DA wants to seal Faith Hedgepeth murder case filings. What NC judge decided

A Durham judge rejected prosecutors’ request to seal pretrial motions and court orders in the Faith Hedgepeth murder case, ensuring that the legal battle leading up to trial will remain open to public scrutiny.

Superior Court Judge Keith Gregory denied the request Thursday to seal filings leading up to the Sept. 28 trial.

Miguel Salguero Olivares is charged with raping and killing Hedgepeth on Sept. 7, 2012. In 2021, nine years after Hedgepeth’s death, Chapel Hill police arrested and charged Salguero Olivares with the UNC sophomore’s killing.

Lisa Coltrain, a special prosecutor with the N.C. Conference of District Attorneys working with the Durham County District Attorney’s Office on the case, has argued that all pretrial motions need to be sealed to prevent the jury from being influenced by intense media coverage.

Gregory said he didn’t think prosecutors’ arguments met the legal burden for such an extreme step, but he would be open to reconsidering the request in the future.

Coltrain argued that defense team motions contained “extraneous and unnecessarily detailed” information that is largely inadmissible, incomplete, and “whether intentional or not, cast dispersions on the prosecutors’ witnesses,” specifically, Hedgepeth’s former roommate, Karena Rosario.

The filings indicate that Rosario might have been in the apartment during Hedgepeth’s killing and point out she had a red stain on her finger when she left the apartment around 4:25 a.m.

James Rainsford, an attorney for Salguero Olivares said he is doing his job by including detailed information in the filing. He said the defense must take steps to ensure that a judge grants an extraordinary request to require out-of-state witnesses be available for a North Carolina trial that is expected to take weeks.

Rainsford pointed out that the discussion doesn’t take into account the years of national coverage of Hedgepeth’s killing, including an ABC interview by the police chief, now cited on a Wikipedia page about the killing. “I feel like we’re coming to court here today, and the narrative that has been presented is there was a filing that has presented a false impression of this case to the media, while ignoring everything that exists out there,” Rainsford said.

Next steps in the Faith Hedgepeth case

During the hearing, Gregory also set a new July 13 deadline for all pretrial filings. The hearing on those filings will be held on the week of Aug. 3.

Hedgepeth, a member of the Haliwa-Saponi tribal community, grew up in a small North Carolina community on the Warren-Halifax counties’ border, The News & Observer has previously reported.

A Gates Millennium Scholarship for advanced minority students paid for Hedgepeth’s expenses at UNC-Chapel Hill, but she also worked part-time jobs for grocery and gas money. Her dream was to become a pediatrician and return to her community to care for patients there.

Police said they used DNA found at her apartment to identify relatives of Salguero Olivares, which led to him eventually being charged with Hedgepeth’s murder.

In 2024, prosecutors added burglary, rape and sexual offense charges, alleging that Salguero Olivares broke into Hedgepeth’s home and raped her. The trial, which is expected to last several weeks, is set to start at the end of September, which will be just over 14 years since the killing.

This is a developing news story that will be updated.

This story was originally published June 11, 2026 at 11:15 AM with the headline "DA wants to seal Faith Hedgepeth murder case filings. What NC judge decided."

Virginia Bridges

The News & Observer

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Virginia Bridges covers what is and isn’t working in North Carolina’s criminal justice system for The News & Observer’s and The Charlotte Observer’s investigation team. She has worked for newspapers for more than 20 years. The N.C. State Bar Association awarded her the Media & Law Award for Best Series in 2018, 2020 and 2025.