front that everything the defense is about to throw at him is just a distraction, and then she gives them the kind of things that they need to hold onto instead, that there was DNA everywhere, on everything.