Crime Weekly - S1 Ep14: The Murder of Faith Hedgepeth (Part III)

Episode Date: March 5, 2021

Faith Hedgepeth was born on  September 26th 1992 in Warren County North Carolina. She was part of the Haliwa Saponi Native American tribe and her parents Roland and Connie Hegepeth whose parents divorced only a few months after she was born. Her father Roland moved to Hickory North Carolina, a four hour drive away, and Faith remained with her mother and sister Roland who was eighteen years older than Faith and who felt as if she was a second mother to her baby sister. In high school Faith was very active, actively participating in many clubs and organizations as well as cheerleading, and she was also an honor student which earned her the Gates Millenium Scholarship, a program meant to promote academic excellence and provide the opportunity for outstanding minority students with significant financial need to reach their highest potential. Faith was accepted at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and she and her family had high hopes for her future. Faith knew she wanted to help people, especially children, by becoming a pediatrician or a teacher, and once she completed college she would become the first member of her family to hold a college degree. Faith had her whole life in front of her, and with her intelligence, excellent people skills and big heart, she would make a positive impact on the world. But on September 6th 2012, Faith’s bright light was extinguished. She was found beaten to death in the off campus apartment she shared with her friend, Karina Rosario. Faith was naked from the waist down, her shirt had been pulled over her head, and next to her a hastily scrawled note on a fast food bag was found. The note said quote, “I’m not stupid bitch. Jealous”. Since that day, Chapel Hill police have been tirelessly trying to find the person or persons who brutally murdered Faith Hedgepeth, who was just weeks away from her twentieth birthday. To her family Faith  symbolized love and hope, to her friends she was a constant source of positive energy and fun, and the question still lingers today. Who killed Faith Hedgepeth, and why? Website: CrimeWeeklyPodcast.com Instagram: @CrimeWeeklyPod Twitter: @CrimeWeeklyPod Facebook: @CrimeWeeklyPod

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And you can get a single line for just $45 a month when you switch and bring your phone. That's our best price ever on unlimited welcome, with auto pay plus taxes and fees guaranteed for three years because at verizon we got you visit your local dc verizon store today $20 monthly promo credits apply to over 36 months with a new line on unlimited welcome in times of congestion unlimited 5g and 4g lte may be temporarily slower than other traffic domestic data roaming at 2g speeds price guarantee applies to then current base monthly rate additional terms and conditions apply Hello and welcome to Crime Weekly presented by ID. I'm Stephanie Harlow. And I'm Derek Levasseur. On this podcast, we do talk about difficult subjects. We're talking about real crimes and real people.

And due to the graphic nature of some of this content, listener discretion is advised. Hello, Derek. How are you? I'm good. How are you? Doing pretty well. So today we're back for the third and final part of the Faith Hedgepath case. I'm really looking forward to wrapping this up and sort of, you know, going over the entire thing with you at the end of the episode where we kind of, you know, tell everybody how we're feeling about it and what our theories are.

But last time we talked, we went over a couple of the different suspects in the case. But today we're going to couple of the different suspects in the case. But today we're going to focus on the most popular theory. So when I say most popular, I mean, what are people saying in the web sleuth community, the online community, in podcasts, on YouTube, on message boards? And we're going to focus today on Karina Rosario, who happens to be the person that a lot of people think had something to do with what happened to Faith. Yeah, I don't think it's unreasonable to say that. I know from my interviews with police that Karina has been interviewed multiple times.

And it's also common sense in a lot of ways, like, you know, just based on the circumstances surrounding the night before and the day that Faith was found. And it kind of ties into some of the other aspects that we're going to talk about today that all kind of relate to Karina in some way, specifically the 911 call that was made when Faith's body was discovered. And we're going to really dissect that, but we're also going to dissect the butt dial, the voicemail from Faith's phone. So I'm looking forward to today. We've got a lot to cover. We're going to dive into the weeds for sure. Plus, we got a little surprise coming up. Yes. But before we dive into that, I do want to tell our listeners about something that is airing now on Discovery Plus, and it's their new documentary called If I Can't Have You, the Jodi Arias story. And Jodi Arias is a figure in true crime that's always fascinated me to some points. I think everybody's familiar with her sitting in the interrogation room and singing just some bizarre

behavior, but I really enjoyed this documentary. It gave me a lot of insight. It gave me a lot of information I hadn't known before. So I definitely suggest everybody head over to Discovery Plus and check out If I Can't Have You, the Jodi Aria story. All right, so Derek, this is one of those cases where I feel like every time you revisit it, you find something new that you hadn't seen or noticed before. And the reason that Karina Rosario has been the main focus of most of these theories is because of three things, in my opinion. The relationship between Faith and Karina was complicated and not exactly how it appeared. Audio evidence, such as the 911 call Karina made, as well as a later voicemail message that came

from Faith's phone, have been scrutinized and analyzed to the umpteenth degree online. And Karina's general behavior and actions just made a lot of people suspect that she might have been involved in some way. And we're really going to dive into all of that today. Yeah, as we just said in the opening, there's a lot of questions surrounding Karina. And, you know, we went into this on Breaking Homicide as well. There's just some things that don't really add up for me as a person and as a detective. And I think today is an opportunity to kind of break those down a little further. And I will say this, I'm going to save it. were some things that came up and something we're going to discuss today that made me go back and research it again. And I found some new things that I didn't know about. I shared them with you. And it's fascinating that even though after all these years, I'm still finding new things about this case that I thought I knew

everything about, but clearly I didn't. Yeah. I remember that call. I was super hyped about it too, because I was ready for bed. So I was in like nighttime mode and my brain was turning off. And then you called me and all of a sudden I was like, my brain was just going like crazy, like fireworks. And I was looking things up and I was up for another two hours, by the way. Thank you. I did say that to you. You were like, yeah, I'm in bed. And I was like, okay, well, ready to have your mind blown? I started telling you this. And then I'm like, now, good luck trying to go to sleep. You're like, yeah, thanks. Yeah, you know exactly what to do, man. But I guess what happened with Karina and Faith, right? They met pretty early on in their college career. They'd been close since their freshman year of college. In fact, Faith's father, Roland, said that they were as close as sisters, and friends of the two girls claimed that they were inseparable. So whenever you saw one, the other wasn't far behind. At the time of Faith's murder, the two of them were living in a one-bedroom off-campus apartment, and before that, they'd been roommates on campus. Now, I've never fully understood their living arrangement in that

one-bedroom apartment. So supposedly, Faith going to live with Karina, it was supposed to just be temporary while she waited for her financial aid to come in. But if there was only one bedroom and one bed, who slept where? And I know we talked about this a little bit before, and I had asked you, were they sharing the room? Was somebody sleeping on the couch? And you're not really sure either, but it's possible that they could have shared Karina's bedroom, correct? Yeah. So my understanding of it, or at least my interpretation of it from multiple things is it was Karina's apartment before Faith moved in. As you just said, we know that from the restraining order.

This was the door that, you know, Eric DeCoy Jones had moved in. As you just said, we know that from the restraining order, this was the door that Eric DeCoy Jones had kicked in. So clearly Faith was the visitor in this situation. But as you just alluded to, that doesn't mean that they weren't sleeping in the bed together. I don't think Faith was sleeping in the bed and Karina wasn't. It's her apartment. And I don't want to go into this too much right now because we're going to break down the 911 call. But one thing about that 911 call is Karina clearly says she's in my bedroom. So that's important. Right. So Faith was found dead in the one bedroom that the apartment has. So was she sleeping in the bedroom, even though it was Karina's apartment and Karina's bedroom? And if so, was Karina sleeping in that bedroom with her? If Faith wasn't occupying the bedroom, where was she sleeping? And that leads to the question of why she was in the bedroom on the night that she was killed. And you mentioned something a few weeks ago. You said it's a really

tiny apartment, right? Super tiny apartment. You guys can see the photos online, but I had access to some other photos as well. It's tough to describe through audio, but you walk in, you're like immediately brought into like the living area and then the kitchen's to the right. And if you walk a little further, the bedroom door is to the left. Yeah. So there's not a lot of space in this apartment. No. Well, although Faith and Karina were very close, it seems that they were almost opposite in personalities. Where Faith was outgoing, peppy, vivacious, made friends easily, Karina was a bit more reserved, quiet. She'd usually hang back a bit. But because Faith was so extroverted and social by default, because she was Faith's best friend and they were always

together, Karina became a part of Faith's social situation. She was always with Faith. They were always together. Now, Faith's very close friend, Yuna Chavez, reported that just a few weeks before Faith died, she'd asked Yuna if she could move in with her because she wanted more space. And Yuna believes that she was specifically referring to space from Karina. Since Faith was the stronger personality, Karina liked to be in her orbit and they lived in a very small space together, like we've already talked about. They went out together, they went to school together, they were always together. And due to this, it seemed as if there'd been some tension in their friendship, which is very common when you spend a lot of time with

somebody. We see this with husbands and wives all the time. You just get sick of this other person. Yeah. And I spoke to Yuna about this. And as you just said, she definitely believes based on the way it was said that this was Faith basically saying, I'm getting a little annoyed by Karina. We're spending too much time with each other. Because I said, hey, is it possible? She just meant like she actually wanted like physical space, more physical space to move around because she was in a small apartment. She said, no, it was more of like, I need my space from Karina because we're on top of each other all the time. And I think when you have this kind of relationship where one personality is stronger,

the other person almost becomes dependent on them, because although Faith had this huge circle of friends, I think for Karina, Faith was her one true friend, I would say, like the person that she would go to with anything. And so when you're looking at that in a relationship, you feel like you're giving your all to somebody and maybe the other person very well-respected forensic psychologist. And his analysis, which was interesting, was based on some of the photos that he had analyzed between Karina and Faith and based on some of the backstories we had, Faith was a very, very popular person. She was like the light of the room. Everyone gravitated towards her. Everyone we talked to said the same thing, that she was like always the life of the party. All the girls wanted to hang out with her. All the guys wanted to date her. And Karina, it seems like she was the sidekick in a lot of ways.

And I think she, in some way, looked up to or envied Faith because of her popularity. So it was that situation where Faith was trying to do her thing. And whenever she would turn around, Karina was always there. Yeah. And I've seen relationships and friendships like this. And there's usually resentment on one or both parts. Absolutely. And again, we're going to talk about motive later, but these are all little things that you have to think about. Well, let's start with a 911 call, which was one of the first pieces of evidence to be released to the public from the police when they finally started releasing information to the public. We'll first play it for you guys, and then we'll talk about it.

11.01 a.m. 44 seconds, September 7, 2012. Indara 911, where is your emergency? I just walked into my apartment and my friend was unconscious. Okay, what's your address, ma'am? I live at Hawkins at this view. Give me the address. I just moved here. I'm about to get it.

Oh, my God. It's 5639 Old Chapel Hill Road in Durham. Okay, repeat it to me. Repeat it to me so I make sure I've got it correct. Okay, 5639 Old Chapel Hill Road, it's apartment 1602. 1602? Yes. What's the phone number you're calling from?

201-321-8075. Okay, you say your friend is unconscious? He's unconscious. I just walked in the apartment and there looks like there's blood everywhere. Okay, listen to me. Okay, listen to me. Listen to me. Somebody's already sending me an ambulance. Okay, I need to get some information from you and I'm going to tell you how to help her, okay?

Okay. Okay, how old is she? from you and I'm going to tell you how to help her, okay? Okay. Okay. How old is she? She's 19. Okay. I don't know. I don't want to touch her, but... Listen to me.

Is she breathing? I don't know. You need to check and see. Is she breathing? Kate, I don't know. You need to check and see. Is she breathing? I don't think so. I don't think so. Okay, listen to me. There's blood everywhere.

