Outside-the-Box ...+Addenda

Will hesitantly re-state my own purely-speculative guess as to what may have transpired the night of Faith’s murder… even though I’m less confident than ever that it is even close to actuality, and acknowledging there are LOTS of other plausible theories out there, just none that seem to conform well to all the things we know! But I'll do it because the Breaking Homicide broadcast once again leads people down the path to Karena and Takoy (and now a boyfriend as well), and I’m not comfortable that that is the best or simplest fit for the known evidence (though I do remain suspicious of Eric Takoy Jones and his associates, and the new Ty McNeil connection is intriguing, but that is all). In fact it’s hard for me to imagine that if Karena or Eric is involved, police haven’t been able to demonstrate it after 5+ years of investigation in such a brutal case and crime scene — even without a DNA match there ought be a lot more to connect one of them directly to the crime by now.

My own rough scenario has always been along the following general lines:

First I’ll note that this was a very vicious, brutal crime… with no real indication it (the murder) was pre-planned, premeditated, or “staged” at all (though possible). Instead I think it stemmed from spontaneous, momentary and impulsive rage following a robbery, rape attempt, or other crime/encounter gone awry. With that said…:

Faith and Karena go to the Thrill where at some point they encounter a couple of guys (who are either blood relatives or close friends of one another) — these may be complete strangers (possibly event transients) to the women, or 2 men who slightly knew them through some other social context. The men take a fancy to the girls and try to hook up, but are rejected.  Annoyed by them, Karena eventually concocts the excuse of a headache to leave the Club and escape any unwanted advances, leaving the men angry/jealous. Either from the girls themselves or from others at the Club the men get enough information to Google around and get the girls’ address. After some further drinking or drugs they decide they should pay the women a visit, and maybe they can yet party with them (or maybe teach them a lesson for being too snooty). 

There are many possible scenarios once they get to the Hawthorn apt., but my point is I think they may have gone looking for both women and with NO intent whatsoever for murder. But getting there and finding Faith alone they took advantage of the situation, leading to a sexual assault on Faith. At some point in her struggle to resist, she either bit one of them, kicked him in the groin, tried poking his eyes out, or otherwise committed a painful, defensive act absolutely enraging the assaulter in-the-moment, causing him/them to subdue her with the nearest thing possible (the bottle). (I believe it may have required 2 individuals to have simultaneously manhandled Faith so brutally yet produced so little noise from the apt.)

The hardest thing for me to account for is the bag note, but then that is difficult to explain under any scenario. I believe the above scheme, which admittedly has its own problems, nonetheless fits what is known at least as well as other scenarios.

People are naturally gravitating toward Karena, Takoy, etc. because they want to believe this crime can be solved and that the solution is right before their eyes (in the form of names/characters we already know). But (for now) I’ll continue to speculate that the perp may be someone entirely unknown from released documents and reports, and that is exactly why the case has dragged on for so long (...I’m reminded of the Mississippi Jessica Chambers vicious-burning murder case that I followed for a year where dozens of names were mentioned on the Web, yet in the end the person arrested was someone who hadn't crossed internet radar).
We’re all tired of hearing it, but unless some major flaw is found in the DNA analysis done, this case needs a (perhaps NON-Black, NON-Caucasian) male DNA match above all else (possibly from an eventual CODIS hit); ALL the circumstantial speculation about other matters will not get us to an endpoint, and is open to multiple interpretations. We're all operating heavily on gut instincts and intuitions which can be misleading.

Having said all this, toward the end of the “Breaking…” show they bring up Occam’s Razor, which indeed is the approach I always take toward crimes, BUT in the instance of long-unsolved crimes Occam’s Razor often breaks down and there are some quite unexpected twists… which is one reason I’m less confident than ever that the simple scenario I’ve painted above is true (it’s too simple!)… I put it forth anyway because I believe people do need to think outside-the-box of Karena and Takoy, and accept that what we know in this case, what the police have disclosed, may be but a small fraction of what there is to know. I won't be surprised if it turns out that someone out there has the right theory, but I'll be even less surprised if it turns out no one does.

[…If by chance you haven’t already seen the Hedgepeth Breaking Homicide episode it officially airs tonight (10pm EDT) and Derrick Levasseur, one of the hosts, says he will be live-tweeting (@DerrickL) throughout, so that may be interesting or it may just be hectic and repetitious.]

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ADDENDUM:  Looked at all the comments of those live-tweeting the episode last night; a few thoughts:

1)  I had some slim hope that with 1000s of new eyes on this case someone just might spot something different or have an original idea not previously offered… but as expected, for those who have followed the case for a long time, it was almost entirely re-hash of predictable, redundant thoughts, with the vast majority of folks again led to suspect Karena.

2)  To my surprise I think only 1 or 2 people asked about the estimated time-of-death — a question I’ve long been asking — surely somewhere out there is an officially-established time-of-death, but it has oddly never been released even though it could help dispel some of the theories put forth.

