Faith Hedgepeth

The body of Faith Hedgepeth (born September 26, 1992), an undergraduate student in her third year at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC), was found in her apartment by a friend on the morning of September 7, 2012.

She had been beaten over the head with a blunt instrument, later found to be an empty liquor bottle, and evidence of semen and male DNA was present at the crime scene.

The last time she was known for certain to be alive was much earlier that morning, when she went to bed after returning from a local nightclub with her roommate.

Police have recovered considerable forensic evidence in the case, but so far it has served to eliminate one likely suspect, a former boyfriend of her roommate who reportedly expressed anger and resentment toward Hedgepeth, even supposedly threatening to kill her if he could not reunite with her roommate.

His DNA, however, did not match that left at the scene.

A note left at the scene, suggesting the writer was jealous, is also believed to have been written by the killer; it was among a large group of documents released by police two years after the crime, following a court action brought by several local media outlets.

Four years after the killing, a Virginia DNA testing company prepared and released, at police's behest, an image showing what the suspect might look like based on his genetic phenotype.

A voicemail possibly accidentally recorded by Hedgepeth may also capture some of the events that led to her death.

In September 2021, the Chapel Hill Police Department announced an arrest in the case.

The suspect, not initially considered, had been linked to the case through DNA evidence after a drunken-driving arrest the month before.

A member of the Haliwa-Saponi Native American tribe recognized by the state of North Carolina, Faith Hedgepeth was born in 1992 in Warren County, part of the tribe's traditional territory.

Her parents divorced within a year of her birth, and she was raised by her mother, with help from an older sister, in Hollister and Warrenton.

Connie Hedgepeth named her second daughter Faith because she believed that was what she needed to raise a fourth child when she already had two sons, a daughter and a husband with a drug problem.

In high school, Hedgepeth was an honor student, a cheerleader and a member of many extracurricular clubs and organizations.

She did well enough academically to earn a Gates Millennium Scholarship to attend the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Her father had attended UNC-CH as well, but had dropped out.

She hoped to be the first in her family to graduate from college.

After undergraduate studies, she was considering further studies to become either a pediatrician or teacher.

Her first two years at the university went well for her, although she took the spring 2012 semester off.

She remained in the Chapel Hill area over the summer, living in an off-campus apartment at the Hawthorne at the View complex between Chapel Hill and Durham, on the line between Durham and Orange counties, during the month of August.

She planned to move to another apartment after her financial aid for the fall semester was made available to her.

She shared the apartment with Karena Rosario, with whom she had been friends since freshman year, and Rosario's boyfriend, Eriq Takoy Jones.

The relationship between Jones and Rosario had been marked by domestic violence, and eventually she ended it and he moved out.

However, he had in early July 2012 twice attempted to break into the apartment, even after Rosario changed the locks.

Hedgepeth eventually drove Rosario to court to get a protective order that required Jones to stay away from the apartment.

Jones reportedly resented Hedgepeth's influence over his former girlfriend, and at one point reportedly threatened during a phone conversation with Hedgepeth to kill her if he could not get back together with Rosario.

The evening of September 6, 2012, a Thursday, began at 5:45 p.m. with Hedgepeth attending a rush event for the campus chapter of Alpha Pi Omega, a historically Native American sorority she hoped to join.

At 7:15 she left, saying she had to work on a paper she was writing about the history of her tribe.

She and Rosario went to the university's Davis Library to study together at 8 p.m. Between 8:30 and 9 she exchanged texts with her father about her hopes to join the sorority.

Hedgepeth left Rosario there briefly and returned around 11:30, after which they returned to their apartment together, arriving there around midnight.

A half-hour later they left again, heading for The Thrill, a now-closed nightclub in downtown Chapel Hill which admitted customers under the legal drinking age of 21 to dance.

The two young women arrived at The Thrill around 12:40 a.m. After almost an hour and a half of dancing, Rosario told police later that she was having an upset stomach and wanted to leave.

Security cameras at the club show her and Hedgepeth leaving at 2:06 a.m.; it is the last visual record of her presence anywhere before the killing.

By 3 a.m. Hedgepeth and Rosario had returned to their apartment.

A woman who lived below the two and was awake watching television said that she heard three thumping noises, which she described as similar to a heavy bag being dropped or furniture being overturned, shortly afterward.

Hedgepeth's Facebook page was also accessed around the same time.

At 3:40 a.m., a text was sent from Hedgepeth's phone to that of Brandon Edwards, a former boyfriend of Rosario, saying "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 from Hedgepeth's phone to Edwards' with the single word "than," believed to be a correction for the "aha" in the previous text.

That was the last evidence of activity from her phone.

At 4:16 a.m., Edwards sent a return text asking who had sent the previous text.