One thing hard to escape, no matter where you read about this case, is all the suspicion that continues to hover around Faith’s roommate (Karena) and her ex-boyfriend (Eriq Takoy Jones). Reading all of people’s pet theories, and the evidence as we know it, I’ve tried to tie it together a bit in one scenario, especially given all that suspicion, even while nothing seems to directly tie these two to the murder scene (yet repeatedly we hear they might know more than they’ve told):
Suppose there was some sort of ongoing tension, jealousy, or love triangle happening between Karena & Faith… that reached a critical point… might KR, already aware of ETJ’s declared desire to do harm to Faith, give him a sort of tacit go-ahead to have her messed with or roughed up a bit to ‘teach her a lesson’ as-it-were. And suppose ETJ knowing he’d be easily recognized/suspected of any such 'assault,' preferred to employ 1 or 2 acquaintances (perhaps at The Thrill that night) to do the deed, and KR then agreed to depart the apt. early and leave the door unlocked… someone, or possibly 2 individuals come over, honestly planning to mess with Faith to ‘deliver a message,’ but when things get out-of-hand smash her head with a bottle that kills her. Possible? KR and ETJ, while not guilty of the actual crime, would be frozen into silence, because of their involvement/knowledge; unable to tell what they knew about something they were essentially accessory to, even if not intended???
Perhaps the cryptic bag note was written by KR (many ascribe it to female handwriting & wordage) before she departed, and left for a sleeping Faith as a message/warning to Faith upon awakening???
Two individuals that were known to be in contact with Faith and KR at the Club that night were a rapper who’s name I’m not certain of and Jones’ cousin (Jones himself was not there), BOTH of whom apparently lived in the same apt. complex as ETJ, KR, and Faith. Were they involved? (I assume they were interrogated by police?) Or, if not them, one or two others from Jones’ circle of contacts? All we can do is speculate, but perhaps this scenario would explain why 4+ years after the fact no evidence puts KR or ETJ directly at the crime scene, and yet so much suspicion clings to them.
OR, maybe everything in all the released police reports, and prior speculations, are just red herrings. Maybe KR and ETJ are themselves just victims of circumstances and appearances. Perhaps, in accordance with the 20/20 report, we need be looking for a Latino who hasn't been on anyone's radar, and is possibly long gone from the area by now. So many what-ifs, so many 'maybe's, and so much time passed... AND, so frustrating.
Do you have an email?
ReplyDeleteAn email address is given in right-hand column of blog.
ReplyDeleteAll comments are moderated, i.e. they only appear after I manually OK them; so another option is simply to send a 'comment' to any post here with a notation "NOT for publication," if you wish to send something for my eyes only (I will see it, but it won't get posted). You can also write to Tom Gasparoli at his site, as he is interested in any thoughts/info.
And finally, if you have anything highly important to the case of course contact either Crimestoppers or Chapel Hill Police (again, contact info in right-hand column) -- there remains a $40,000 reward for info solving this case.
So you don"t believe the voicemail occurred at the scene of the murder? I can't comprehend that the conversation from the voice mail could have occurred in the nightclub. It doesn't fit any conversation outside of the murder (duct tape ...she's dying) etc. And since it did occur during the murder, E and K are both mentioned by name ...and there was a third person, one that Faith probably didn't know well, because she didn't voice his name (a Latino, presumably).
ReplyDeleteThe police have used various data/info to pinpoint the time of the voicemail to the period of Karena & Faith’s visit to the Thrill night club (not later in morning). The message is so garbled as to be unintelligible, and attempts to enhance it risk introducing other variables. I’ve not seen any interpretation of it that I personally find very credible. So no, I don’t think it comes from the murder scene nor is very decipherable, nor adds anything solid to the case — at very best it MIGHT indicate some sort of pertinent argument/dispute happening at the night club prior to the girls leaving and the subsequent crime, but the details/voices/names are just too obscure to be confident of accurate understanding. [With that said, it is just my opinion, and others hold different opinions of the voicemail's content and timing.]
ReplyDeleteI understand where you are coming from but why would someone say "ow I think she's dying my hands r on fire help me" in a night club if it was from the club then everyone would've gathered around faith and it would've been talked about by everyone like oh did u see that fight between faith and whoever ... why would someone say I think she's dying and screaming for help in a night club it sounds like shes in big danger not I am very confident that it came from the murder scene.
