Jury deliberating in Faith Hedgepeth murder trial following fiery, passionate closing arguments

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: the jury has gone home for the night we do not have a verdict in the faith hedge pet murder trial will we get one tomorrow that's the big question many of us are asking thanks for tuning in tonight on courtroom insider where we have been closely following the trial for miguel salguero olivera over the past few weeks oliverus and the jury deliberated today for about an hour 38 minutes hour 40 based on our countdown clock we've been timing it and we did not get a verdict this is the man charged with killing faith hedge pet four counts including first degree murder first degree burglary first degree rape and first degree sexual offense the crime happened september 7th 2012 the murder of 19 year old faith hedge pet at unc in chapel hill north carolina she was 19 years old at the time beautiful young woman bright future ahead of her when she was killed bludgeoned to death with a wine bottle with a bottle and sexually assaulted and left in her friend's apartment we've heard all the evidence we've heard all the witnesses and today was closing arguments and wow what a day for closing arguments uh both sides lengthy arguments hours for both sides the defense won the option not one was granted the option yesterday because they did not present a case where they asked the judge can we be have the last word so and the judge granted it and said legally you can whereas normally the prosecution might go first and then the defense and then the prosecution can get up on rebuttal in this case judge said both sides uh prosecution first defense second and that's it this is the 14th year that this family has waited for justice 14 years imagine that go back to 2012 when things were so different as they are now and it was because of dna that the police say they were able to find the suspect faith's family has been in the courtroom every day so has grace wong almost every day she was definitely there today uh let's check in with her before we break down the closing arguments well grace long closing arguments today have you been in a trial where [00:02:27] Grace Wong: they've been this long i'm sure you have yes yes you know it's not unusual for them to go more than an hour especially uh in this case where there is a lot of evidence to go through a lot of witnesses testified and and so it um yeah i mean i think i think it was an appropriate amount of time to spend on [00:02:45] Speaker 1: summarizing the case for each side why don't we start with the prosecution i'll just ask you some basic [00:02:50] Grace Wong: what stood out to you on the prosecution's closing you know what stood out to me was they advanced their theory for the first time at least for the first time that i heard how what they think went down that night and so they uh so so uh angela um garcia lamarca was the first prosecutor to give her closing and she described you know the party that we all heard about the cookout that uh one of the witnesses had testified to and that what she suspects or what she uh argued happened or probably happened is that in the when the two came home the they he noticed that he was with his friends they were drinking and that somehow uh they he and his friends or or he approached them and uh faith had rebuffed his advances or his attempts to try to talk to them and uh that sparked the fury that the prosecution claims uh is uh is the at the root of this attack on faith and uh and then when he didn't uh you know he saw his opportunity when faith when karina left for the night so that whole scenario of uh approaching faith and karina when they come home and then messing with their with her car uh afterwards i mean she is um arguing that he is the one that opened the because her her gas uh door was open in the car and that he fiddled with that before he noticed that karina had left and that was his opportunity to go in and attack her and he attacked her in her sleep and she had never sat up she had never gotten up and so all of this happened uh while she was asleep which explains um why there are no injuries to her uh vagina and her rectum that that she was unconscious at the time or or uh certainly prone uh unable to respond [00:04:49] Speaker 1: or refused the attack grace i don't recall hearing the fact that they had had this meetup before i mean as you mentioned this was the first time you'd heard that and karina didn't testify about meeting [00:05:00] Grace Wong: them earlier did she no she didn't she was drunk at the time and karina herself has testified that she doesn't remember much of what happened she just remembers being in the car and then being at home and throwing up and so she doesn't remember anybody approaching them but the prosecutor asked the jury to draw on the inference of other testimony that there was testimony that these two girls uh did attract a lot of attention when they went out men routinely approached them to talk to them and she felt that that you could infer from that that perhaps um uh miguel and and his friends might approach them and that faith rebuffed them because we had heard from um her niece that faith would um wouldn't be afraid to put people off because she would be protective of a person and that would be a good instance for faith to be protective of karina because she was very sick that night and so drawing on those inferences that is the picture that they've painted as to what happened and how he got into a rage and um broke into the [00:06:11] Speaker 1: apartment to attack her then you have the defense saying and i don't think we've heard this either that [00:06:19] Grace Wong: they had a consensual sexual encounter days earlier yes and that is the defense comeback is that this semen or this sperm that was in her could have been in her from you know five days prior and that it's perfectly normal for a 19 year old or at least for this defendant to act like a 19 year old which is to go out drink hook up and since other women and and men of their age were doing it there's it's no different for for uh for miguel uh defendant to do exactly the same thing and that he just didn't recall having hooked up with her when he was shown her picture so that is that was their uh counter to the state's argument um whether that resonated you know i i don't i i it seems kind of weak when you think about you know you haven't seen the the pictures of the attack i mean the attack was absolutely savage and brutal and you heard descriptions of it and they were accurate descriptions her head was crushed like an egg like when you crack an egg and all these pieces come apart that's what her head looked like so this was uh this was a vicious attack and it was an attack that happened during a sexual assault at least that is the the position of the state and that sexual assault happened that night or else you know she'd be alive today right i mean that happened that night when they came back and