There's what? There's blood everywhere. Okay. I don't know what happened. Okay, is she on her back or is she laying on her stomach? Okay. I don't know what happened. Okay. Is she on her back or is she laying on her stomach? She's on her back, but, like, I think she fell off the bed because she's, like, off the bed. There's blood all over the pillows, like, in the cup for her.

I just don't know what happened. Okay. All right, listen to me, all right? Is someone coming? Yes, I've got somebody coming. I've got somebody coming. I need for you to help her. I need for you to go up to her.

We need to see if she's breathing or not. Okay? I don't think so. Okay. Listen to me. Go up. The paramedics are on their way. I want you to stay on the line.

I'm going to tell you what to do next, all right? Are you right by her now? Yes. Okay. Listen carefully. She's not moving. Listen. She's not moving.

Okay. No. Will you touch her arm? Tell me, how does she feel? She's not moving. Okay, ma'am. We need to find out if we can help her or not. You've got to, you know, do as I'm asking so we can help her. All right? Okay. Okay. If you can, lay her flat on her back. Remove any pillows. Lay her flat on her back? Flat on her back. Remove any pillows. Okay. Okay. Kneel next to her.

Look in her mouth for food or vomit. Okay. Kneel next to her. Look in her mouth for food or vomit okay kneel next to her look in her mouth for food or vomit tell me something listen to me listen to what is your name i'm sorry i'm really sorry it's okay honey it's okay honey listen to me no okay all right, all right. Listen to me. When you touch her, how does she feel? Does she feel warm? No, she feels cold. She feels cold?

Okay. Yes. Okay, all right. Don't touch anything else, okay? Don't touch anything else. I'm so angry. I'm so angry. Okay, they're on their way. I've got police on the way to you, and I've got medics on the way.

Okay. Okay. What room is she in? Okay, I want you to go back into the living room, okay? You need to go in. Okay, listen to me. Okay, listen to me. There's someone in my room that, like, was not here before. Okay, listen to me.

It looks like someone had came in here. Okay, okay. It really does. All right, what did you say your name was again? It looks like someone had came in here. Because I don't understand. Okay, listen to me. Don't touch anything else in the room.

I want you to leave that room, go into the living room. You need to make sure the door is unlocked so somebody can get in, so the medic and the police can get in when they get there. Okay? It's unlocked. Okay, now tell me again... They're not going to get here, though. Okay, they're on their way, honey. They're going to get here, though. Okay. They're on their way, honey.

They're coming as fast as they can. You just stay on the phone with me, all right? I am. Okay. Tell me again what your name is. It looks like someone has been in there because she's not like Michelle. I don't know what's going on. Okay.

Okay. I've let them know. We've got everybody on the way to help you. Now, tell me again what your name is. What? What is your name? Karina Rosario. Karina?

Yes. Okay, Karina. You just sit down on the couch and don't touch anything, okay? You just sit down. I'm not touching anything. Okay. couch and don't touch anything, okay? You just sit down. I'm not touching anything. Okay, okay. I just want you to sit down because the police and the medics are going to be there. Just, they're coming just as fast as they can, all right? Okay. You just, you just stay on the phone with me. Okay. You just stay on the phone with me. Are you sure they're coming?

Yes, ma'am. They are on their way. I just can't believe this. No one had to have been in there. Okay. We've got first responders on the way. There's a fire truck coming. There's a medic coming, and the sheriff's department responders on the way. There's a fire truck coming. There's a medic coming, and the sheriff's department's on the way to you.

Okay. You just stay on the phone with me until somebody gets there with you. All right? Okay. Okay, Karina. How old are you, Karina? I'm 20. You're 20?

Okay, hon. You're doing all right. You're doing all right. You just stay on the phone with me. Thank you, Karina? I'm 20. You're 20? Okay, hon. You're doing all right. You're doing all right. You just stay on the phone with me. I see the police. You see the police? Yes. Okay.

You let me know when they get in there with you, and then you can talk to them, all right? Okay. I just don't want you to be alone right now. Okay. Okay. You just stay on the phone with me. Okay. Okay. You just stay on the phone with me. Okay. Are they in there with you? They coming in? Yes. Thank you. Okay, honey. All right. Bye-bye. All right. So that was the 911 call.

And we've often said it before. It's impossible to determine or judge how someone's going to behave in times of crisis. And Karina had just walked into her apartment to find her best friend brutally murdered and dead. So, I mean, we can assume this would be very traumatic for anyone. With that being said, there are many people, amateur web sleuths and professional detectives alike, who feel that there's something really off about Karina and her 911 call. Yeah. And it's not just, you know, people who are online or detectives like myself who don't have an expertise in this specific area. We brought in an expert, Mark McClish, and you guys can look him up. He was with the US Marshals for like 25, maybe even longer, years. And he specializes in something known as statement

analysis. And a lot of you, because you're all true crime fans, may know what that is. But for those of you who don't, essentially what it is, is they take the words and phrases that someone uses to determine their level of truth or signs of deception. And he analyzed the 911 call. And to just summarize it, he felt that Karina was being very deceptive in the call. He felt some things were off, certain words she was using, the ums, and she started off the call with hello. So there were things that stood out to him. And again, this is a guy who makes a career out of this. He teaches this and trains this statement analysis all over the country. He's one of the top guys in the industry, and he felt that Karina's 911 call was very suspicious. Right. So Karina starts out the call with, hi, I just walked into my apartment and my friend is semi-unconscious. So this obviously made people wonder, you know, what the hell Karina was talking about. According to Marisol, the other girl who was there when Faith was found, the scene in the bedroom was an absolute bloody mess and Faith was not moving. So the fact that

Karina starts off this 911 call so casually, hi, you know, almost politely. Yeah, I felt like it was almost like a little bit prepared. Yeah, so. Like she knew she was going to have to do this at some point. Right, and you would think that the first thing she would say is, you know, my friend has been attacked to send help, not hi, I think my friend is semi-unconscious. The fact that she's so casual starting the conversation out with high um, you know, as if she's ordering pizza. Many people find it strange.

I would even say, again, personal preference here, but it's like if she felt she was unconscious or severely injured, you think there would be more of a sense of urgency. Guys, you need to get over here now, like a panic. Send an ambulance right now. It sounded like she was more describing what she was having to witness and how traumatic it was. Like, oh, she's semi-unconscious. She's on the ground. She an ambulance right now. It sounded like she was more describing what she was having to witness and how traumatic it was. Like, oh, she's on, she's semi-unconscious. She's on the ground. She's in my room. I, someone, you know, and we're going to get into the rest of the 911 call, but it didn't sound like a sense of urgency. Like we need someone here now. Like, cause a lot of the times these 911 calls, you can't even understand the person cause they're there. They

want you there yesterday, you know? And it's like, I didn't sense that with this call. Yes, exactly. I've, I've listened to, you know, and it's like I didn't sense that with this call. Yes, exactly. I've listened to, you know, several 911 calls. They usually start off very panicked, you know, crying, even screaming, very high pitched. Like you said, you can't even understand what they're saying because they're just so mentally and emotionally devastated. They don't even know what's happening. She was very controlled. Mm hmm.

Mm hmm. Yep. happening. She was very controlled. And additionally, obviously, the 911 operator is going to ask for the address because they want to send people. When Karina's asked for her address, she gave the apartment complex name. But when the operator once again clarified, you know, like I need the address, Karina responded that she hadn't lived there that long, which depending on what Karina considers to be a long time, it's not really true. At least she'd been there long enough to remember her address. So we know that Karina had moved into that apartment the previous spring, and this was

September when this happened. So at the very least, she'd been there three months. And I think that's long enough to know your address or at least your apartment number. It's on your door when you walk in every day. I can't imagine that she wouldn't have anything to give the operator. No, I agree with you. And again, like you said, you don't need the actual physical address of the complex. She gave the name of the complex, but at minimum, the apartment number would have been great or you would think would be required.

There are so many apartments that the rescue workers and law enforcement would be responding to. They're going to obviously need the apartment number. Yeah. And once again, she's not urgent when this is happening. So if you really, truly couldn't remember your apartment number and this 911 operator keeps asking you for it and you have your dead best friend in front of you on the floor because Karina was in the room the whole time, you would think that you'd be like, I don't know it. I don't know. Just please send somebody. Can't you track me? I don't know it. You really didn't know it. But Karina was like, well, I haven't lived here that long. I'm going to have to look it up. Real calm, real collected. And you could make an argument

that for the people that are in the court of defending Karina, it's like, well, listen, she wasn't thinking clearly. And at that point, most of the most common things that you know about yourself and they just completely escape you. So you could say that as well. I mean, everyone reacts to trauma differently. And so if you're in the court of defending Karina and her actions, that is an argument you could make. And I think for some people that would be true. Well, during the call, Karina also repeats the same things multiple times. I don't know what happened. I don't know what's going on. Things like that. She also keeps saying someone must have been here. And she mentions that there's things in her apartment that weren't there before. Now, this could simply be due to the fact that she was overwhelmed. She wasn't processing the stimuli around her. But many professionals who've analyzed the call believe her behavior was consistent with a person who was trying to frame the narrative before the police even arrived, saying things like, I don't know what happened, someone must have been in here, etc.

These seem to be obvious statements, right, that they don't need to be verbalized, especially to the 911 operator, like no police officers are questioning you for a report at this point. And if you had just walked in and you had no knowledge of the murder, of course you don't know what happened. If you had nothing to do with her murder and no one else lives in the apartment, of course someone else must have been in there. And the fact that she tells the operator multiple times that Faith is unconscious, that nags at me, maybe more than anything else. Because if the room looked the way the police have described it to look, the way Marisol described it to look, there would be no chance that Faith was unconscious. Police said there was blood spatter everywhere. The blanket around her was soaked with blood. There was a puddle of blood pooled underneath her body. I can't imagine why

you would continue to repeat that your friend was unconscious. Yeah, there's a couple of things in there. One of the things for me from, you know, wanting to know all the pieces of the puzzle is she said there were things in the room or in the apartment that weren't there when she left. I would love to know what those things are. Everything that we know about, everything had been in that apartment, including the alleged murder weapon. That's all. Well, I have my theory. Oh, shoot. Hit me with it before I go on to my next point. I think she was talking about the note on the bed. Okay. So you think she's trying to say that note, that the bag that was there, that it was written on, wasn't actually in the apartment before she left? Correct. I think

that's exactly what she was referring to, especially because she was standing in the room at that moment. Okay. So she's looking at the note and she's describing, it's possible, but again, we talked about this in a few episodes ago, the bag is believed to have come from a local restaurant and Faith had actually been at that restaurant. Correct me if I'm wrong. I think it was Time Out. Yeah, you're right. Time Out. And they had tracked it down that Faith had been at that restaurant picking up food from there maybe a night before that. She had just been there. So maybe she, in a haste, didn't recognize the bag and that's why she said it. Or it could be something else. But the thing

that really was odd to me was the fact that she kept saying someone had to have been here um this wasn't the way we left it all these things it sounded like she was trying to we talk about this with chris watts right trying to basically paint a narrative for the people you're reporting it to you're trying to influence their assumptions and their opinions by saying someone had to have been here, guys, guys, guys, someone had to have been here. She didn't mention that she left the door unlocked or anything. She was already starting with that, the narrative. And again, maybe that's because she genuinely felt that way. Or as you said, professionals and other individuals have said that it could have been trying to steer the investigation in a certain direction. Correct. I think when you said that about Chris Watts, like he walked out of the bathroom and he held up the ring and he was like, oh, she left her ring here. You know, the investigation hasn't even started. And Chris Watts and Karina Rosario seem to be wanting to pave the path for the police. What path are they going to follow? I am an innocent girl. I walked in here, my roommate's unconscious, semi-unconscious, and I have no idea what happened. Somebody must have been in here and there's things in here that

I've never seen before. Yeah. And again, I'm not saying Chris Watts and Karina are the same people, just saying there are things about it that I strongly, I question. And again, I'm not an expert in deception from statement analysis, but speaking to people who are, they themselves had a problem with this. So that's what I'm basing my opinions on is from the experts. Well, let's talk about the night before. So the night before when Karina got picked up, she claimed that Faith was sleeping soundly when she left the apartment. But Karina did not lock the door. Now, she has since explained this by saying there was only one copy of the apartment key. And in fact, the key was found in the apartment.