3)  A small number of people did ask about fingerprints — were there noteworthy fingerprints on the bag, the pen, the bottle, doorknobs…? Again, an obvious question I’ve posed before, and bizarrely the police have never addressed.

4)  Finally, I’ve surmised before that Faith fought back mightily, probably leaving defensive wounds (bruises, scratches, marks) on her attacker’s arms (who probably wore long sleeves during the ensuing hot September days), and one commenter did note that police would surely have seen defensive marks on Karena’s or Eric’s arms in the first 48 hours if there had been any to see.

"Breaking Homicide" ...+Addenda

A little catching up....
Folks may want to view the emotional address that Faith's sister, Rolanda Hedgepeth, gave during National Crime Victims' Rights Week earlier in April:

https://www.facebook.com/NCPublicSafety/videos/1478537362274343/

The newest investigation of the case though was offered up by Investigation/Discovery's new "Breaking Homicide" series with a 90+ minute episode here:

https://www.investigationdiscovery.com/tv-shows/breaking-homicide/full-episodes/who-killed-faith

[For some reason, I could not get this to load in my Safari browser, but then switched to Chrome and had no problems, so try a different browser if yours doesn't work.]

It includes a lot of re-hashed material of course, but also with fresh (though often speculative) bits of new information. Unfortunately, I'm not sure that it moves us very far forward, but viewers will find it interesting. And I won't be detailing all the bits that were new to me, because again, for now at least, they don't alter my overall view of the case (though learning of the boyfriend "Alex" "Ty" is an interesting new angle). Other viewers will weigh things out differently.

I will mention the two major beefs I have with the treatment:

1)  They don't mention at all the DNA phenotype that was a major piece of ABC's 20/20 segment on this case, and that supposedly gave Chapel Hill Police 100s of more leads (nor have CHPD ever made further mention of this computer-generated profile). Is that because the phenotype is no longer considered valid or credible, or some other reason? One would think it would have at least garnered a mention, even if only to discount it. (It points away from a Black or Caucasian suspect.)

2)  But my biggest problem is the short-shrift given the DNA evidence. The case presented by Breaking Homicide leans heavily toward Karena Rosario, Takoy Jones, and Faith boyfriend Alex Ty. But the CHPD have said for quite some time now that the perp is whoever left DNA on the bottle, note, perhaps pen, and in the form of semen -- THAT (according to police) points to who committed this crime and that DNA did NOT come from Rosario, Jones, or Alex  Ty. Yes, it's possible to concoct scenarios or staged scenes in which one individual commits the crime but enlists someone else to leave the DNA (although why someone would even be willing to leave such DNA at such a brutal crime scene is hard to fathom), but it complicates things immensely. "Occam's Razor" (mentioned in the show) can be abandoned.

The DNA evidence is among the strongest, most distinct evidence in this case, but because of the lack of a match, it keeps playing second fiddle (in many minds) to far more speculative, sketchy evidence/ideas. The episode hosts say the problem is that there is too much DNA (because so many individuals spent time in that apt.), but we are only concerned with the male DNA on a very few items, that so far has no match.

  Also, the episode repeated a couple of times the belief that CHPD are down to 4-5 main suspects, but I'm not convinced they have ANY real suspects at this point, other than people they'd still like to hear more from.

Finally, the hosts put a lot of weight on the thumps heard from Faith's apt. before 3am. on the morning of the crime, and strongly imply that that may be when the murder ensued (while Karena was still there). Again, I wish we had an estimated time-of-death for Faith that would either include or eliminate death that early on (but we don't, and I was surprised they didn't pursue an estimated-time-of-death more).

Anyway, do enjoy the program, and view it carefully. People will reach their own conclusions. I'm sure many will find the case they make quite convincing, but as usual so many questions still lack firm answers, even though gut-feelings abound.

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ADDENDUM:  one thing I’ll add is that the episode twice stated that it was unknown if Takoy Jones was at the Thrill nightclub on the night before the crime — my own understanding (from some earlier reporting) is that police had established that Jones was NOT at the Club, but his cousin WAS, and there’s always been some question as to any communication between Jones and his cousin on that night. It is frustrating (though not unusual) that so many of the “facts” of this case are in some dispute via varying press reports.

ADDENDUM2:  Another matter I wish they would have considered more is whether or not Faith was even the intended victim of this crime? Again harking back to the DNA phenotype which indicated likelihood of a Hispanic perp, Karena, being Hispanic, may have had more Hispanic contacts in her circle of acquaintances than others in this case — did someone come looking for HER that night, only to get into an altercation with Faith (possibly fueled by alcohol or drugs) that then led to this seemingly spontaneous (not planned) act of rage?

[I’ll probably re-post my own conception of this crime, which differs from the Breaking Homicide conjecture, in an upcoming post, but for the moment want to continue to watch various reactions to the show on some other sites/forums.]