found her dead so that you know unless you go unless you go with a theory that they had sex [00:08:01] Speaker 1: earlier in the week and the semen stayed in there and then five days later she's just killed by someone else but by someone else yeah well but then how does his palm print get on the bottle [00:08:17] Grace Wong: how does how does how does his dna get on the bottle and we heard those numbers those astronomical numbers again today of of septillion and quadrillion and had a killian you know anyways gazillions of dna and the likelihood that it's his dna his dna is on the top of the bacardi bottle which is consistent with the murder weapon along with her blood so his dna so it's happening these two things are happening when she's bleeding right i mean the blood is getting deposited on on the on the bottle the bottle's wrapped up in the bed so you know it's hard to reconcile those facts with what they're putting out there not to mention that nobody in her circle of friends and they went through that circle of friends her nobody in her circle of friends recalls um ever seeing him or hearing about a miguel although i thought the defense made a good point in that they didn't ask the friends whether she had a miguel in the circle she didn't they didn't ask i'm sorry they didn't ask if she had a mike in the circle because if you recall the jail hall the jail call uh katie ellen his girlfriend possibly or his friend called him mike so i don't know if that was a common name that he used instead of miguel so i thought that was that was um you know that might have been a good point right but then didn't we hear during the trial [00:09:43] Speaker 1: that um she had no contact with him in the phone at all so i i guess you could argue that uh if they had just a random hookup just a random hookup and then that was it they never texted or called each other again well so based on all this grace many many thought we would have a verdict by now that it wouldn't be long they were out for under two hours total like deliberating based on our our number um what do you think i mean they had some questions they came back and asked the judge a few things [00:10:13] Grace Wong: what did they ask well the first note they asked for a break right after closings right they had retired to deliberate they selected a jury foreman uh i say foreman because the foreperson here is a male and um and then not too long afterwards they sent out a note that said they wanted a 15 minute break which the judge granted and then when they came back from their break they deliberated for about an hour and a half and came back with another note asking for the summaries of the latent fingerprints and the dna lab results so they're asking for what the prosecution is telling them to focus on so i think you know you can never tell where they're going with their deliberations but certainly that sounds like um you know that bodes well for the prosecution if they're asking to review the dna results because that is the strongest part of the state's case what time do they start again tomorrow 9 30 9 30 so 9 30 eastern that's [00:11:15] Speaker 1: 7 30 mountain if you're watching we'll we'll start the live feed and who knows if they'll go till lunch um any any reaction in the courtroom from faith's family oh my goodness uh yes [00:11:31] Grace Wong: you know that the atmosphere was very heavy because the state as as i would expect them to wanted to remind jurors who this victim was and they had this picture of this very gorgeous 19 year old you know on all the monitors and just kind of revisited what she was like she was a 19 year old who was very ambitious very social had everything going for her in her life and then you know how she ends up is this bloodied corpse in bed half naked and violated and and murdered and it's just such a striking contrast to what you would expect to find um you know in a college in a college apartment these are two girls you sure they had their issues they had their issues in the sense that they had some boy problems at least karina did but they they had their whole futures ahead of them and so the the prosecution wanted painted this this picture this very attractive successful woman and and this is how she ends up at the hands of of this defendant so there's this very heavy feeling in the courtroom and a very passionate closing by the prosecutors um you know there were times when uh lisa coltrane who gave the second part of the of the prosecution closing argument her voice was cracking with emotion and you know that that you could hear as her voice was cracking these these sobs from from that side of the courtroom that the the the family members were were crying and uh i think you know there was a there was some tissue being passed among the jurors so the jurors were very moved and at one point um miss coltrane you know stomped over we know you know she said something like we know who is the guilty party here who lies with the who lies where the guilt lies and she marched across the courtroom and pointed directly stood in front of the defendant it was a very dramatic moment in the courtroom and stood in front of the defendant and pointed at him and said this is where the guilt lies with this defendant because before that she was she was she really captured the frustration of how long this investigation took and what it was like for the family members not to know who did this to their loved person and and just how frustrating you're like why couldn't they find this person they have the dna so you know she she she she could she really you could you could feel the exasperation in her voice and then that moment where she stomps across the room and points at the defendant of course he just you know kind of gazes at her with not much of a reaction but that moment really um you know it was just a very dramatic moment in the courtroom it's the kind of stuff that really uh you know makes trials [00:14:24] Speaker 1: so uh watchable right you know the thing is though everyone has to remember that that the closing arguments are not evidence right i mean you you can you can summarize it all and they can talk about evidence but everything the defense said has not been admitted is evidence or witness testimony [00:14:44] Grace Wong: that's absolutely right none of what they say in closing arguments is not evidence but it's it is the time when as the judge said they are able to try to persuade the jurors to view the evidence in their light and to characterize the evidence the way they want them to characterize it so it's a chance for them to be persuasive to put on you know for lack of a better word to put on a show to some extent and so this is so does the defense i mean the defense was not nearly as passionate and emotional but they did put on their arguments and they argued they argued they basically attacked the investigation and they saved their best which was i told you about the blunder that the prosecution made which was to admit a piece of evidence