And Karina said she'd expected that Faith would be the one who was picking her up the next morning. Now, apparently, this was the type of lock that can only be locked from the outside using a key. So Karina left it with Faith because she knew when she left the apartment the next morning to pick Karina up, Faith would have to lock the apartment door. And that makes sense. But here's the thing that bothers me. Allegedly, Faith was sound asleep when Karina left. So Karina felt more comfortable leaving her sleeping roommate inside the apartment when she knew her ex-boyfriend Eric lived in the same complex. She knew that her ex-boyfriend Eric had violent tendencies, had kicked in her apartment door before, and disliked Faith because of her role in Karina's breaking up with him and taking a

restraining order out on him. So Karina felt more comfortable doing this, leaving Faith alone in the apartment, unlocked, than with Faith leaving the next morning to pick her up and not being able to lock the door on an empty apartment. And I guess it makes sense. You don't assume that someone's going to come in and murder your friend, but there had been threats made. And according to Yuna Chavez, who also lived in the area, and you talked to her about this on Breaking Homicide, none of them ever left the doors to their apartments unlocked when they were inside. It just didn't happen. They knew that it was, you know, not safe to do so. reasonable doubt she would need to have the finger pointed at an outside attacker, because if she'd locked the door behind her, it could only have been one of two things. Karina herself was the killer, or Faith had voluntarily opened the door and let someone in. But who would be knocking at her door after 4 a.m. when Faith was fast asleep? Would she even have woken up to let someone in?

Yeah, no, it's, you know, first and foremost, it's not even, it's not even really an assumption. If Karina was involved with Faith's death, she, you know, we've discussed this at length on and off, you know, record. The bottom line is everyone saw Karina and Faith at the club that night. They saw them leave together. Someone, maybe Karina assumed this, that someone saw them go into their apartment, specifically the Miss Joy, the woman living downstairs. So if she doesn't leave that apartment, there's no alibi. Did the police show up the next morning and you haven't left? I mean, it's common sense. You were involved or you did it yourself solely, right? So she has to leave if she's involved somehow. So if she leaves

and locks the door and there's no sign of forced entry, it's almost like she never left at all, right? It's like, you could say, oh yeah, Faith maybe let someone in and then locked them. It's very far-fetched. It's going to be a tough story to sell. So my problem with this, as you just alluded to about the lock itself, they hadn't done it before. Karina had replaced the lock because of Eric DeCoy Jones. And there's so many more commonsensical ways this could have been handled. I went to college, you've been in college. I only have one key. I'm not going to leave my girlfriend in the apartment unsecured while she's sleeping by herself. I'm going to go to where I'm going to go. I'm going to go hang out

with Jordan. And then in the morning, I'll call her and let her know or shoot her a text before you even go to sleep. Hey, Faith, I left the key inside the apartment. Don't lock the door when you leave because I'm going to be coming back to the apartment. Done. End of story. Faith's safe. You don't have to worry about being locked out. It's done with. This just seems like too much to me. This seems like you're making a simple situation more complicated than it has to be. Yeah. And I mean, if Faith was the one picking Karina up the next morning, then she could have easily have just picked Karina up. They morning, then she could have easily have just, you know, picked Karina up. They could have come back to the apartment, got dressed for school, locked the door and then went

to school. So there's a there's a little maybe an hour gap where the apartment would have been unsecured while neither of them were there. OK, probably not likely that a break in is going to happen at nine o'clock in the morning on a Friday morning, but four o'clock in the morning when somebody sleeping inside for the entire night to leave it unlocked, I wouldn't feel comfortable with that. Not as somebody's friend. No, I have a major problem with the lock story. And again, you had said, you know, the story that, that she has said regarding why she did it makes sense. And you even said that, like, it makes sense, but based on what we're talking about here and what happened either hours before or immediately

after she left, it's a tough one for me. It's a tough one for me to say that basically what she's saying is these series of circumstances that were perfect in timing are what actually led to face death. The unlocking of the door and the time she left and the murderer showing up right after, all these things had to fall in place for Karina to have been just a witness in all this where she wasn't involved at all. She's just the woman who forgot to lock the door. It's pretty convenient. That's all I'll say. Yeah. And just imagine that it had been staged, right? Imagine that this was Karina who had something to do with what happened to Faith. So like you said, she can do two things. She can lock the door or she can leave it unlocked. If she locks it, then she's going to have to go the extra mile of staging.

She's going to have to break in somehow or kick it in like Eric did. And she can't do that. So the most obvious thing for her was leave it unlocked and have an excuse of why I did that later, because you can't prove that I didn't do it because of this. You can't prove my intent. Absolutely. There's definitely a lot to unpack there. And I'm sure our listeners are looking at it like, I'm sure they have their own opinions on it. I'm sure we're going to be hearing about

them either on social media or in our speak pipe messages. But before we get into the next section, let's take a quick break. History's masterpieces wouldn't be the same without their most notable accents. Neither would the Kia Sportage without its multiple drive modes. The Kia Sorento without its expansive 12.3-inch panoramic display. Or the Kia Telluride without its three rows of spacious seating. The 2025 Kia SUVs. Kia. Movement that inspires.

Call 800-333-4KIA for details. Always drive safely. Limited inventory available. All right. So let's move on to another portion of this case. We have the murder weapon, the Bacardi red bottle found at the scene. And this Bacardi red bottle was thought to have been from that apartment. But we don't know whose fingerprints were found on it because I'm sure the police dusted it for fingerprints.

Now, was the Bacardi bottle broken or not broken? No, no, completely intact. They've put out photos of it. And I would even argue that they might not have processed it for prints because maybe there was so much blood on it. Because in the photos, you usually would see like remnants of fingerprint dust. And I didn't see anything. Yeah, I just read some articles. I think I read two articles where it said the Bacardi bottle was found broken, but I

thought it was not broken because we had that whole discussion about how you did that on Breaking Homicide with the- The pressure test. The experiment. Yeah. Oh, yeah. No, they've released the bottle years later. You guys can go look it up if you want. They actually have the bottle,

a photo of the actual bottle available for everyone to view. And you can see Faith's blood all over the bottle from the neck all the way down the entire length of the bottle. So it's definitely something that was either in the room or in fact, the murder weapon. And I, based on our test, do believe it was in fact, the murder weapon. So let's just say they did dust for fingerprints. We can only assume, right, that they didn't find any outliers, any outlier fingerprints on the bottle. That probably the only fingerprints they found on the bottle belonged to Faith and Karina, the people who lived in the apartment and most likely drank out of that bottle. Yeah. And I think you're probably even more accurate on the first point. If it's covered

in blood, it's going to be very tough to have the oils stick to the glass in order to have the magnetic powder or oxide powder stick to it. So they probably couldn't get prints off because it was soaked in blood. But do you think they'd still attempt to try? Not if it's not possible. I mean, it's like if I took a bottle and it was covered in blood or even any type of substance and I touch it, that's going to interact with it. So the fingerprint oils from your fingerprint that transfer onto the glass are so sensitive, just the smallest thing could disturb them. So imagine them being covered in a liquid. They're gone. They're either completely, they're partial prints now or completely gone. I'm not saying they didn't print it, but they might've looked at the bottle and

said it's impossible to print it because it's completely soaked in blood. The blood is more important than trying to process it for prints. What if you waited for the blood to dry? Would you be able to get prints off of it then? I don't think so. If it's the murder weapon, you would think they'd at least attempt to. And they might've. They might've. I've done a lot of prints in my career. And the one thing about prints is people think that they are easier. Oh, why couldn't you just get prints off of it? Any little outside influence, whether it's liquid or moisture or just the type of surface it's on, it makes it very difficult to get a good print that's actually identifiable.

And I remember seeing the bottle and how bloody it was. And there was a lot of blood on it. And it was dried blood at the point when we saw the photo, but I would imagine it would have been difficult. It's not saying they didn't attempt it. And if there was a clear spot on the glass, there's a lot of blood on it. But if there was any spot on the glass that didn't have blood, yeah, I'd be processing that for sure. So I guess my question to you is, what does the Bacardi red bottle being used as the murder weapon say to you? I said it in the show and I'll say it now. I mean, it's, it seems like it was a weapon that was available to the assailant at the time when they decided

to assault Faith. I, if I were to plan out a crime, the last, if I, if I didn't live in the apartment where I was going, or, you know, if I, there was any premeditation to it, I wouldn't choose a glass bottle for it because one, it's probably not the most effective tool you can use, but more importantly, there's a high probability it's going to break in your hand and injure you as well. And so to me, the bottle represents that whatever happened to Faith, her offender was at that apartment, whether it was for an encounter with Faith sexually or to hang out, or they had already been there. And something occurred where this individual decided, I'm going to hurt her. And they looked around quickly. And

in a spur of moment, they grabbed whatever was closest, what was in arm's reach to them to assault her. And that was the closest thing in their reach that they felt could actually inflict damage. So basically to sum up what you just said, the Bacardi red bottle being used would make the theory of this being an outside attacker less plausible. Yes, I believe that. And I'll even take it a step further. And there may be some people, even maybe you that disagree with me on this, but the bottle to me even says more than that, because I'm, I'm six one two Oh five. If I were going to kill faith, even if I were at her apartment, her and I were having a relationship and something, something she said just really pissed me off to the point where I decided I was going to kill her.

I'm choking her. I'm choking her with my hand, or I'm going to smother her with a pillow. There's so many things that I can do to physically overpower her that I wouldn't even think about grabbing the bottle. I wouldn't need to. I wouldn't need to. So the bottle to me also suggests that the individual felt they needed something to inflict pain on her and to catch her off guard quickly because whether Faith knew I was going to kill her or not, she wouldn't be able to stop me most likely. She could injure me, but most likely she's not going to be able to stop the assault. Where with the bottle, it's a quick knee jerk reaction and it's instant pain. It's instant infliction of damage. So what I'm hearing from you is as a man, you would just attack Faith or a woman. Not that you would, you personally would not. But a man who is stronger than his female

counterpart, he's going to use force because he doesn't think that she can fight back anyways. So is the bottle being used more of a female murder weapon? I think it definitely represents rage because there's not a lot of thought into a bottle. We've seen the movies, they break a lot and you're going to injure yourself. So I don't think that's a weapon that someone thought about using. I think it was an instant in that moment. And then yes, I think the bottle, if you feel like the person you're going to assault may be able to overtake you, may be able to defend themselves and actually beat you up instead or hurt you instead, you're going to choose to use a weapon to give yourself an advantage. And so to me, it suggests that this person felt they needed something to cause instant

damage, a high level of damage in a very short period of time. And they didn't feel that they could physically do it on their own without said weapon. And I think that it's also indicative of the fact that females usually don't kill with their own bare hands. That's not something. And I mean, it's not sexist to say that. It's in statistics. Women historically don't kill as much as men do anyways, right? You would agree? Yeah. No, and I would even take it a step further and say historically in cases that I've personally

investigated and researched, with men, they don't tend to use, when it involves a woman, they do use either a weapon like a knife or a gun, or there's a lot of strangulation and smothering that takes place. That's because they don't need the extra advantage to carry out whatever they want to carry out. And I'm not sitting here saying, I'm not trying to suggest anything. I'm just saying, this is my opinion, whether it was a male or a female, this individual who assaulted Faith, I believe based on their stature or whatever, their confidence in themselves did not feel they could carry out what they wanted to do with Faith with their own personal weapons. They needed something extra. And that would suggest to me that this person was smaller in size

or felt that they were at least weaker than Faith and they could be overcome by Faith during an assault if it was hand to hand. Yeah, because in Breaking Homicide, you asked during the experiment, you were like, well, anybody could do this, you know, depending on how tall they were, how strong they were. Anybody could wield the bottle like this. And the guy, I forget his name, but he was he said, yeah, anybody. You don't have to be strong. You don't have to be tall. This is going to be impactful no matter who's holding that bottle. Very minimal amount of force needed to cause the fracture to the skull. And we've

talked about the bottom of those peach bottles, like they're like concrete. So yeah, no, it wouldn't take much at all. And again, it's also just the wrist action, the snapping of the wrist at the last second that even increases the force that's applied to the skull when it hits. And in those areas in general, you don't need a lot of force to crack the skull. So here's my wondering while I'm sitting here thinking about all of this. So even if they didn't get fingerprints off of that Bacardi red bottle, they most likely dusted the rest of the apartment for fingerprints, correct? Oh, God, I would hope so.