DeleteYeah, if the voice mail translation is correct, there's no way that conversation fits any other scenario than the scene of the murder; however, the police have said that they are confident that it occurred at the club based on logs and phone records. In my opinion, if that conversation occurred at the club, the translation must be wrong.
DeleteUnless the tape was presented to the forensic person in a truly "blind," objective manner (where he knew nothing of the case) I can't take the translation very seriously, especially since the tape had to be "enhanced" (manipulated) to be translated at all. I simply don't give it (nor that particular crime show, nor the audio forensic fellow) much credence -- but hey, I'm very skeptical by nature.
DeleteAssuming this case is eventually solved it will be interesting to see, with hindsight, which bits of evidence were pertinent to the case.
For now, I'm in a bit of a holding pattern waiting to see if the whole new Latino angle actually goes anywhere, with new persons-of-interest, or do we return again to square one.
Ok, understood. So, the note implies that it was someone who knew her and had a vendetta. The DNA on the pen and "Time-Out" fast food bag matched the rapist's. Do you know if and of the other suspects, known by the media, are Latino?
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DeleteYes, the note seems to imply that... (and police have said from early on, they felt the perpetrator knew or had some connection to the victim, and not just some random crime), but for completeness I should say that a few have speculated that the note is little more than nonsense written to deliberately throw the police off (I don’t buy that, but it is an oddball note and nothing in this case seems clearcut).
I’m not aware of any suspects or persons-of-interest mentioned in police documents or by media who were Latino — it’s possible there have been some, but none that I recall, and it’s a bit disheartening to think that the Latino “evidence” may be sending the investigation in new directions it's not gone for 4 years. I’ll also caution though that the genetic analysis reported by 20/20 is very new and not well validated… it too could be completely misleading. So as I’ve already written, we await the police to report on the “100s” of additional leads they claim it gave them, to see if ANY of those leads go anywhere. I’ll also mention again that the region of the crime has a large Hispanic population, so there are no shortage of Latinos around.
I read that the DNA indicates that the murderer could be Latino OR Native American. I haven't seen any mention of Faith's x-boyfriend(s). College students often leave behind high school boyfriends and girlfriends who feel left behind and rejected. The note would fit this scenario well.
ReplyDeleteI'm wondering who the men were on the security footage when Faith left the club. You see a black male, a white male (who appears to be wearing a similar shirt as the bouncers) and then another male. The third male appears to be Latino in appearance. Faith is also seen leaning on the mans shoulder for a moment. Does this man come back into the club? Does he leave with the girls? Were the men seen in the security footage interviewed? Faith seems very animated when leaving. Almost as if she is pleading her case sort of speak.
ReplyDeleteI just watched the 20/20 last night... I had never even heard the name Faith Hedgepeth before. This case is so disturbing and heart breaking.... The more I read about it, the more I become convinced the Killer is long gone, probably a student who graduated... My best guess would be Brandon had something to do with it, one of his friends committed the actual murder... I read in one of the articles that there was a tampon found on the floor next to her... would a rapist take the time to remove it? Could there possibly have been consensual sex that got out of hand? I pray they catch everyone involved, just seems like it will continue to grow colder because of the location (college town with frequent turnover) My heart breaks for her family.
ReplyDeleteI definitely feel like her roommate knows more and she had something to do with it for sure.
ReplyDeleteGreat post, great blog. I think Karena Rosario should be the main suspect for a number of reasons. One, she was the last person to see Faith alive and the odds of someone else entering that apartment between 4:30am and 11:00am are very slim. Two, that the rum bottle was the murder weapon suggests that this was unpremeditated, unplanned, spontaneous and likely the result of sudden anger or fury. For me this eliminates almost everyone aside from Rosario. Three, the note seems the kind of thing one girl might write to another girl when they have had a falling out over something. Four, there is reason to think that the motive here could have been some misunderstanding about a man in their lives combined with some underlying jealousy. This combination could easily produce anger and murderous rage. Finally, there is the issue of how the perpetrator would have gained entry to the apartment. Rosario apparently told police that she left the door unlocked when she left at 4:30am. However, this makes no sense. One, she would have had no reason to leave the door unlocked. They were two pretty young women living alone. Two, if she did somehow leave it unlocked, it would have been by accident, and she wouldn't "remember" leaving it unlocked. The only reason, IMO, that she would have told police that she left the door unlocked is to give them the idea that someone may have entered the apartment after she left.
ReplyDeleteThe questions I have about this case at the moment are:
1. why haven't they been able to get fingerprints from the bottle? were they wiped?
