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:
[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.]
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