They said they got DNA. They grabbed DNA from everywhere, which is even a more intricate process. I mean, they're swabbing things that they can see and can't see. I would hope that they were doing latent fingerprint analysis as well. So that pen that allegedly had this attacker's DNA on it, did they try to get a fingerprint off of that? You'd think that if the person was holding it enough to transfer DNA that they may have left a print. Yep, absolutely. And again, being the surface area of the pen, it could be tough to get a full print off there. The person would have to rest their pad of their finger on the pen a certain could be tough to get a full print off there. The person would have to rest

their pad of their finger on the pen a certain way because it usually uses the side of your finger or whatever to rest it. So again, it's not like the movies or TV, but I'm sure to your point, they were definitely dusting the crap out of that apartment. It seems like they did a very good job with the processing of the scene. Maybe even too good when we go back to talking about the semen on Faith's back. That's a whole different story as far as maybe they did too good of a job and they found stuff that had nothing to do with the case. But yeah, I would venture to say they processed the scene both for DNA and for latent fingerprints. That could be critical in the case. So the way I see that battle though is it almost completely eliminates the fact that this was somebody who went there that night to kill Faith.

If somebody had decided and planned that this was the night they were going to do it, they would have brought their own weapon, not knowing what was going to be in Faith's apartment. What if there was no handy Bacardi red bottle there? What would they do? And it could have been a man who came there to kill Faith with his own weapons, as you said. Maybe he said, oh, I'm going to take her life and I'm going to do it with my own bare hands. And then maybe he said, well, here's a bottle. This will be easier. That's possible. But it really has me leaning in the direction that this was very spontaneous. It wasn't planned. It happened during an argument and it escalated, ending up with Faith being dead. Right. It's not the weapon of choice. Even when we talk about the apartment, we can take it a step further what you just said, because you're 100% right. If this was something that

happened in the apartment with two individuals, Faith being one and someone else, right? If there was even like a 20-minute period where this individual decided, I'm going to kill this girl, they could easily go over to the kitchen, grab a knife, and stab her to death. And they're going to guarantee that whatever they want to accomplish, they're going to. The bottle is not even the best weapon of choice in the apartment. So the fact that that was selected, this was an instantaneous reaction. This was in the heat of the moment. And that's why everyone believes this is a sign of rage, or at least some some people think it was a sign of rage because it's not the ideal weapon of choice. So the fact that it was chosen, it's indicative that this was, it was in the heat of the moment that the decision was made. I agree. Like you said, it's not the ideal murder weapon, even though it certainly did the job. Effective. Yeah. Yeah, it did the job. But again, when we say ideal, ideal in the sense of whether you're in the outside world or even if you're just in that apartment, there's better things in the

apartment you could use. So I guess it's the time for us to talk about the voicemail now, which many people consider to be the most shocking piece of this puzzle. On the morning of Faith's murder, her friend Yuna Chavez woke up to a voicemail from Faith. Yuna listened to it, but she couldn't hear anything substantial on the voicemail. You know, she heard background noise, voices, and she just assumed it was a pocket dial and she restore the voicemail to her phone. And she wondered, you know, if its contents could have something to do with what had happened to Faith. The timestamp on the voicemail was 1.23 a.m. And this corresponded with a time that Faith and Karina would have still been at the Thrill nightclub. It's weird. Now I'm just looking at it 1.23 a.m. Right. I never noticed that before. Yeah, it's interesting. I think on on Eunice phone, don't hold me as I said, 127. But again, semantics is minor. Well, the original copy of the voicemail is very bad quality. Obviously, if it's in somebody's pocket or their purse when it's

recording, it's not going to be super crisp. And it's clear, like I said, that the phone was must have been either in Faith's pocket or purse when the audio was recorded because it's scratchy. It's hard to hear. And I personally cannot decipher really anything from the original version. Usually we would offer to play you a little clip of this voicemail, but it's just truly so garbled. It's so hard to hear. It wouldn't even be worth it. I think it would just be a waste of a minute or so. But in 2016, Arlo West, a forensic

audio expert, analyzed the audio and attempted to clean it up. And what he claims to have heard in that voicemail is just, to put it very simply, it's shocking. So first of all, Arlo claims he heard four voices, two female and two male. Arlo also believes he was able to determine some of what these people were saying to each other. I do have a transcript here, but we felt it would be better if you heard it directly from the source. So here is a Crime Weekly first, our interview with Arlo West, and then we'll come back and discuss exactly what we think about what Arlo thinks about the voicemail. Hey, everyone. We're joined by forensic audio expert Arlo West. Arlo and I met a few years ago on Breaking Homicide. He's become kind of a staple with

the Faith Hedgepeth case, and more specifically as it pertains to the butt dial, as I refer to it, the voicemail that was left by Faith's phone to Yuna Chavez. And, you know, as we had said in the previous episode, the butt dial is kind of garbled. And it's really tough for just a normal person to kind of decipher. So we wanted to bring Arlo on because we thought he'd be able to give a better understanding of it. And Stephanie was the one that actually recommended that I reach out to Arlo. And he's been gracious enough to join us here today. Stephanie, again, kudos to you for bringing it up. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I wanted to talk to him since I saw him in Breaking Homicide, because there's questions I wanted to ask him that I couldn't because I wasn't present at the time. So Arlo West is the CEO and president of Creative Forensic Services.

He's a forensic audio expert with 40 plus years experience in media arts. He's a member of the American College of Forensic Examiners, Audio Engineering Society, and the Police Policy Studies Council. He's also certified by the New York Institute of Forensic Audio, and he has a degree in audio engineering. Did I get all that right, Arlo? Yeah, that's all good. All right, perfect. So you got a little experience then.

Been around the block a few times, yeah. And from what I could see on your website, you work with law enforcement and court situations and things like that a lot, correct? I do, yes. So this is not something new for you. And what we're talking about today with Faith Hedgepath is the voicemail that was left on a friend's voicemail box. And she had originally deleted it thinking that it was just a butt dial. And then she had to recover it later from her cell phone provider. Now you took that audio from the voicemail and you tried to clean it up a

little bit. And can you just give us a general overview of what you heard in that voicemail? Well, there was a number of things. Some of the key things were some names. I heard names being said on the word liar. There was a heated discussion between, it seemed, two females in an argument, something about lying. And there was a lot of different elements to the recording itself. But the gist of it was there was an argument. It was a heated, recorded conversation by these two females. And there were also some male voices in there, too.

It's been said that because of the time frame that the phone call was made in a certain situation where there was music, but I didn't hear any music. So I do hear a male voice kind of rapping to a song by T-Pain, but the lyrics don't match the T-Pain lyrics. So there's some, you know, controversy there, whether it's T-Pain or not, I don't believe it is. And I'd be kind of interested to talk to T-Pain and ask him if that was his voice, because I don't think it was him. Yeah, I think we should try and, Derek, can you reach out to him? Yeah, can you? Yeah, I'll make some calls. Arlo, for the normal person, because again, when I listen to it, when Stephanie listens to it, I think when our listeners listen to it, they're not going to hear much. So just a generic, you don't have to dive into the weeds, but what are you doing that

allows you to hear this? Is it a combination of software? Is it just that your skillset, your hearing, like a chef's palate? What is it actually? Well, the software does help a lot. I mean, loading it into a system and listening to it on good speakers or headphones in a studio environment or a lab environment. My lab here functions both as a studio and a lab. So I have some pretty high-end gear here. I can hear things probably in a better environment than most people can.

If you listen to it on a television set, it doesn't sound very good. If you listen to it on a little pair of computer speakers, it doesn't sound very good. And even, and I believe you and I spent some time in a pretty high-end studio out of state here a couple years ago or a year ago, whatever. And, you know, we had a hard time. Even I have a hard time. When I listen to it, I have to listen to it over and over and over. I mean, the more you listen to it, you know, you start to kind of focus on these words that are intelligible. Then you start listening to

the words that you're hearing or the sounds that you're hearing around those words. Can you kind of piece together some sort of, it's kind of like looking at a crime scene and, you know, you're looking at the different elements of the recording and trying to decipher what is being said and who is saying it. male as a female that sort of thing like that And software does help. Yes, it does. I mean I do things to it One of the things is dynamics, you know We try to get the dynamics of the recording up up to where you can it's a nice clean audible sound without being distorted but it's loud as we can get it and There are soft voices and they're loud voices

So if you can get a balance between those two voices, you're doing a pretty good job with the dynamics. And then you kind of hit it with the with the noise reduction or deconstruction, dialogue isolation. Those kind of tools are really useful in something like this to kind of give you a better picture and a cleaner, audible intelligibility of the dialogue. So on your website for your company, is this what you used? It says that it kind of makes an algorithm and the algorithm is a sample of the noise that you don't want, that you want to remove. And then you use that algorithm in order to negate in the actual audio, what you don't want so that you can have a better picture of what you do want to hear. Is that what you used with this? Yeah, that's correct. I use a, I use a software. I don't know if I can say the name of the company, but I'm sure they'd love it if I did.

Fire, fire away. Yeah. I use a isotope RX. It's really, really good. And I'm sure you've heard of it already. It's used in all productions of media of all kinds and, you know, different types of ADR, things like that. You know, they're going to use it for different things. And so it's a really good, I'm actually one of the beta testers for the company. So I get the software before it's even released to the public. And I really kind of run it through the paces. But I do it in a different way because I'm a forensic guy. So I'm looking at, I mean, if you stop and think about the type of work that I do, I'm always listening to really bad audio. It's terrible being a musician because I spent my life, you know, trying to make really great audio sound really good.

And so kind of looking at audio in a different way, looking at it in a really bad way, as far as sound is concerned, you know, it's a different step away from what I used to. And so anyway, I've made a career out of it and I've gotten really good at it and I can, you know, use these tools, this RX, or sometimes I use Waves, dynamic stuff. It depends on what the situation is. All of these tools are like little pieces of the elements that you use to kind of get a clean, intelligible understanding of what's being said. When I, and just for the, again, for the listeners, and I remember we discussed this when we met in person, when you first analyzed this audio recording, you didn't have any backstory.

You didn't have any backstory on the names of individuals that were involved or did you? Well, let me kind of explain to you. I was contacted by a production company, okay? And I had no, i'd never heard of faith hatchback before never heard of this case at all period i live in the state of maine so we're you know you we don't hear about things unless they make it to national news or they make it to crime shows like yourself and i happen to be listening or watching that show so or if i of, in my job,

I get called all the time from all over the United States with people with different things. And I find out about cases that way. So there's always a bit of knowledge about a case when you get involved. I mean, let's face it, if you were a police officer, weren't you?

