Defense attorneys for Miguel Salguero-Olivares have filed new motions in the Faith Hedgepeth murder case.

Hedgepeth was murdered in September of 2012; Olivares was charged in 2021 with her death.

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Those motions are to call two out-of-state witnesses, and according to eCourts, a judge has granted both.

Attorneys want to question two people about that night in September of 2012: 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 motions say, Rosario and Hedgepeth went to a club in Chapel Hill on the night that Hedgepeth was killed. Hedgepeth was sharing Rosario’s one-bedroom apartment.

According to these new 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 say 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 new motion points 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 says she was sitting; the motion includes a photo of the blood. 

The motion says Rosario claims to have left the apartment and gotten in McCrary’s car around 4:25 a.m. 

According to these documents, the medical examiner says given Hedgepeth's blood alcohol content, she was likely dead before 3 a.m.

Defense attorneys make 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 say, 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 say that Rosario used the phrase “I’m not stupid” multiple times in her interviews with law enforcement.

In the new filings, the defense attorneys point 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 say 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.