that they that they claimed was his handwriting and it wasn't it turned out to be a meme and he held that for the very last moment of his his closing which i thought was also very effective that you know the last piece of evidence that they admitted is not something that he did which raises the question about the integrity of the investigation if you if you want to uh if you're inclined to to believe the defense well yeah you you make a [00:15:58] Speaker 1: mistake in one part of the investigation who's to say that you didn't make mistakes elsewhere right we're gonna break it all down right now go through all the witness testimony and everything [00:16:06] Grace Wong: is there anything that you want to add you know one of the things that makes this um it's a unique case and not not a unique case right but i i've covered a lot of rape and murders but here the descriptions were so graphic and so detailed about what happened to faith um it just got very graphic and and very uncomfortable and it's really it's it's i and i wonder you know how you as a fam you know as a family somebody that cared about her it's really hard to put some distance i think between the crime and your emotions because it is such a vicious crime you know i mean they they repeated it over and over again you know how she was violated how she was attacked when she was most vulnerable in her bed in her apartment asleep in her pajamas and how he crept in there and this is the middle of the night so you can only imagine the terror that she must have been going through in those last few moments before she was rendered unconscious or when she was just killed so it's it's um it's a it's a horrible crime that unfortunately happens quite a bit because we end up covering them and um and you're just reminded the the the human toll that it takes and the viciousness of the viciousness of the crime and [00:17:27] Speaker 1: the emotions that that um that that elicits yeah all right well thank you for sitting through all of that and hearing all of it so you can bring us the report and we'll see when we have a verdict tomorrow grace thank you thank you nate okay let's start with uh closing arguments for those of you that weren't able to tune in we we this is where we're able to hear the state kind of tie everything up in a bow and go with their theory as as far as what happened and what may have triggered the rape and the murder of faith and then we get to hear from the defense reasoning as to why his dna was inside of her and all over the crime scene let's start with the state it seems possible [00:18:13] Speaker 3: that there is no worse agony for a human to experience than the loss of their child faith was the child of her parents her mom and her dad and she had just gone into the world she was at college she was making her way and she was in her home our homes are supposed to be our sanctuary it's where we go to take a breath to let our guard down it's our shelter from the storm and she was there in her bed unguarded safe asleep when the defendant brought that bottle down on her head and she started to bleed and that was the start of a bleeding that still hasn't stopped you saw that you saw that when kareena testified you saw it when talia testified it said he couldn't talk about this for years when marisol testified and she talked about how what she saw when she went into that bedroom faith's face blackened and her hair matted with blood is a vision she cannot get out of her head out of her head out of her heart out of her body in fact her brain over time has started to chip away and block it out for parents to lose a child and not know what happened or who did it is unbearable now we know we know we know what happened the forensic evidence in this case is screaming the truth we know what happened we know who did it again the forensic evidence is screaming his name miguel enrique salgueiro olivares we know who did it what we don't know and maybe we'll never know and what can be the incurable agony is why right we all want to know why we want to know why you know that our parents want to know why faith didn't have any protection that night constitutional or otherwise there was no jury there was no judge there that night to weigh in on whether or not what he was doing to her was fair and impartial he was the jury he was the judge and he was the executioner he sentenced her to life to death he sentenced her to death he sentenced everybody else who loved her to life there was no one there there was no one there to protect her there was no one there to stop him until now y'all are here you're here now and you can stop him now prosecutors broke down all of the [00:21:23] Speaker 1: charges on a chart and put it in front of the jurors starting with first degree burglary [00:21:30] Speaker 3: uh the mere this is the law in north carolina right the mere pushing or pulling open of an unlocked door even in the slightest degree constitutes a breaking you don't have to actually break something for it to be a breaking under the lock as he walked in that's breaking and entering okay she left the door unlocked he didn't have to break anything he just walked in and that's why there's no sign of forced [00:21:53] Speaker 1: entry the second legal guideline was breaking and entering during the night time which it was it was after the 4 a.m hour when carina rosario her roommate who she was staying with left the apartment other elements are if a tenant does not consent to the breaking and entering the fact that faith was asleep another element is the attempt to commit the sexual assault rape or murder and then the state said that olivares he fits all of those elements reiterating again that his dna was all over the place as for opportunity prosecutors said that olivares was at the barbecue that we've heard a lot about the barbecue outside the apartment complex when the girls got home and the girls dismissed his advances [00:22:37] Speaker 3: all right so he approached them drunk she shut him down then he's out there right still steaming feeling inadequate you know embarrassed humiliated which can be very difficult for some men then he sees corinna leave he goes upstairs and leaves his palm print his thumb print and his dna on these empty bottles right they're empty he picks them up you saw summer maffitt show you how he was holding the blue riesling bottle not because he was going to pour something out of it because he was going to use it as a weapon you know that he went in with the intent [00:23:24] Speaker 1: you infer based on what he did next up was the legal guideline for what is considered sexual assault [00:23:32] Speaker 3: in north carolina um the law is very specific rape is the penis into the vagina a sexual offense is different in this case it's specifically the penis into the anus i'm sorry to be so graphic but y'all been here a long time we just have to get to it and we have to be precise um the crime scene is screaming that she was sexually assaulted there is no doubt about