Yep. Yeah. So, I mean, when you get a call from somebody, they're going to tell you what they know. They can't tell you everything because they don't know everything. That's why they're calling you. So I knew a few things. I knew the name Faith Hedgepeth.

I knew that there were a couple of suspects that they were really interested in. But I didn't know a lot of the details. I didn't know about the note. I had no knowledge of the note or that that was kind of a big part of this case, kind of forming this, this, this theory about there being some sort of argument or jealousy or something like that. And I hear all these elements in this recording. Yeah. You heard that word, right? I remember you saying that.

Yeah, I did. I mean, I've got the transcript here. Would you actually, you know what, Stephanie, I think, would you, would you mind reading that transcript because again we're going to probably pay a part of the tape yeah but ultimately we want you to tell them what you were able to transcribe from it because they're not going to hear it i was actually hoping you had that transcript because it's not really available some people have tried to kind of get an idea of what is being said but i don don't think it came from you, the transcripts I'm finding. Do you guys have a copy of the transcript at all? We do not.

Would you mind reading it for us at least? Yeah, yeah. Okay, so guys, everyone listen up. This is actually going to be the transcription. This is what Arlo West heard as he used the software in his experience to kind of decipher what was actually being said. So this is, this is his transcription of what he believes was said in that butt dial. Okay. So, and I'm going to give

you a little, you know, leader into this thing because, you know, I had some help with Roland kind of picking whose voice is whose, playing the transcript for him and asking him, you know, is this your daughter? You know, so, and that really goes a long ways with identification in forensic world. If you are in a courtroom and as a forensic expert, I do a voice identification, for instance, and I'm saying, yes, this is that person. If some family member comes in and says, well, that's definitely not that person. That's my, you know, I've known that person all my life. And I guarantee you that's not that person.

The judge is probably going to side with the family member before he will with a forensic expert, depending on the circumstances. You know, if it was a drug case and somebody's just trying to get their kid out of trouble or something like that, they kind of see through that. So, you know, so family identification plays a big part here. So anyway, and so I'll start reading the transcript here for you. And Roland did help me kind of tell me this is face voice here and stuff like that. So first line out of the audio that I got was a female saying, you want to mess with my boyfriend and that was the first thing I heard then a female answers I said I don't want to I Rosie so that's kind of a bit of a missing element there might be a missing word in there or something so some of this is fragmented and a lot of it is actually then I hear

all right it's not his fault another female then I hear a oh, right, it's not his fault. Another female. Then I hear a male, all of this bullshit you're going to answer to inaudible. So there's a word there, but it's very inaudible. Female, fuck you, I'm pissed, inaudible. Male, inaudible, good thing, inaudible. Dave's house, it would be broadcast right, big mic. So that sounds kind of crazy I know but you got to understand when you're listening to fragmented audio It can get a little weird. It's like like

if you're using a Handheld recorder and it's on sound activation. You don't get the whole picture. you only get audible audio or dialogue that's loud enough to trigger that sound activation so you might get a half a sentence here a half sentence here and it starts to become this jumbled mess and a butt dial is a microphone proximity issue where the microphone could be in a purse it could be 10 feet away it could be in her butt in her pants and her butt and just picking up voices all around so you know there's a lot of reasons why it sounds a little crazy I just put them in there it's what I heard and it could be helpful so the next line female you mother no male inaudible. Female, you were just bullshitting, inaudible.

Male, what kind of person, inaudible, lie, question mark. Faith, inaudible, even no, something like even no, something. Male, did you fuck your own, inaudible, obsession. Faith, I didn't do it. Male, this is all going to inaudible. Fucking her good, inaudible. Her description. Female, why?

That's clear. I heard her say why a couple times, at least in this recording. Just crying it out. Why? It's emphatic. It's emotional's it's kind of pissed off sounding mixed next line male you inaudible because it belongs to you fucking bullshit story excuse me you and audible because it belongs to you period fucking bullshit story and audible you personally female i'm gonna kick your face i figured out that's

female don't ever think that i would have believed you lies inaudible at you inaudible then i hear faith say ow and roland's even confirmed that he said yeah she's saying ow there it's like she's being hurt and then the female that's speaking to faith says ow mocking at her the um the female who was saying why was that faith don't know I don't think so I have't think so. I have it as female. So that would tell me that Roland didn't know. He didn't know who that was. voice saying some of this stuff because we really don't know. And we don't have any way to compare it. And there's no way to say definitively that that is her other than Roland saying it or me, you know, just guessing it.

And that's just not good. Not forensically. I'm pretty, pretty comfortable using faith as the speaker when Roland tells me that that's her speaking i think it's fair to say he knows his daughter's voice pretty well i i will say this we are everyone here and we've we've acknowledged nobody everyone here is innocent in a court of law right you know until they're proven guilty in a court of law but this particular episode we have been

focusing a lot on karina rosario And it's interesting because as you just said a few minutes ago, there was a name that you heard named Rosie. I know during my investigation, we did discover that some people close to her did refer to her as Rosie. And you are right. There's no way to prove it's her. We don't have her voice to compare it to like Roland, who obviously knows his daughter's voice very well. Um, but I don't think it's going too far out on a limb to say that we know from video surveillance and that they live together. And, um, based on the conversation that was happening, um, it's yeah, probably, I don't know if it would hold up in a court of law, but common sense would suggest

that more than likely, especially with you being able to decipher the word Rosie, um, is pretty indicative that she probably was having a conversation with Karina. I don't know too many people, and maybe even in a court of law, the court of law, that would be enough for a jury if it ever got to that. So I, I appreciate you qualifying it, but it's something where, you know, from an investigative point of view, I think a lot of the totality of the circumstances would suggest that if you had to make a reasonable guess, this didn't appear to sound like someone she had never spoken to before. Seemed like they had a relationship. Did it seem like they knew each other? Oh, absolutely.

I mean, these people that are arguing, the two females, definitely knew each other. There's no question about it. I mean, you don't argue with somebody like that. Saying those particular kinds of words, if you don't know them, if you don't know them, you're just going to pick a fight with them. And you're going to be in each other's face. And there's going to be fists being thrown around and stuff like that pretty quickly. This seems to be more of an argument about some particular subject that they both knew about. So I'd say, yeah, they know each other. No, no doubt about that.

And I'd say you probably, you know, ninety nine point nine percent right there is probably it is probably her. But but I don't know for sure. For sure. That's fair. That's fair. I appreciate that. But we do know that if the timestamp on the call is accurate, Karina and Faith would have been at the club together at this time. So it's not crazy to think that this may have been Karina's voice or is likely Karina's voice. But talking about the timestamp, Arlo, I read that you had some thoughts about it, that it may not have been accurate. It's very possible it wasn't accurate. I mean, if you stop and think about the year that this crime happened, 2012, and I'm sure that you, like me, have had cell phones, and I had one in 2012.

I think it was a piece of junk. I mean, at the time, you'd get text messages that were a day late, or they would be sent and, you know know two hours later what you know i didn't even know you were there or something i was like so the time and you get a time stamp that says the message was just sent which do you believe the person that sent the message two days ago that told you they did and it's an event that happened two days ago do you believe the time stamp so i can understand there's some intrepidation or some, you know, thought that, you know, because of the time stamp, they had to be in the club. And what you're hearing in this recording, the theory is that it's music and it's drowning everything out.

And I'm sorry, you don't hear that. I spent my life playing music in clubs. For four years, i played music in bar rooms i know what sounds like in a bar room i know what loud music sounds like i'm not you know fresh off the bus here um the audio doesn't contain any elements of music it does except for this rapping voice of this male singing something to me. I don't know if he's just rapping some kind of, you know, mocking thing about this whole situation. It's what, that's what I picked up on. It was some kind of like, he's kind of.

Freestyling kind of freestyling. Freestyling and, and kind of throwing in some elements of what's going on. So, but you don't hear no booming bass, or you probably wouldn't on a cell phone anyway, but you'd hear some sort of, you know, a clippy sound from the bass drum. You know, bass drums are loud, and people in clubs, they like loud bass drums.

I mean, let's face it. You don't hear any melodic elements, keyboards. You don't hear any rises or any kind of things that you might hear in a disco, you know, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, you know, drum weird stuff. You just don't hear none of that stuff. It doesn't sound like it's in a club. I don't hear any waitresses coming up.

Would you guys like another beer? You know, or anything like that. Now that they, I did, was told that this particular bar room that they were at, or bar that they went to, served drinks in plastic cups. So maybe that's one reason why we don't hear any clinking glasses or anything like that. But the timestamp issue really, to me, isn't concrete. It does not, just because it says it happened at that time, you have to realize it's cell phones. And that cell phone that she made the call from was definitely one of those

cell phones that had timestamp issues. Just look it up. It's common knowledge. That's how I found out. I just started doing a little thing and saying, I just don't hear the sounds of a club. Yes, I hear people and I hear, you know, three or four people, but I don't hear the elements of music. I don't hear anything in there. It makes me think, yeah, this is a college club, a college club. You would hear all kinds of stuff. You might hear people saying, you know, laughing, ha ha ha, you know, talking and saying stupid shit all over the place. You don't hear none of that. You just don't. You hear these two girls arguing. You hear these two males kind of talking, this rapping stuff going on. To me, I don't buy it. So to me, I'm not convinced that the times came back.

That was my theory about that. And then it could be. And if it is, that means they were in the club, I guess. So yeah, I mean, that's, that's a 50, 50 on that one. So you hear anywhere between three to four voices, correct? I do. Yeah, I do. You don't hear any more than four voices. You know, first of all, if, if there are two, the two females are kind of arguing. If there's two males in the background talking together, which it sounds like there is, or even participating in some of this conversation, are they the same person?

Are they two different people? It sounds like two different people. And I even heard one of the guys say something about big Mike or something, something about a guy named Mike. Now I don't know if there's ever been any Mike, a suspect or somebody that's been looked at with the name Mike in this case, but I do hear the name in the recording. So I kind of,

I assumed that there's got to be at least two guys involved. So I read that you heard a few different names. So you just mentioned Dave and Big Mike. Am I correct? I don't know if this means that these guys go to somebody named Dave's house. It sounds like. I'm not sure what to read in it because it's male and audible. Good thing and audible Dave's house.

But you also heard the word or the name Rosie. an audible good thing, an audible Dave's house. What are they talking about? But you also heard the word or the name Rosie. And did I read correctly that you also heard the name Eric? I do, but I haven't got to that part yet. Okay. Let's see. We made it down to the end of page two. Page three here.

Female owl mocking. Again, female. two uh page three here female owl mocking again female uh your talk your talk sure ain't funny you know he's gonna inaudible you and you and audible and then i will you so i don't know how all of that fits together uh What they're really talking about could be, I don't really know. Then I hear Faith and she makes a screaming sound, an audible word, but it's kind of a scream. And Roland's confirmed that too. Female, uh-huh, something like that. Faith, let me go. So she'd been kind of, I don't know if somebody's grabbed her arm or something, or they're obviously done something with her. Male, inaudible. Her,

inaudible. Faith, help me. Female, don't be a pussy. Put up a fight. Male, inaudible, let's put the fucking inaudible to her. Male, then you fuck her, I'll inaudible. Male, inaudible, I'll fuck her, inaudible. Faith, inaudible, out of my head. Female, inaudible, do it. Male, I think she's dying. Inaudible, I think she's dying. Inaudible, I think she's dying. Mail, do it anyhow. Mail, inaudible, get the duct tape. Next to, inaudible. Then they can tie up Faith. So I don't know if there was duct tape involved here.

That was an interesting find, I thought. And I don't know all the details. I'm sure there's going to be details. If the case gets solved or if they get a concrete suspect, we might start to hear more details about the case. There may be no duct tape. I don't really know. But I do hear duct tape. So it was interesting. Faith, please inaudible me. My hands are on fire help that really stood out to me I didn't know about her hands being bound or anything like that but I guess there were some ligature marks on her hands or something from what I understand I heard

later male put her hands behind her head Male, I'll untie them Her hands look like they're on fire And audible, I've got to hide them I'm not sure what they're talking about there Faith, I can't believe that you really did it, Rosie Female, really? Male, to our next victim and audible Female, all right Male, just throw next victim and audible. Female, all right.

