Man convicted of 2012 rape and murder of UNC student Faith Hedgepeth Miguel Salguero Olivares was convicted Friday of first-degree murder, rape and other charges in the 2012 killing of University of North Carolina student Faith Hedgepeth. He was sentenced to life in prison without parole plus 45 to 65 years. A man accused of killing a North Carolina college student 14 years ago was convicted Friday of first-degree murder, rape and other charges after prosecutors told jurors that forensic evidence was screaming his name. Miguel Salguero Olivares, 33, was then sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole on the murder charge plus 45 to 65 years on the other charges. Faith Hedgepeth was a 19-year-old sophomore at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill when she was beaten to death in her off-campus apartment in September 2012.Miguel Salguero Olivares Convicted Of MurderSalguero Olivares was arrested nine years later after being pulled over for driving while intoxicated and providing a DNA sample that prosecutors say matched evidence from the crime scene. He did not testify during the trial, and his attorneys rested their case without calling any witnesses. Jurors deliberated for six hours over two days before convicting him of murder, rape, sexual offense and burglary. Hedgepeth's mother, Connie Hedgepeth, told the judge that she forgave her daughter's killer long ago.She said it was just three weeks after her death that she knew she had to forgive, and that she does forgive, but her heart aches for his family. She called it a senseless and cruel act and said the family has to go on and trust God. Roland Hedgepeth, Faith's father, said losing his daughter was like having his heart ripped out.He called her a beacon of hope who was born at a low point in his life and admitted it had been easier over the past 5,158 days to say he forgave someone he did not know. He said today it got very real, but nevertheless he said without reservation that he forgives Miguel for what he did.Defense Attorney Questions Investigation TacticsDefense attorney James Rainsford called those statements powerful and kind and said he also could speak about his client and his client's family but decided not to. He said blending the two things was not what everybody needs at this point. In closing arguments Thursday, defense attorneys accused investigators of having tunnel vision in assuming that their client was a monster and not a 19-year-old boy who had consensual sex with the victim days before her death.Prosecutors urged jurors to rely on DNA evidence instead of distractions from the defense team. We know who did it. The forensic evidence is screaming his name, said prosecutor Angela Garcia-Lamarca, who described the uncurable agony Hedgepeth's family has endured. She said that when the defendant brought that bottle down on her head and she started to bleed, that was the start of a bleeding that still has not stopped.She said he sentenced her to death and sentenced everybody else who loved her to life, and that there was no one there to protect her or stop him until now. Nearly two dozen witnesses testified for the prosecution, including crime scene technicians, state and local law enforcement, a DNA expert and Hedgepeth's friends. Hedgepeth's roommate, Karena Rosario, testified that she was drunk and sick when Hedgepeth drove them home from a club around 2 a.m. that Sept. 7.She said she later called a friend to pick her up, leaving Hedgepeth in the apartment alone. She returned hours later to find her roommate's body. Prosecutors suggested Salguero Olivares may have attended a barbecue hosted by Hedgepeth's neighbor that night, unsuccessfully hit on the young women in the parking lot and then returned, embarrassed and angry, after Rosario left.No witnesses corroborated that theory, but Garcia-Lamarca told jurors that they do not have to believe that to know he is guilty. An autopsy showed Hedgepeth suffered extensive skull fractures and cuts to her face and head, and she was also badly beaten on her arms and legs. He beat her until her skull cracked like an egg, special prosecutor Lisa Coltrane said in her portion of the closing arguments.Forensic Evidence Links Defendant To Crime SceneShe said that is what the last moments of this vibrant young woman's life was. Experts testified that the defendant's fingerprints and palm print were found on a wine bottle at the scene and that his DNA was found in Hedgepeth's body, on a note written on a fast-food bag found at the scene and on a rum bottle covered in blood that investigators identified as the weapon in the killing.Erin Ermish, a forensic scientist with the state crime lab, said DNA swabbed from Hedgepeth's body was 170 septillion times more likely to be a mixture of DNA from Hedgepeth and Salguero Olivares than from Hedgepeth and an unknown individual. One septillion is a 1 followed by 24 zeros.DNA Evidence Statistical Probability ExplainedIn contrast, NASA estimates the entire universe contains only 1 septillion stars. Ermish also said the DNA mixture from the top of the rum bottle was 48.6 tredecillion times more likely to be from Hedgepeth and Salguero Olivares than from two unknown, unrelated individuals. One tredecillion is a 1 followed by 42 zeros. Defense attorneys questioned Rosario's account of that night, the processing of the crime scene and the reliability of some DNA evidence.They pointed out that police failed to search some areas of the apartment and later lost some possible blood evidence and emphasized that DNA from sexual intercourse can remain for days afterward. Maybe he was living the same life as other 19- and 20-year-old children that we have heard about in this case, defense attorney Jason Murphy said. Maybe he had too much to drink, maybe he forgot about an encounter. But special prosecutor Lisa Coltrane dismissed that as noise.She said that no matter what kind of mistakes were made or things that were missed, it does not erase the palm print and it does not somehow lift the DNA out of Faith. She said investigators did not talk to every single person in Chapel Hill, and it does not matter, because they still got the guy because he left his DNA like confetti all over that room.