that think about the condition her body was found in she was naked from the breast down her shirt is up above her her tampon with male dna on it is on the floor flattened out where he was stamping it into the ground as he's trying to manipulate her body so he can penetrate her with his penis her clothes are pulled off with his dna on the side tossed next to her feet everything is happening on that side of the bed the shorts are over here the panty liner got stuck on something so he puts it on the futon and he's stepping all over the tampon and you'll see in the pictures um you know there's a bit of blood on her torso from his hand where he's trying to get her where he needs her to be so that he can rape her um and his semen is inside her her vagina her rectum but no semen on the absorbent part of the tampon not that there's been any evidence that they would have done this earlier and that the dna would be inside her from some earlier encounter there's no evidence of that but we know that's not even possible because if that had happened then there would be semen on the absorbent part of her tampon that was removed the state really continued to [00:25:18] Speaker 1: bang the drum of dna dna dna that that is the main and really the only evidence we didn't see any body camera footage we didn't see any like surveillance cameras doorbell cameras remember 2012 things were different than dna and fingerprints and the palm print that's the crux of this case the law in north [00:25:38] Speaker 3: carolina says dna evidence tending to show that the defendant's sperm was found on an anal swab from the victim was unequivocal evidence of penetration that's it the law says if you've got sperm inside someone's anus that's penetration check 170 septillion do you all remember the numbers that erin ermish talked about this oh these are y'all one billion y'all see where one billion is she said the population of the world is eight billion there's one trillion down there keep going there at the bottom is one septillion we're talking about 170 septillion the likelihood ratio when the defendant is included is 170 septillion you remember the seesaw analogy and y'all to be clear it's not just an ant on one side and the defendant's dna over here and the size of an elephant it the number of elephants it would take to represent to equal 170 [00:26:53] Speaker 1: septillion is itself an astronomical number galactic now the final chart shown to the jurors was the murder charges and the prosecutor said there's two kinds of felony murder charges and he can be found guilty on both and it doesn't matter what came first whether the rape came forced first or the murder came first it doesn't matter [00:27:17] Speaker 3: the dna on the macarty bottle right her blood his skin 48.6 tre decilion his dna was up there that's a short neck he may have held it like this and came down like this it's a very short neck which would explain too why his dna was on the top and he said oh here these are the numbers again in case y'all are confused about what how incomprehensible these numbers are we passed septillion at the top now we're down to trade decilion that's how many septillions are in one trade decilion he beat her again and again and again until her skull cracked [00:28:24] Speaker 1: the other kind of murder is first degree murder this is where there's malice and intention to use a weapon [00:28:31] Speaker 3: second they have to use a deadly weapon and we already know he did that third and this is a funny word but don't worry about it the defendants act was a proximate cause of the victim's death approximate cause is a real cause a cause without which the victim's death would not have occurred well we know because dr scott told us that she died due to blunt trauma force to her head he beat her head until her skull cracked into pieces the stage said that olivares uh raped and killed [00:29:06] Speaker 1: faith because moments before when the girls the ladies got home drunk they had an encounter outside the apartment and he was turned down in front of his friends and that made him angry she may have hurt [00:29:21] Speaker 3: her feelings or hurt his feelings an hour or so earlier and he couldn't handle that but that she didn't provoke him to conduct and statements of the defendant before and after the attempted killing we don't know all of that that's in this case but that was it that's what the law says here it is the law north carolina says you may presume that when the defendant used the bacardi bottle to bludgeon faith to death in her bed he did so with malice that's it second the defendant's act was a proximate cause of the victim's death this is the same thing we just talked about but for his beating her in the head with that bottle she would have died she died because he beat her in the head with the bottle third he intended to kill the victim okay again intent is not something you can prove by pulling someone's thoughts out of their head so you have to use circumstantial evidence right you infer it from what they've done it can be inferred from the nature of the assault and the manner in which it was made so when you come down on someone's head over and over and over and over again you intend faith and karina come back and park the car and they're stumbling out and they're dressed you know for the club and these guys have been out there drinking and they see them and it's just human nature you go up to the pretty girls um and faith shut him down she embarrassed him and he sat with his friends maybe they teased him but he was not feeling good about it and he was drunk and when he saw karina leave he knew faith was there alone he was angry he put that in the note i'm not stupid i'm not stupid this happened because he felt stupid he was embarrassed maybe we can't know for sure and it doesn't matter but we want to know we want to understand don't we those red herrings are noise they're distractions [00:31:56] Speaker 4: and there's been a lot of noise around this case i expect the defense is going to tell you as they did an opening it's not noise it's evidence you have to pay attention to all the evidence yes ladies and gentlemen pay attention to the evidence i do want you to pay attention to all the evidence what i don't want you to do is get sucked into nonsense because that's what this noise is and this noise it started early in this case in the very opening statement by the defense they told you all kinds of stuff you were going to hear you're going to hear from joy barker the downstairs neighbor she's 80 years old did y'all hear from her nope but that was noise from the defense table you heard her statement you heard explanations about what she heard but you didn't hear from her endless witness stand the state didn't bring her in here because she wasn't going to add anything other than she heard some thumping around from some drunk college girls coming home but the defense made it sound like oh this is an important witness you're going to hear from her they