Male, just throw it in the river. Male and audible, fucking stupid people. The river part was interesting. I talked to Roland. I said, is there any kind of river or stream near her apartment complex? And I guess there was one in between the apartment complex and the bar. They have to cross a river or something or a small stream. Yeah, Roland and the bar. Correct. They have to cross a river or something or a small. Yeah.

Yeah. Roland told us as well. Yeah. Yeah. So then I have male inaudible fucking stupid people. Faith, just wait. Female inaudible glove.

Male wrapping. Here's what's wrapping thing starts coming in. And then these are the words that I heard. Now, I also have the T-Pain lyrics. And so what I've done, and I'll send you this transcript if Roland's okay with it, but I've highlighted the rapping, the dialogue that I hear, that I transcribe. Some of it matches T-Pain in some parts, but other parts where the words were changed, it's interesting to hear. So I'll have to send that to you so you can kind of hear it. The cayenne highlight I used was matching words to the song. The yellow highlight of the song, the words that uh put in the song so when they're kind of ad-libbing this rap

thing so it starts here says male rapping because you don't want to inaudible me when the inaudible so i can use the inaudible baby inaudible female inaudible like you to inaudible rap to an audible rap then mail rapping on says mail go with me go with me in audible uh let's see mail rapping inaudible like the way you want to be inaudible because all this shit you lied about inaudible and call you dead so these are some pretty crazy things, but if somebody's making fun of somebody as they're being murdered here in this case, and they're doing it, I guess this Eric kid was some kind of a wannabe rapper. That's what I've heard and read, I guess. So if he's kind of like singing this to her while this is all going on or something, or singing about it, it could be some sort of a cryptic way for him to say something like this.

I really don't know. There's a lot of thought when I hear this stuff. A lot of, what the heck is this person thinking doing this, you know? But these are the things I heard. So then it goes on, female inaudible, male rapping again, inaudible, I love you, please, inaudible now, inaudible, female, you liar, you intentionally lied, male, hey, inaudible, set that fuck back up, bitch, faith, inaudible set that fuck back up bitch faith inaudible male rapping to go inaudible liar male inaudible male no way inaudible idiot inaudible faith inaudible get off of me male shut your mouth inaudible fuck inaudible and then rosie again then this mouth, inaudible, fuck, inaudible, and then Rosie again.

Then this female says, inaudible, to go help Eric. That was interesting. That's the first time I heard the word Eric, the name Eric. Male, but I'll fuck her, inaudible. Female, inaudible. Just let, inaudible. Male, inaudible, under her hips. Male, inaudible. Faith, inaudible, just let inaudible, male inaudible, under her hips, male inaudible, faith inaudible, fuck you. I think it was like a screaming out of fuck you,

male inaudible, female inaudible, male inaudible, back up, male inaudible, faith inaudible, get off of me, male inaudible, female inaudible. Male inaudible. I don't know. Faith inaudible. Ow. Female sit up and inaudible. Male inaudible. Faith inaudible. Faith screams, then says the word help. Male rapping because inaud, seems to be the one, inaudible, you. Female, fuck you, male, inaudible, now I'll fuck her. Then I have female, inaudible, faith, inaudible, no. Male rapping, something inaudible. Female, what do you think, inaudible, you.

And I have this as a question mark, so it sounds more like a question i'll read it again what do you think in audible you i liked you better cunt and that's it that's all i got out of it i mean it's pretty graphic no it's it's pretty graphic and when you think about the what we know about the case what has has been released publicly, it, it, it can make a lot of sense, but I know one question and I have a lot of questions. We could probably be here all day. I know I can see Stephanie's wheels turning, but I think one of the biggest questions we're going to get is, you know, all our listeners are going to hear this and go, Oh my God, this is the smoking gun right here. And my question to you

would be, was this turned over to police? And from what you know, what was done with the information that was relayed to them? Well, from the start, when I got the job, and it wasn't really a job, I didn't get paid for it. I just, sometimes I'll take on a case when I think it's, you know, a good cause or something like that. And I think it's good. It's good for business. I think the man upstairs, he said, Oh, that was nice of you all over the place. I'll throw a couple of jobs at you. So I always take on a case. I throw a free freebie in every once in a while. Please don't broadcast that. Okay. Yes.

Yeah. We'll cut. No, you can't die. I'm just kidding. But, but so it was crime watch daily and, uh, they were real nice people. And, um, you know, I told him right, right, right up front, right off the bat. I said, if I find anything in this before I go to you, I'm going to take it to Chapel Hill and I'm going to give it to them. I'm sorry, but that's just the rules. And if you can't live with that, then you can move on.

I'll give you the names of some other guys you can call. They were fine with it. And they said, yeah, we expect that. So that was good. So they kind of cut me loose that way. And I was glad because I did. And I found all this stuff. And I immediately called Chapel Hill and told them that who I was and that I was working on this case and working on the butt dial. And if they could have the lead investigator call me at the time. And I forget her name. It was a woman. If you said it, I'd probably agree with you.

And say it again. Captain LeHue. Yeah. So I spoke with her about it and they were very interested and they wanted to have anything that I found. They wanted to know what it was. So I did send it to them. It took them a while to get back to me. I was kind of surprised and I really thought that we did have a smoking gun here. We had some names, even if you don't agree with 90 percent of the transcript. I understand how this works

because I've been in court testifying so many times, and especially with transcripts. The transcripts, you always have, you know, one side's transcript, and then you have the other side's transcript, and you know, which experts write which one. So let's just take a transcript. Let's take a recording like this one. I think this is really important. You could give it to 10 different people. You are going to get 10 different transcripts. And even with a clear, clean transcript, you're going to get different transcripts. They're going to be some little, may only be one or two words different, but everybody, they interpret. It's an interpretation. So that's really what this is. It's the forensics of cleaning it up, the audio enhancement part of

it. That's pure forensics work. Then the interpretation comes from that. And that's what I did. This is my interpretation. These are words that I heard. I stand by them. I've been on several television shows, podcasts about this. I've been on a lot of different programs about this case. It's a pretty big case and very well known. So to me, it's important for everybody, like your listeners, that are going to say, yes, this is a smoking gun. I mean, why isn't this blowing this case open? It just hasn't. And it's not enough. And you know, Darren, for a prosecutor to come in with all guns blazing, they need some really solid evidence. This evidence is good, but it's not the end all. It's not the end game. Because you have the timestamp issue.

A good defense lawyer could say you know what this is a bunch of bs mr west is la la land uh he you know this timestamp proves that my client's innocent and you know what i mean so they'll they'll they'll throw all the monkey wrenches they can at it and that's just that's the way this business is this this you know we've got two different sides. They're going to duke it out. May the best man win. That's what always happens in this kind of work.

So, again, your listeners are going to say, yeah, this is the smoking gun. This is great stuff. It's not enough, I don't think. But the police didn't discredit you, though, right? Like, LaHue didn't come back to you and say, yeah, there's nothing there. Sorry, we don't believe what you said. No, they never cut ties with me. I mean, I don't talk to them. But I guarantee you, if they had a suspect, and it turned out to be one of these two names in this recording, they'd be calling me.

And they said, I'd be a witness. And they would say, Mr. West, would you please come testify and tell us what you found? And we're going to use your recording. They may not, but you never know. But the good news is they spoke to you and although it took a little while, they did call you back and they thanked you. Obviously, they can't probably tell you everything they know. They're not going to. But they at least acknowledge they didn't blow you off is what I'm getting at.

Because I know that's a big question that our listeners are going to have is that, hey, did they blow this guy off? And the answer is no, they didn't. No, they didn't. They didn't. And here's the thing too. I mean, it's a very difficult recording to listen to. And you could listen to it as a normal person with a normal set of speakers at home and listen to that dial a thousand times. And you may not hear everything that's in the transcript. That's okay. As long as you hear some of the key elements, the argument, there's no question there's an argument there. And I think the first

time we played it, Derek, in the studio, you agreed with me. I know your partner at the time, and I forget his name, but Chris, yeah. He wasn't too sure that I was accurate or that I was, you know, on the right track here. He was kind of standing by the argument that it was made in a club and that it was probably a club issue with noise and stuff. I just don't buy that because to me, I don't hear any elements of it being in a club. And I tell you, man, I can hear, I know what the sounds of a club are. I mean, I played music for countless years in bars. I know what the sounds of a club are. I mean, I played music for countless years in bars. I know what these sounds are.

I know when college bars are loud, there's going to be music playing. I guarantee you there'll be music playing. And you'll hear some elements of that music, some melodic sounds or something like that. I didn't hear any of that stuff. So I didn't buy that theory. And I'm not so quick to lend credence to this timestamp issue. I don't believe that it's it's a dead on issue. Yes, she was in the club at that time. There's no question about that. They have video footage. I think, you know, that doesn't lie. It's video. But was the butt dial made at that time? That's the big question here, the big,

you know, $90 million question. 2012, were cell phones screwy? Yeah. Did they do things that were timestamp issues? And yeah, they did. They did all kinds of really weird stuff. So I think that's unreliable. And you can't say definitively that that phone call happened in that club at that particular time. believe might have happened, which is the timestamp was incorrect, if your theory is correct that the timestamp wasn't correct, what we could be hearing is Faith being attacked. I would say yes. And another thing that gives me some sort of corroboration here is that Roland agrees with me. He says, look, i know my daughter's voice my daughter is being hurt in this recording i can hear that there is emotion she's being hurt she's saying the word out there are things that are happening in there that i hear and that i i think

you're dead on that there's something happening to her during this recording. At least that's what he's told me. Now, I can't speak for him directly, but those are the words that he told me. He's told me that as well. You're right. And that lends a lot of power to the theory, I think, of the things that I'm hearing.

So, Arlo, I want to give you the final word here as far as this butt dial, because there's a lot of opinions about it. And Stephanie and I are going to get into it in a couple seconds after we get done speaking to you, but to you and your professional opinion. And again, you've said it numerous times, this is just your opinion. What do you think that we're hearing in this book dial? What does this call represent? Well, I think two or three of the most important points of this, but dial is the female argument. The argument's a big thing. And there are words in here that kind of match other elements of the case.

The word jealousy, liar, just this heated argument between two females about something, presumably about a guy or some element that would cause two females to be bickering in that way. That's key. And I think it's key. And it does prove that there's some elements of this that match other bits of evidence in the case. To me, that's really key. The names, Eric and Rosie, I think those are really key. Those are big elements of this recording, I think, that shouldn't be overlooked. To me, those are the most important things. the emotional responses that Faith's giving in this, in the recording, which to me are critical and kind of forming this theory that, or opinion, that the phone call occurred during some element of the crime. In other words, did it occur while she was being killed? It's very possible.

Well, I'll just ask you directly. Do you believe that what we're hearing is the murder of Faith Hedgepeth? Well, I do. And I think that there are some elements of the recording that if she wasn't killed during the recording, she was in the process of being killed. It's terrible to think. It's terrible to think that's what we're hearing. I know I can see Stephanie's wheels turning right now. Arlo, I want to thank you for your time.