2. whose blood was found beneath Faith's fingernails?
3. could the semen found in Faith have been from a day or two prior?
4. why was there a used tampon near Faith's body?
I also wonder why Karena would want to leave the club because she "felt too sick", yet seemed adamant about leaving the apartment to sleep elsewhere rather than be in the comfort of her own bed/place.
DeleteAlso, why was she trying to get ahold of Faith in the morning before arriving home? Makes me wonder if she's trying to distance herself from looking guilty/having knowledge of Faith being dead.
I keep going back to Karena....911 call tone, behavior in general. Just keeps looping back to her.
ReplyDeleteI have another thought about what might have happened that night and why Karena Rosario should be the main suspect.
ReplyDeleteThis is important, I think.
I was just reading through old Websleuths posts on this case, and I came across something that Brandon Edwards wrote in memory of Faith on the two year anniversary of her death. He wrote these words into an Instagram post which features a photograph of his arm, where he now has a tattoo of Faith's initials: "F.D.H". Both the tattoo and the language in his post suggest that there were very strong feelings between Brandon and Faith, and I think this might be the key to understanding why Faith was killed, or to be more precise, why Karena Rosario killed Faith.
In his Instagram post, Brandon begins with the following: "Today will forever be remembered as the day I lost you." Notice that he says "the day I lost you" rather than "the day WE lost you". That's important. Ordinarily, a friend of the deceased would use "we" here, i.e., "the day WE lost you". A boyfriend or a husband might say "I," but those are uniquely one-to-one relationships; a friend would more likely say "we". Yet Brandon says: "the day I lost you".
Then he writes: "I remember your face lighting up when you saw me walk into the bar. I remember you asking me how I had been. I remember us laughing about old times." Now there are a couple of important things about this: one, Brandon saw Faith and Karena that night at Thrill, just hours before Faith was killed; two, if Brandon saw how Faith's face "lit up" when he walked into the bar, so too might have Karena, and this would not have made her happy at all. Indeed, if Karena then saw Faith and Brandon smiling and "laughing" together, she could have become jealous, suspicious, even angry. (Remember that Brandon is the guy Karena liked most.) This might also explain why Karena wanted to leave the bar early: Faith and Brandon seemed to be enjoying one another's company too much, seemed a bit TOO friendly; Karena got upset and invented a reason they needed to leave.
So they went home.
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ReplyDeleteBack in the apartment, Karena would have been quiet, moody, stewing in her suspicion, anger and jealousy, but Faith would probably have had no idea what was going on in Karena's mind. But what would have caused Karena to fly into a murderous rage? After all, not only was Faith her closest friend, Faith later sent texts to Brandon, asking him to come over to see Karena and demonstrate that he cared about her. Surely this showed Karena that Faith herself wasn't interested in Brandon and that Faith was being a good and loyal friend?
Except that I think Karena might have seen the text that Faith sent to Brandon and interpreted it in an entirely different way from how we interpret it. Recall what Faith texted to Brandon (I'll use the corrected version for simplicity's sake): "Hey b. Can you come over here please. Karena needs you more than you know. Please let her know you care." Now, to all of us this reads like a friend trying to help a friend. But what if in her suspiciousness and jealousy, Karena read it differently and saw Faith's text as a subtle way of sending Brandon a secret message, that secret message being not "Karena needs you more than you know. Please let her know you care" but "I need you more than you know. Please let me know you care."
This may sound a little out there, but remember that the jealous, angry, suspicious mind does not work the same way the normal, calm, rational mind does. This also might somewhat explain the note on the bag: "I'm not stupid" is Karena telling Faith she saw through Faith's little game, her attempt to send a secret message, etc.
I also have one last thought about the word "jealous" on the bag. The note confuses me to a great extent as I don't really understand why someone would write a note on a bag, and I also don't understand why the killer would place it on top of Faith afterward. Regardless, one way that "jealous" could've ended up on the bag is if in their post-Thrill conversation, Karena had told Faith she saw Faith smiling and laughing with Brandon and she didn't like it. Maybe Faith said something like, "Karena, don't be stupid; you're just being jealous for no reason." There we have both the word "stupid" and the word "jealous," and it could be that Karena was giving these words back to Faith in her anger and rage after she brutally beat her with the rum bottle.
It is hard to believe, but for me it is the most plausible explanation at the moment.
Yes... My thoughts as well.
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