told you that not us that's noise they said you're going to hear from a unc professor did y'all hear a unc professor nope that's what they told you that's the noise they wanted to generate to get y'all thinking about things that don't matter they told you you're going to see photos of the evidence technicians not wearing gloves did y'all see that there was a lot of talk about it did you see it [00:33:49] Speaker 1: nope prosecutors broke down how it was impossible for karina the roommate to have killed her friend her best friend there was a lot of thought before this trial that was she involved did she set it up could she have been there we heard a lot a lot about the red substance on her hand was a blood was a vomit what was it she had been very drunk but the prosecutor said listen it would have been impossible for her to do this look at these times ladies and gentlemen they want [00:34:19] Speaker 4: you to think that somehow karina's doing all of this stuff killing fate cleaning everything up getting a shower drying her hair getting ready to go out with jordan in what time because from the time she gets back to the thrill she is constantly on that phone the biggest span of time when there is not something going on back and forth with that phone is 14 minutes from 309 to 3 23 otherwise it was every couple of minutes she is back and forth but yet they want you to somehow believe oh karina's going in there and murdering her best friend it does not make a lick of sense ladies and joy there is no evidence that there being any animosity between faith and karina not one witness not one statement nobody everybody that testified said that they were like peas in a pod they shared everything karina told you when they moved in together it was like an endless sleepover which i'm sure to two 19 year old girls who have got their freedom and can do what they want to that's exactly what it felt like that they used to stay up and watch disney movies prosecutors warned the jury about red [00:35:37] Speaker 1: herrings about distractions that the defense is trying to present we hear that a lot in these cases that they're going to throw a bunch of stuff at the wall they're distractions don't listen to them they're red herrings and that's what the prosecutors did in this case too this is real life [00:35:53] Speaker 4: and this is reason and common sense we're not in the business of conspiracies we're not in the business of maybes we're not in the business of is it possible that no we're in the business of evidence that came from this stand is it possible that karina is some kind of cia level operative that pulled this all this hijinked off and somehow planted the defendant's sperm inside of faith and his touch dna all over the scene is it possible sure is it possible the defendant went to a grocery store and picked up the riesling bottle and deposited his palm print in his dna and then he went to a different liquor store and picked up a bacardi bottle and deposited his dna and then he went to time out and he picked up that bag and deposited his dna and put it back down and it just so happens that all of those things wind up at the scene of a crime scene is it possible sure is it possible that theoretically we don't know if aliens exist maybe aliens came down and extracted his sperm out of his body and planted it into faith is it possible sure [00:37:27] Speaker 1: is it reasonable no so now the jury has to decide if his faith miguel's fate is based on the dna and the prince only will it be enough here is prosecutors addressing the disappointing outcome of putting two people on the stand from the night uh of that barbecue you remember this they put the two people on the stand who their memories really didn't serve them well and it it probably i don't know if it hurt the prosecution's case you could argue it didn't help well they addressed this flat on during their closing argument to say that listen here's what happened these are the people that failed to id olivares as [00:38:08] Speaker 4: even being at the barbecue it was nine years later when they even knew to look in his direction is it any wonder that witnesses are not around anymore that some witnesses are back in guatemala and we can't get a hold of them is it any wonder when you've got a witness coming here on this witness stand and saying the defendant's mom called me a couple of weeks ago and told me to tell the truth and the truth is the truth that she told me to say was that you don't know my son that well and you weren't at ever any cookout with him is it any wonder that now we can't find any witnesses to come in here and say this defendant was at this cookout no it's not but we do have louise who didn't work it out back who wasn't related to the defendant who doesn't know him or his mom and who remembers abel walking up with a friend that night this friend louise didn't know and no louise cannot say 14 years later that that defendant was the mystery man that walked up he also didn't say oh it definitely wasn't him he just said i was drinking corona i was drinking hanukin i don't know what order some guy didn't know walked up talking spanish with abel but frankly whether or not you believe the defendant is the mystery man at abel's cookout or at louise's cookout we know that he was in that apartment complex we know it because his dna got there somehow his dna did not walk itself outside of his body his farm and his semen didn't fly out of him and into faith in karina's room his dna puts him there whether or not anybody that was out that cookout can his dna does prosecutors called oliveros a thief in the night [00:40:20] Speaker 1: who stole faith's life they talked about how her life this beautiful young woman with a whole life ahead of her came to an end because of a brutal beating with an alcohol bottle in her own home [00:40:36] Speaker 4: he had the party bottle and that was good enough so he drops it on the floor he goes over and he rips this young woman's boxers off he rips off her underwear in one fell swoop panty liner in the way get it out of the way i got business to take care of here and that's in the way you know what else that tampon is in the way of what i got to do so let's rip that out of her body and let's rape her and sexually assault her and leave his dna all over her and in her [00:41:37] Speaker 5: he beat her he beat her he beat her he beat her he beat her he beat her he beat her again and again [00:41:58] Speaker 4: and again till he could get what he wanted he beat her until her skull cracked like an egg that young girl didn't have a chance [00:42:21] Speaker 1: and remember that note we talked about we've talked about it several times over the past few weeks the grammatically incorrect note they pointed out that it was written by someone who likely would have spoken spanish because of the grammar uh juxtaposition lasting words they said the evidence is clear it's shouting at you don't get distracted by the noise of the defense and its conspiracy theories you