After roughly nine days of prosecution evidence, defense attorney James Rainsford told Judge Keith Gregory on Wednesday that he did not plan to present any evidence or call witnesses in the trial of Miguel Salguero-Olivares, who is charged with murder, rape and burglary in the 2012 killing of UNC-Chapel Hill sophomore Faith Hedgepeth.

Salguero-Olivares told the judge directly, 'I am not going to testify,' confirming he understood that once the defense rests he cannot change his mind.

Prosecutors reacted with visible surprise; WRAL reports special prosecutor Lisa Coltrane told the court the state had been told in opening statements, in chambers and on the record that defense evidence was coming, and that two defense witnesses had actually been called to appear that morning.

Judge Gregory denied a defense motion to dismiss all charges, and jurors were sent home after the defense formally rested in front of them.

The surprise rest triggered a consequential legal dispute over who argues last. Under North Carolina practice, a defense that presents no evidence generally earns the right to make the final closing argument — the last word with the jury.

Judge Gregory said he remembered warning Rainsford on Monday that introducing exhibits without the jury present would sacrifice that right, which Rainsford said he did not recall, arguing the opposite would violate his client's constitutional rights.

The judge ruled that because the exhibit was offered outside the jury's presence, the defense kept its right to the final argument.

WRAL reports Gregory said that stripping the defense of the last word could risk a conviction being overturned by the North Carolina Court of Appeals — a risk he was unwilling to take. Prosecutors did not object.

Hedgepeth, a 19-year-old sophomore, was found beaten to death in her off-campus apartment near the Durham-Chapel Hill border on September 7, 2012.

The case went unsolved until September 16, 2021, when Chapel Hill police arrested Salguero-Olivares after thousands of interviews and hundreds of DNA tests.

Prosecutors contend he entered the apartment after roommate Karena Rosario left, sexually assaulted Hedgepeth and beat her to death with a glass rum bottle, centering their case on DNA they say links him to her body, the bottle, boxer shorts and a white paper bag bearing a handwritten message.

The defense has questioned what that DNA and fingerprint evidence establishes about timing, challenged collection and testing methods, and pointed to a missing sample from a suspected bloodstain near the bathroom doorframe, per the News & Observer.

After the defense rested, the judge and attorneys spent several hours in a charge conference working through the instructions jurors will receive before deliberations, covering how to judge witness credibility and the elements of each charge.

The jury will consider first-degree murder, second-degree murder or not guilty, along with first-degree rape, first-degree sexual offense and first-degree burglary or not guilty, according to the News & Observer's trial coverage. WRAL reports closing arguments are set to begin Thursday at 9:30 a.m.

The day also carried echoes of the case's messy record: SBI agent Justin Heinrich had corrected his own testimony, acknowledging that a handwriting sample he attributed to Salguero-Olivares was actually a widely circulated internet meme.