Obviously, it's incredible what you do, really fascinating stuff. And I don't think it'll be the last time we're speaking with each other. So thank you for what you do. And I'm sure we'll be talking again. I want to thank you both too, for, for continuing this investigation, because it's important not to just drop the ball. And I, and I'm glad to see the Chapel Hill still is

actively pursuing this and somebody's going to get caught for this. I mean, some, somewhere down the line, this is all going to come, the house of cards is going to come crashing down. And I want to be there. I want to be there for the Hedgecuff family and, uh, and, and to help them, uh, solve this horrendous crime against this beautiful young girl. Thank you so much. You're welcome. Take care. Thank you. So it was a really enlightening interview with Arlo. We appreciate him taking time and coming to talk to us. We were really glad he made the decision to do so. But something about the timestamp on the cell phones that Arlo believes may have been wrong. It is important to note that the Chapel Hill police who are in possession of Faith's cell phone, they stand by the accuracy

of the timestamp. So they say that it happened, you know, 1-123, I think it was, or 127, whichever one it is, they stand by that timestamp. And having Faith's phone, they probably know what time the call was made. Yeah. Also, the FBI has come out and said, or through Chapel Hill, that they tried to analyze it to pick up any type of conversation that was going on, and it was too distorted for them to do so. But I do want to also make clear that Faith's father, Roland, does believe that this is his daughter's voice on the voicemail. He said, quote, I know Faith's voice very well, its particular tone. I can hear in her voice that she was alarmed, that she was being hurt. The first time I heard it, I knew in my heart I was hearing an altercation

that led to her death, end quote. It's also worth noting that the police did not voluntarily release the audio of the voicemail. Right. So I think I saw an interview with a police officer at Chapel Hill and he said, we didn't want to release it because we thought it had no evidentiary value. You can't hear anything in it, but they were compelled to by a court. That's right. Also important to note that this voicemail would have happened before Faith and Karina left the Thrill Nightclub, but they were seen on surveillance walking out of the Thrill Nightclub, both of them still very much alive. And, you know, we don't see any wounds or, you know, anything that needs medical attention. They seem to be fine. So I guess let's talk about what Arlo said and what we think about it.

For me, I think Arlo's definitely great at what he does. And he said in the interview, like, oh, Derek, I think you agreed with me when we initially met. And it's partially right because I agree with him that, especially at the beginning of the voicemail, I do believe you can hear there's clearly some distress in the conversation between multiple females. And it does sound to me, just, I can't understand what they're saying, but it does sound like there's some type of disagreement taking place. Where him and I differ is I believe the call is from inside the nightclub, even though he said he didn't hear music. We've all had received a butt dial before.

And I know like, you know, when I hear him, sometimes if someone's in the car, if they don't have the radio on, you really don't hear anything until they start talking or they beep the horn or they put the radio on. There's clearly, in my opinion, background noise in there. There's clearly background noise. And I don't know what that background noise is. I'm not an audio expert, but there's clearly some distortion and it sounds loud and something's taking place. And I think it's just too coincidental that the male individuals he's hearing, at least one of them is rapping, you know, in the middle of this conversation. I think that's more likely that that person rapping is the actual artist of the song. That's just my opinion. Or it could be somebody rapping in the club too. Right, right. Again, it just, that's where we differ. And I think it makes sense with,

you know, the timestamp, they were in fact at a club at that time. So it all lines up. And as far as the second half, as far as it representing, you know, he said it and I, I, you know, I pushed him on it. He believes it's very possible that what we heard at least the second half is the murder of Faith Hedgepeth. And I, I don't personally believe that, um, not only because of the timestamp and because of her being seen coming out of the club after unharmed, but he had mentioned ligature marks in there.

I can tell you from seeing the photos myself, there was no sign of ligature marks or duct tape. And so the hands on fire thing doesn't really add up. And again, if we're to assume that this audio recording took place after the club, we know that Faith went back to the apartment. Nobody has disputed that. So this audio recording that we're hearing with this other female and multiple men and arguments and Faith yelling for help, the neighbor downstairs would have heard that. She would have heard something. She would have heard some type of argument going on upstairs.

So I don't believe that aspect of it, but I do believe Roland, he knows his daughter's voice. That was Faith arguing with someone, other female who potentially was Karina at the club that night. And I think it all kind of makes sense. And you don't really have to look too much more deeper in it than that. So Arlo did say that he heard the girl that Roland and he believes is Faith say the name Rosie. And just for the listeners, Rosie was apparently a nickname that Karina Rosario would sometimes go by. Am I correct? Yep. We said that in the interview and yep, that was confirmed.

And so I think it all lines up. And, you know, for me, what it represents is a possible motive. That's what it represents. If you think Karina was involved, then this might have been the start of what ended up occurring later that night. You know, because they walk into the club together, they're walking together, shoulder to shoulder. And when they leave, there's a little bit of a distance between them. They're talking to different individuals. Maybe there was something that transpired in the club that led to that distance. Maybe this is starting to fill in the black box, which is the club. We don't know what happened inside there. Maybe this is a little

bit of insight is in regards to what actually occurred. So what you're basically saying is they went inside the club. They were fine. Maybe at some point inside the club, they get into an argument. Maybe Karina accuses Faith of talking to her boyfriend or flirting with a guy that Karina likes. Even if that voicemail doesn't show us the last moments of Faith Hedgepath's life, and Arlo believes that it might, but even if it doesn't, it does show that there may have been an altercation that led to her death in the end. There may have been something that happened between herself and Karina in the club, and maybe that's why Karina wanted to go home early, and maybe that argument continued in the car, and maybe it continued when they got into the apartment. Yes, that's right. And I think this is a good point to do it. You know, we kind of foreshadowed the conversation that I had with you the other night while you were in bed. And I brought this up because it was kind of like an epiphany I had, you know, and I really want to discuss with you.

And I got to give a quick shout out. I'm not going to say their name. Just going to say there was one of our listeners who reached out to me, who referred me to Brandon Edwards. If you guys remember him from our initial episode, he was the ex-boyfriend of Karina and also the individual who Faith allegedly text messaged the night of her murder. And our listener sent me this message and said, hey, you might want to go back and look at Brandon's Instagram during this whole incident. So I said, all right, I'm going to do that. And so shout out to you guys. I love you guys for

doing that. It's so awesome, by the way. So I'm going to read an Instagram message from you guys. So this was a message that Brandon wrote on September 7th, but two years after Faith's death. And this is first and foremost, the image that he put up on his Instagram is FDH, which is actually Faith's initials. So that's one thing we'll dive into it, but he actually went and had Faith's initials tattooed on his body to remember her. So that's one thing that we can talk about in a second, but let me actually just read the Instagram post that he put up with this tattoo. Today, September 7th, will forever be remembered as the day I lost you. It was two years ago, but I remember it like it was deja vu. I remember your

face lighting up when you saw me when you walked into the bar. I remember you asking me how I had been. I remember us laughing about old times. I remember you telling me about what you were trying to do in the near future. I remember you not drinking because you had a quiz the next day. I remember before I left you, you said, take care in that country voice of yours. I remember before I left you, you said, take care, in that country voice of yours. I remember me saying, you be safe getting home tonight. I remember that next day at work when I received one of the worst calls of my life. I remember feeling anger, sadness, and confusion. I remember right at that moment when out of nowhere, a text came from you saying, to be there for your best friend.

I was scared then, but I know that message came from an angel. I cherish you being in my life, if only for a short time. I will not try to be sad today, but instead celebrate your ascension from this cruel world to a place of perfect peace. Keep me in check. And he put her an Instagram handle. I love you and I miss you. And I will say this about Faith's Instagram handle. She only follows like a couple, like a hundred people or something like that. Brandon is one of them. So why do I bring this up? A couple of things and let's break it down. First off, you and I just got done talking about something occurring in that club that could have led to this argument, right? We're trying to find out what happened in there,

even though we weren't there, this black box that we're trying to fill in the answers, right? Well, what I just read to you was from the ex-boyfriend of Karina Rosario, who Karina clearly still had feelings for. So this conversation here, when you see what he wrote here, right, about the conversation he had with Faith, what's your initial impression of that interaction that they had when they saw each other at the club? Well, I also want to remind the listeners that Brandon Edwards is the person who received a text from Faith's phone the morning that she was killed. So it was something like three o'clock in the morning, right? That's right. And the text said, hey, B, will you call or call Karina?

She needs you. And then there was a typo in that, right? Aha, you know. Yes. She needs you. Aha, You know. Yes. She needs you. Uh-huh. You know. And she never corrected herself, but we assumed that she meant she needs you. What? More than you know. More than you know. That's what we assumed. That's what we assumed. My impression from what you read on Brandon

Edwards' Instagram is that these were not two people who weren't close. They must have been close. They must have had some relationship. I mean, he says, the day I lost you. To say that you lost somebody is to feel like you had them. If I had just an acquaintance that died that I wasn't close to, whose number I didn't have stored in my phone, I wouldn't write an Instagram post saying the day I lost you. I would be sad and I would mourn and send flowers, but I'm not going to write this huge post and I'm certainly not going to get their initials tattooed on my body. He also says we talked about old times. Old times suggest that they have a history. What else did he say? Oh, that morning a text came from you. Now, remember, Brandon Edwards had responded to Faith's text, but not

until the next afternoon. And at which point he responded, who is this? And everybody's assumed that he didn't have her number stored in her phone. And that's why he didn't know who it was. Right. Right. And that's important. And it also talks about motive. So let's double back and say, hypothetically, Karina and Faith show up at the club. Karina still has feelings for Brandon, but instead of Brandon lighting up when he sees Karina, he lights up when he sees Faith. And they instantly are drawn to each other. And there's an interaction there where they're conversating with each other, maybe innocent, like he's describing here, on the side, talking amongst each other. Could Karina witnessing this, if innocent, like he's describing here, on the side, talking amongst each other.

Could Karina witnessing this, if she wasn't part of the conversation, could this have initiated this argument that we're hearing on the voicemail? Could this have led to why there was some type of dissension between them? And that might be the reason why, very shortly after arriving, Karina suddenly doesn't feel good and wants to leave. So could that answer why Karina had the sudden urge to leave and why there may have been an argument at the club? Possibly. It might also answer why they walked out separately. But back to what you just said, and this was kind of the thing, I called it an epiphany earlier, but it's

more of just looking at things differently, trying to think outside the box. I have always been in the impression that this message, and I said it in the show, I've said it to you, that this message represented Faith texting Brandon and Brandon not having her number saved in his phone. So it was more like, who's this? Who's texting me? When in fact, is it possible if there was something between Brandon and Faith, it was the context of the text message, Faith pushing Karina on him after they may have had a conversation that was different than that, where he wasn't saying, who is this? It was more like, who is this?

Because this doesn't sound like the Faith that I just spoke to. Yes. And that to me was very compelling. So that's kind of where I stand on it right now. And it really does. It really does make some sense. Yeah. I can't imagine why Brandon would not have had Faith's number saved in his phone. He either was I don't know, like I I don't know why he would have acted as if they were so close after she died if they weren't. And even if it was an act, that's quite

an act. You're really playing the long game. If you're going to get a permanent tattoo on your body with this girl's initials, whose number you didn't even have saved in your phone. So when you say he was responding with, who is this? Instead of who's this more of who is this? Because this is not something faith would say to me. That makes sense, right? So, and I'll end it on this on Brandon, because again, a lot of this is, you know, we're putting pieces together that we're trying to make, you know, see if they fit, right? I did reach out to Brandon because of this Instagram posting that I read. And I sent him a long heartfelt message asking if he would speak to me because he can really clarify really in one

answer, whether my assumption is right or not. Was he saying, who is this? Because he maybe got a new phone and didn't have her new numbers, her number saved in this new phone, or is it what, you know, it could what I'm suggesting it could be, which is that message wasn't in line with the conversation that Faith and I had had a few hours earlier. And I was wondering why she was saying this when I thought her and I were on a different page. Why would she be pushing me off onto my ex-girlfriend when I got the impression that we had feelings for each other?

