The alleged killer of Chapel Hill student Faith Hedgepeth won’t face the death penalty, according to a filing from Durham District Attorney Satana Deberry.
Miguel Enrique Salguero-Olivares, 28, has been charged with first-degree murder for the 2012 killing of Hedgepeth, a sophomore at UNC-Chapel Hill. Hedgepeth was found beaten to death at her off-campus apartment, with a note scrawled on a plastic takeout bag nearby reading, “I’m not stupid bitch, jealous.”
The case went cold for nearly a decade before DNA testing tied Salguero-Olivares to the crime, authorities say.
A court filing Tuesday stated that Deberry will not prosecute Salguero-Olivares as a capital case, meaning he will face life in prison, if convicted.
Deberry declined to comment on the matter, as the trial is pending.
Deberry has stated she is against capital punishment. Last year, she joined a group of nearly 100 other prosecutors who announced they opposed the death penalty. Deberry also declined to seek the penalty against Craig Hicks, the gunman who killed three Muslim students in 2015.
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