Chapel Hill police released new information on Tuesday regarding the homicide of UNC student Faith Hedgepeth. However, the information released was scant and, only a day later, the case records — including all search warrants, 911 calls and recordings related to the case —were resealed for 45 more days.
That investigators chose to release the suspect’s gender and probable past familiarity with Hedgepeth is a good step, and one that will hopefully help the public know how to assist in the investigation.
But for months, the public, including the victim’s family, has been kept in the dark about the case. If investigators want the public to help provide information, they need to release more revelatory information than just that the suspect is a male.
The continual absence of information so long after the tragedy has been disconcerting for the public and unfair to the family.
Understandably, some information will need to be kept private so as not to impede the investigation. But the investigation needs to foster more of a spirit of disclosure when possible.
For example, the fact that the profile of the suspect included the likelihood that he knew Hedgepeth is important — to both the sense of public safety and to helping those who may know something determine what information is significant.
All other aspects of the suspect profile, such as that he should be unaccounted for during the early morning hours of the night of the murder, that he may have made comments about the victim in the past and that his behavior may have changed since the night of the crime, seem self-evident.
