Tuesday was the second day of pre-trial motions in the Faith Hedgepeth case.
Hedgepeth, who was a junior at UNC-Chapel Hill at the time, was killed in 2012.
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The case is scheduled to go to trial on Sept. 28.
As of Tuesday afternoon, the court has gotten through three motions. They center on what evidence will be allowed at trial and what media will be allowed to film.
A part of Tuesday's discussion centers on Hedgepeth's roommate at the time, Karena Rosario. The state acknowledged that police looked at Rosario as a suspect over the years.
They argued she should not be filmed when she's on the witness stand. Judge Keith Gregory disagreed.
"This witness will be testifying, and all the witnesses will be testifying not for the cameras, but for this jury," Gregory said. "And this jury, when we get one, will make a determination as to what they believe about any witness and any evidence that's presented."
Rosario faces no charges in the case
Both sides agreed that there would be no video showing the autopsy photos of Hedgepeth's body.
There are at least nine more motions to get through.
How authorities landed on an arrest nine years after the murder
Arguments in Durham County Court on Tuesday told us more about how they got there and what paths they didn't pursue.
The state filed multiple motions to exclude evidence. Those included a 911 call analysis, a report on Hedgepeth's blood alcohol, a written statement analysis, and evidence related to investigative genetic genealogy.
In all of these, the state argued the experts didn't have the information needed, and the evidence should be inadmissible.
Those motions show us how law enforcement pursued their case between 2012 and 2021.
SBI Special Agent Justin Heinrich testified to why they pursued an unconventional written statement analysis.
"We figured we'd give it a shot and see what we got from it," Heinrich said. "We were, as an investigative team, seeking to obtain any potential leads we could."
Prosecutor Angela Garcia-LaMarca also emphasized parts of the unconventional investigation in her argument to exclude investigative genetic genealogy evidence.
"That this is not relevant - what they did with the IGG work is the functional equivalent of a crimestoppers tip," Garcia-LaMarca.
