By the CNN Wire Staff
CHAPEL HILL (CNN) — Police are investigating the killing of a 19-year-old University of North Carolina student and are questioning those who last saw her, a police spokesman said Tuesday.
The death of Faith Hedgepeth was an “obvious homicide,” Chapel Hill police Sgt. Josh Mecimore told CNN, but investigators are still waiting for an official determination of the cause. There are no suspects in custody, he said.
Friends found Hedgepeth dead Friday morning at her apartment off campus, police said. She was a member of North Carolina’s Haliwa-Saponi Native American tribe, and the UNC American Indian Center, where she was a volunteer, held a candlelight vigil for her Monday night.
“Although the police have not determined the cause of death, they also said they do not believe that this was a random act,” UNC officials said in a statement on her death. “Law enforcement officials do not believe that there is danger to other students, faculty or staff.”
Hedgepeth’s death comes four and a half years after the slaying of UNC student body president Eve Carson, who was killed after being kidnapped and forced to take money out of an automatic teller machine, police said. Two men are serving life in prison in connection with her March 2008 killing.
CNN’s Rick Martin contributed to this report.
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