can go watch the entire closing on our youtube channel from both sides lunch break now it was time for the defense and they split it up between two different attorneys starting uh by painting olivares as just another teenager like faith and her friends and i want [00:43:00] Speaker 6: to talk about tunnel vision tunnel vision by the state from the beginning of this case until the day that we stand here right now specifically 2021 there was forensic evidence that was gathered by the state that they say in 2021 hey we found whose this was they say we found a match to whose dna they say that that was oh september 2012 this was this was for a 19 year old this was for a teenage boy oh he lived in chapel hill this wasn't some 45 year old drifter life scene in south carolina oh he worked at a restaurant in chapel hill at the time oh but he's guatemala so he was probably across the street in september of 2012 with luis lopez who doesn't know him getting drunk and catcalling people across the street he was a 19 year old teenage boy at the time why wasn't the first thing considered as hey maybe he was doing and living the same life as other 19 and 20 year old children that we've heard about in this [00:44:21] Speaker 1: case the defense then went on to dismiss the amount of sperm found at the scene found inside uh faith and there was quite a bit we heard about during the trial but they they kind of dismissed it minimized it that there really wasn't that much also as we've talked about on this program they seem to imply that it was a consensual sexual encounter but not that night they're saying that there was a sexual encounter [00:44:50] Speaker 6: that was consensual days prior to the murder why wouldn't he sometimes have an intimate encounter with somebody maybe even on a one-time basis and not tell anybody else about it he was a teenage boy he lived in chapel hill and according to what the state's evidence was he stayed there they found in 2021 he didn't move to another state he didn't get out of the country he was here he was here and he didn't remember the state has put a lot of emphasis on everyone believing that it makes sense that miss rosario doesn't remember a conversation the next day when she was sober about having blood on her hands with jordan mccrary she said i wish i did in that interview i wish i did if she's a person who's there to give as much information and evidence about the death of her roommate and help provide information that could get there what in the world relevance what a conversation that she had after she got in the car with jordan mccrary at a time that the state says that faith was still alive and asleep in her bed what relevance would that have why would she wish she did unless maybe maybe she did remember having that conversation but when asked i don't remember that but memory memory something being forgotten is something that's inherently important the state has asked you to accept and why would it be why would it be so out of the ordinary that a 19 year old teenage boy who's living and working in chapel hill may have been doing the same things that these people were doing at the time maybe had too much to drink and maybe forgot about an encounter even as we sit here today the state's talking about in closing argument about planting dna and maybe mr rosario had a vial of semen and how ludicrous that was even today there seems to be this tunnel vision on the concept that the state's witnesses talked about which is you can find dna up to five days after intercourse even more than that that was part of what miss waleski told you about that's not something that's surprising that's the standard you look for that you look for that and even in some circumstances in the study that miss waleski cited up to 10 days after intercourse even when a woman is on menses 50 of the time in that study in some circumstances you still find dna why is that still not being considered sometimes and i want to talk about it wasn't just the sperm cells it wasn't just the five the five sperm heads found on the vaginal swab there was other pieces of evidence that the state says hey that his dna lots of big numbers what's the commonality between the white bag the picardial and the boxer shorts what ties those all things together where do they find the white bag on the bed on the bed with the sheets did they test the sheets do we know what kind of dna was left behind on the sheets because you know what's reasonable to infer after a prior consensual sexual encounter you might find some dna on those sheets where was the bottle found where was the bacardi bottle found it was wrapped up in comforter off the bed where were the boxers well if as the state contends faith was wearing his boxers she was wearing them in the bed with the sheets dna transfers dna transfer sometimes when we touch things from bodily fluids it doesn't have to be contamination it doesn't have to be misapplying the procedures that chapel hill or some police department they have think about just simply what the evidence at the scene shows us up to five days is the standard where you find this kind of evidence after a consensual sexual encounter why wasn't this considered why is he some strange angry monster across the street catcalling maybe not just a teenage boy you have to have tunnel vision because what is being ignored what is being ignored the person who was reported to have literally left the apartment with blood on her hands that's being ignored the turn of phrase we use to indicate when someone's guilty blood on their hands and i would submit to you this isn't some sort of unanswered question that maybe it was vomit where was jordan earlier where where was jordan hours before he picked her up the thrill what were they serving at the thrill those red slushies you think it would have been bizarre for him to think that after miss rosario had called to pick him up after leaving the thrill but in what she says is in a very drunken state of mind and he says oh yeah she was drinking those red slushes oh yeah but no the one person who you would want to hear from and you did about what this stuff was had no hesitation from the first time that you heard him speak back in september of 2012 when you saw that interview she got into the car i looked over and she said i don't know why i have blood on my hands [00:50:22] Speaker 1: they went on to say that olivares was just a boy 19 years old and not a killer that attorney finished up now the co-counsel got up and he started off by focusing on carina rosario and said her her involvement she whatever she did it's not a red herring there there's no way ms rosario accounts for [00:50:45] Speaker 7: miss hedge cap it's she cannot be in that room she can't put herself back in that room wasn't judging somebody when i talked about how they didn't wash their hands or brush their teeth after vomiting i brought that up because one it's preposterous it doesn't make any sense but two somebody who knew there was a little bit of blood