So I did reach out to him. It doesn't look like he's opened my message yet. If he doesn't want me to share what he said, I won't. But if he does, I'll relay it to you guys for sure. But with Karina, do you want to transition to theories? Because for me, there are a few different theories here and we can break them down. I don't think we have to go too much into them because they're pretty obvious at this point, the way we're talking about the case. But there was one interesting theory that I didn't think of

that one of our listeners thought of that I wanted to bring up. And then there's a couple more obvious ones. Do you want to start with the obvious ones first? All right. So the first one is if Karina killed Faith, then everything we just laid out as far as the possible motive, let's just carry it on from that point. So there's an argument at the club after Karina sees something she doesn't like between her and Brandon. She confronts her on it in the club. That's where the voicemail is sent to Yuna. They leave the club, even though it's kind of stewing at this point that Karina's not happy. So you said Karina is not happy, but you were talking to me the other day, too. And you said you'd spoken to Faith's father. And, you know, Faith wasn't the kind of girl who was going to take shit from anybody. Right. So Faith probably wasn't happy

either that she had to leave the club, that Karina was upset, that Karina was making a scene allegedly. So they were both probably a little had heightened emotions at that point. was upset, that Karina was making a scene allegedly. So they were both probably a little, had heightened emotions at that point. And listen, I mean, you've been out with, you've had problems with friends, I'm sure. Like you can tell when your friend's pissed off. Yeah. You can tell when something's bugging them. So she might've been ignoring it or she, you know, whatever it may be, but let's say there's clearly some tension in the air. They get home around 2.40 when Miss Joy hears them them arrive and that's when it pops off that's when whatever is the problem erupts either faith says what's your deal or karina brings it up out

of nowhere but something happens in that moment and i remember talking to roland about faith and one of the things he said to me that i thought was interesting is faith was known to say the phrase you're stupid whether it was like a joke or like an insult. She was always just, you know, you're stupid. You're stupid. Don't even say that. You're stupid. So something pops off. There's an instant knee jerk reaction and Karina hits Faith with the bottle. And maybe that's where the note comes from as far as I'm not jealous, you stupid bitch. And the jealousy part and the stupid bitch would be in line with the motive that we laid out earlier about the club. That's one theory, right? Yes. And in that situation, everything that happened after Faith died and before Karina

left the apartment was staged. The letter on the bed was staged. The texts that were sent to Brandon Edwards and to Ty Michael McNeil, the Facebook activity staged to make it look as if Faith was still alive. And just the fact that Faith would decide to text Karina's ex-boyfriend at that hour and, you know, implore him to reach out to Karina. It just seems like it's something odd, you know, that somebody would do, especially at this late hour, because what time did Karina allegedly leave the apartment? A little after four. 44040. 4.40. 4.25. 4.25. So this was later, 3.40 that Faith allegedly texts Brandon Edwards. And then what, less than an hour later, about 40 minutes later, Karina leaves the apartment. But she said that Faith was fast asleep when she

left the apartment. She said that basically the only thing Faith did when they got back was bring a garbage can into the bathroom for her so she could throw up and then Faith went to bed. So at home, what, around 240? That's right. So is that all going to happen in an hour where Faith's going to bring a garbage can in and then go to bed and that takes an hour for that to happen? Yeah. Again, it doesn't fit as succinctly, Right. And so that's where I think the skepticism comes in. And then as you pointed out, you know, if this happens, maybe it was unintentional. Maybe it was intentional. I would actually suggest that it was probably unintentional. Maybe there was the bottle was intended to hurt faith, but not kill her. But now you're faced with a situation where if you don't

do something, your life is over. So there's some staging that takes place. And again, as we alluded to earlier, you have to get out of the apartment because if you don't leave, you got no chance. So even though it's completely odd to leave, to go to a guy's house at 425 in the morning when you were feeling sick hours earlier, you got to do it. So that's what she does. And she leaves the door unlocked. So there's an opportunity for someone else, another variable to come into play. The second scenario is that she was a witness to a crime where let's say Arlo's right. This audio does represent the actual assault and or murder. There's multiple people in the apartment. Maybe Karina's hanging out with a guy,

Faye's hanging out with another guy. The guy wants to have something further with Faith. He wants to have sex with her. She doesn't want to. So he grabs the bottle because it's in the room. And although it doesn't behavioral make a lot of sense, he hits her with the bottle and kills her. They threaten Karina and say, if you say anything, you're going to be dead too. So they leave and they clean up, they leave. and then she has to leave as well because if she doesn't, again, she's going to be suspected of the crime or at least at minimum a witness to the crime. Yes. Yes. And like you said earlier, though, I think that's less likely, especially with multiple people in the apartment, because you would think somebody would hear that,

like a bunch of people walking around around shouting, Faith yelling for help. I think that's less likely. I think it's much more likely Faith was attacked in a crime of passion sort of way, like you were saying earlier, because nobody heard anything. Nobody heard screams. Nobody heard Faith yelling for help. Nobody heard a bunch of, you know, prolonged sounds of struggling like she was running around or trying to get away. I think she was taken off guard by this. So I think that there's multiple people involved is less likely. Right. And I'm not going to talk too much about another theory, which is someone could have came

after Karina had left. She was completely unsuspecting, left the door unlocked, innocent and the whole thing. And someone came back. Is it possible? Yes. As an investigator, I have to say it's possible. Is it likely? In my opinion, no, because I don't see someone going over there uninvited at 4, 4.30 in the morning, either to see her to visit her or to carry out a crime. Because if you're going to carry out a crime, you want to use at least the cover of night. You're going over there to commit a crime and you're going to leave the apartment when it's possibly daylight. It doesn't make a lot of sense to me. You also mentioned when we were talking earlier that

somebody who committed a crime like that, where there was so much blood, they'd have a hard time getting out of the apartment and the apartment building without leaving some sort of evidence trail behind them. Yeah. Yeah. They're a ghost basically. Yeah. At this point, other than the DNA found on Faith's body, which we've already discussed as far as what that could represent. Yeah. I think it's very hard to believe. It's very hard to believe. So if Karina was the one who did this to Faith, then she obviously would have showered and cleaned up before leaving the apartment. The one final theory I wanted to discuss with you, again, it's a theory was presented by one of our listeners, but I thought it was kind of interesting because again, thinking outside the box was the possibility that maybe there was a relationship between faith and Karina that was deeper than a friendship.

Again, this is from one of our listeners who said, hey, is it possible that Karina and faith were in an intimate relationship? Maybe that would explain why they were sharing the bed. And that would also maybe explain why the word jealous bitch was written. Was Karina jealous of another man who was giving someone she was romantically interested in, in faith, attention? Could that have been part of it? What do you think about that? That's very possible. I don't think it's as possible as the other theories we discussed. These were college girls. College girls experiment all the time with the different sexual things during college. And I don't think that they would have really tried to hide that. They were close. And for, I think, the first two years that they were in college, they lived on campus with another

girl. So, Keira Dixon, right? I think that would be maybe noticed. Maybe there would even be some sort of rumors. And you never heard any rumors of this when you were talking to her friends and her family. No, no, I didn't. Do you think that there would be somebody who might say like Una Chavez, like, yeah, I think there might've been something more going on between them. Like it felt like maybe Faith would confide in somebody, especially if Karina was getting a little clingy. So I think that's less possible, but still, yeah, anything is possible. Yeah. And interesting enough where I wanted to bring it up. So again, thank you for, for that. I read a lot of you guys' messages this week and there's some fascinating stuff.

Let's, uh, let's take one more break and then we'll get into our final thoughts. All right. So we are back and we're going to give our final thoughts. You want me to go first? Ladies first. Well, I keep coming back to this DNA thing. I really don't think that the DNA was associated with what happened to her. Now, it very well could possibly be. But we also have to remember that even though they took DNA from a lot of people, they didn't test all of that DNA, correct? That is 100% confirmed. They have only a certain amount of DNA that they can use to analyze. Once it's gone, they'll have no more.

So they have to be very selective in who they actually compare it to. Right. And we also have to understand that they didn't get DNA samples from every single person they requested one from, because this isn't something where you have to give your DNA to the police. You don't have to cooperate. In fact, I read in the police reports, and they don't give this person's name, he's just listed as redacted, but it says, redacted was identified as walking out of Club Thrill with Faith Hedgepath shortly before the homicide occurred. He was the last male to be seen with her before her death. He admitted to talking to her on the night of the homicide and to meeting her the weekend before. Redacted refused to offer DNA, stating that he may have touched her the night of the homicide. His statements to law

enforcement officers were inconsistent with statements given by others. Yeah, and that's the male we see in the video. So who is this guy? Why wouldn't he give a DNA sample? And why are his statements inconsistent? So even though they took DNA from so many people, there were still people who would refuse to give DNA. And without really a lot of evidence, the police aren't going to be able to get a warrant to compel the person to give their DNA. So if a person says, I don't want to give my DNA, just like they can say, I don't want to take a polygraph, you can't be forced to do these things. You can be considered uncooperative, but you can't be forced to give it. So with not everybody giving DNA and not all the DNA being tested, they could very well have the person that was in the apartment that day,

they could have their DNA sample, but they just aren't able to test it against the DNA sample found in the apartment and on Faith. Or the person who did this to her just refused to give their DNA to the police. So they'll never have that matched unless this person happens to get arrested and goes into the system. Yeah, very well said. And I think it's a really valid argument as far as what the DNA represents. And I'll even piggyback off of that saying, with this case, the Chapel Hill Police Department continuously say, it's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when they solve this case. And to me, what they're not saying is, this case is all hinged on one thing, and that's the unknown DNA. I think they do believe they're

going to be able to identify the person that this DNA belongs to. And once they do that, there will be charges filed against someone. What I will say to that curveball is don't be surprised if the person who is charged is not the person that the DNA belongs to. And the reason I say that is they have to identify this person to find out who they are and their whereabouts that evening. You mean the DNA person? The DNA person. That's correct.

Who that DNA belongs to and where they were on the evening of September 6th into the morning of September 7th. Once they do that, they will be able to rule a person out that is obviously at the top of the list right now and make a determination based on the other evidence who could have killed Faith Hedgepeth. I'm hoping that happens, not only for Faith, but her family who is still here. Her sister commented on our Instagram the other day, thanking us as well for covering Faith's case and keeping it alive. That's why we do this. We do it because we do have a passion for investigations, but also because after these stories are told on television and all these other

things, they go away and you never hear about them really again until someone else covers them. So giving a deep look into it for our listeners, some of the people listening right now may have never heard of this and maybe they know something that nobody else knew about back then. So that's why we do it. And I know they're listening and we're thinking of them. My thoughts are definitely with them. I know yours as well. And I hope that something comes of this, whether it's from this podcast or something else out there. But for the family, we need to close this case. We need to find this person. And as far as the police saying it's not a matter of if, but when, I think that could also mean that they have somebody in mind. And the reason they most likely want to find out who that DNA belongs to is so, like you said,

they can eliminate them, but then they can bring the person that they actually think is responsible to court. And that person's lawyer isn't going to say, oh, well, there's this unknown DNA and that causes reasonable doubt. So my client is going to be ruled innocent because you can't figure out who that DNA belongs to. And while that's still an unknown, there could still be somebody out there who did this to faith. That's not my client. So I think the police want to rule that out and get that person to, you know, show where they were and that they weren't involved an alibi for that evening, well, they got problems. Yep. So we'll see how it all unfolds.

If anything changes in this case, we'll clearly keep you guys updated. But we appreciate you guys listening. We know this is a long one tonight. I'm sure you're going to have no issue with it. I want to thank Arlo West again for, on short notice, agreeing to speak with us. And again, thank you guys for listening. We really appreciate it. We appreciate your involvement and your engagement.

Make sure to follow us on social media, Twitter and Instagram. And that's most likely where you'll be seeing if we have updates on anything. We'll see you guys next week. Bye. Crime Weekly, presented by i-D, is a co-production by Audioboom and Main Event Media.