around the sink would not want to be associated with the sink so no matter how bizarre the story was they would have to stay away from the sink because otherwise maybe they were the one who transferred blood to the sink and so despite how peculiar this would sound oh yeah i threw up i mean look at the bedside table and the photographs you were seeing what are there four water bottles on there a big cup from hardy's this is not somebody who was averse to drinking water and yet that person isn't going to have a sip of water after throwing up after coming home from a club when they're sitting in one place where you can get all three things at once you get a toothbrush and get soap for your hands you get a sip of water rinse your mouth out i don't think that's a hard question and these aren't things that we may we didn't make this up this is when i heard red herring it's not like we're up here arguing to you you know you know there was a green van in the parking lot and you know we don't know who's in the green van and you know there might have been some evidence under the couch they didn't look under the couch this is what we were given this is the evidence that we were presented this is the evidence that came from the witness stand that you have been able to hear this is not some shiny thing that we just found and we're you know look over here don't look over here this is the evidence this is what exists in this case and so then if somebody all of a sudden at 420 leaves with nothing except a telephone on thursday night classes next day gets in a car with jordan and all of a sudden the memory goes away i can't remember i just can't remember that conversation why is there a double standard you find somebody nine years later hey you know this girl show an iphone screen no i don't want somebody with a silver frame photo but if you know that you're going to arrest agent heinrich said there was a meeting to talk about the arrest and you want to get as much as you can from somebody why don't you take something with you did he seem defensive in the video when he has two police officers talking to him insinuating he's done something horrible this isn't 2012 anymore when he is being questioned this is 2021 things in this country are a lot different at that point the defense went on to focus on the lack of [00:53:23] Speaker 1: evidence they say in the trial that the cell phone tower pings any witnesses from the barbecue that they really if it had not if it wasn't for the dna they didn't say this but they're basically saying there's no other evidence out there when they found cell phones they couldn't match anything to the tower [00:53:40] Speaker 7: but we heard well that would be dangerous to say that someone wasn't somewhere if the cell phone didn't hit off the tower and we wouldn't want to do that so we did have cell phone records we didn't hear any testimony that they were hitting off the tower for my client but that probably just means he wasn't making telephone calls what about all the other people at this supposed barbecue what were their telephone numbers what were they asked were their telephones pinging off the tower i didn't hear anything from the state saying this abel that he has gone to guatemala nobody testified that he's gone i heard this broad stroke this a lot of people are gone who which people which people from the cookout they were hearing so much about who ran down that information which part of the investigative team i'm hearing broad statements but i'm at a more at a beyond reasonable doubt kind of level the kind of thing you bring in a murder trial who are the people that are doing these things and that goes for so many pieces of evidence in this case for instance we heard testimony well we got faith's computer and we got miss rosario's computer and we got my client's computer with 120 gigabytes and and people looked through it and found and you know there was no connection what were the parameters what were the search terms who did this what were their qualifications i mean i don't need to have a huge powerpoint showing everything they did search the computers but something something would be nice who would the who at the svi was part of that computer crimes and what information were they given what were they [00:55:25] Speaker 1: told now they turned to the fast food takeout bag the writing on the bag the hotly contested handwriting [00:55:32] Speaker 7: with the grammatical errors but i thought this was quite telling and i appreciated his honesty on this point we talked about the handwriting one of my last questions to him was about relying on handwriting that you find from somebody and not being in an expert and he said oh i'm not an expert that's not something that i do in this case and asked him if it would be dangerous to do that to look at a handwriting sample not being an expert and try to make your own comparisons and he said he agreed he agreed that that would be a dangerous thing to do and yet what do we have here the question because in just looking at a note in someone else's handwriting if someone's not an expert that could be i mean a dangerous thing to try to make a determination would you agree that was my question the response absolutely [00:56:34] Speaker 1: after this it kind of came back to the fact that faith and miguel had a consensual sexual encounter days prior and that is why his sperm was found inside of her vagina and that that okay his body fluid was inside of her but he didn't kill her they had consensual sex days earlier because he was so enraged [00:57:04] Speaker 7: from an hour earlier when some something happened in the parking lot beat someone's head in because that's what a 19 year old does who has been rebuffed at some sort of barbecue does that make sense because that's the only explanation that could be here is that he got angry about something waited an hour later and went and beat someone to death because he was so upset that somebody had said something to him in the parking lot you open the gas tank first of course and unscrew it doesn't make any sense but if you look at the pictures quickly it's like instant replay when you see the play person's out of bounds clearly you slow it down you can't believe it they weren't but if you have what mr murphy said it's tunnel vision when you're looking at it and thinking about it as an investigative team and you come in and you say well this is only one thing that could have happened well there's sperm it's found hangs around five days i don't think that's common knowledge i was quite surprised but miss waleski talked about that it was in the investigation manual that we discussed during her cross-examination i was going to call a biology professor from the unc because i thought we're going to have a fight about that we didn't we had an agreement about that but if you're an investigator and you don't know what miss waleski knows miss waleski knows you don't know that part of the forensic discipline then maybe you look at the evidence and say oh there's sperm it must have happened that night because if you don't have communication with another member of the team or somebody i think miss waleski was hired in august of 2026 you don't have that information and if you don't have that information then maybe your eyes are looking at something the wrong way and maybe if you had that information earlier and understood that then the idea that there was sperm recovered five a rare amount from a vaginal sample tells you this does not automatically mean that there was a sexual offense this means there was sexual contact you know this is interesting [00:59:17] Speaker 1: because it's the first time that the defense has has said that they had this sexual encounter and that it was consensual we've floated it here on our program others have online that you know maybe the defenses they hooked up and then he left the home and someone else came in and killed her the fact that it happened days earlier we have not really heard um i don't want to get graphic here but she i don't know all of the anatomy of this she was on her period we know that so i don't know how long men's body fluid stays inside a woman if you're on your period and and disposing of fluid again i'm not making an argument for the prosecution but i'm just saying that that that might be something that you might think about if you're a juror they said that um uh he didn't speak much english at the time uh and they they they miguel didn't and and there was this um witness during the trial who said that faith only dated black men and so it he she would not have been interested in him and the defense pushed back on that today saying that he didn't speak much english or or that he he knew english um and she could have been interested in him the defense also hammered away at the evidence that was not tested saying the investigation was subpar and they asked the jurors uh to to do their job to to say to to think about if the investigators gave them enough to convict miguel alvarez regarding the neighbor do you remember the neighbor joy that the defense promised to call and never did to establish a timeline uh the the defense said we didn't keep our promise to call her but draw your own conclusions [01:01:09] Speaker 7: and they're just gonna say no there was dna and that that means he's guilty because you know dna sperm you can only find it for you know like five days close the window when you heard i didn't ask you a whole lot during jury selection but i focused on one thing in the reasonable doubt destruction and the thing because i had a thought about what might happen in this trial i kept saying a reasonable doubt is a doubt based on reason and common sense arising out of some or all of the evidence that has been presented a reasonable doubt can reason it can come from some of the evidence some people call it a red herring other people might call it reasonable doubt and if it hasn't been ruled out by the state you can't test it and that thing in your mind that says this just doesn't feel quite right that's a doubt based on some of the evidence reasonable doubt can also be based on lack or insufficiency of the evidence the defense ended by saying he is not guilty [01:02:13] Speaker 1: and with that the jurors went to deliberate actually i think they had lunch first let me get the exact timeline from grace in the courtroom she said that um uh let me get the group here anyway they they did not they did not start deliberating right away they asked if they could have a break uh and the judge said yes they could and then uh they began deliberating and our our count our clock shows that it was about under two hours an hour 40 or something like that so tomorrow they will be back in deliberations they're going to start in the morning we're going to start our live stream it will be a standby graphic until we get word that there is a verdict sometimes out and they as grace talked about earlier the uh they'll get the evidence they'll get to see it uh and they'll discuss it and then we will see if we get a verdict tomorrow and what time i'm curious what's your guess will we have a verdict tomorrow or will it go into the weekend uh that that is the question so stay tuned for that tomorrow we also are going to be live streaming did you have you followed the whole bachelor story in arizona the woman who said claimed that the bachelor impregnated her uh and it man if you want a podcast go listen to it her name is laura owens and she faces um uh multiple charges has pleaded guilty to this fraud case she said that the bachelor impregnated her he said it was impossible because they didn't ever have sexual intercourse uh but he wasn't the only one and there's these other men that have come forward saying she did the same thing to me it's a crazy podcast it's called i don't remember what it's called um i gotta refer you i gotta uh one second podcast uh love trapped love trapped i'm not into the bachelor this podcast hooked me though i mean it was it's just so wild so listen to love trapped anyway tomorrow morning we're gonna be streaming that sentencing she's being sentenced tomorrow believe it starts at nine o'clock in arizona which is 10 o'clock idaho time but there's a 30 minute delay on streaming so uh it'll we'll start streaming it at 10 30 idaho time which is mountain daylight time it's always so confusing with arizona they're on mountain standard time so um stay tuned for that in the morning and we will bring it to you all right before we go let me tell you about brandy nicole mcclellan she was 36 last seen in florala alabama on august 27 2024 walking near the intersection of highway 331 and covington county road 18 at the state rest area she had two dogs with her a large white pit bull and a smaller brown dog she never returned and has never been heard from again her dogs later returned home without her she may be in walton county florida or in coffee county alabama her disappearance remains unsolved she's 5 8 120 pounds brown hair blue eyes has multiple tattoos including on her foot leg both arms and abdomen brandy mcclellan is missing tonight if you have any information on her please contact the police here's where you can find me facebook insta x and youtube please subscribe begging you to subscribe thank you to all of you who have subscribed and welcome to you new viewers appreciate you being here tonight also we're on courtroom insider here's where you can find our channels across the board and we'll we're posting stuff all day not just about this case but other crimes that are happening in the world uh we will be back tomorrow night with maybe a verdict also a recap on what happens in the laura owens hearing tomorrow morning and we'll live stream both so we might have a verdict and we might have this other hearing we will have this other hearing so a lot to talk about tomorrow night hope you can tune in with us as we get ready for the weekend thanks everybody for watching tonight i'm nate eaton take care see you tomorrow