Can you imagine the type of media coverage a Rae Carruth style story would get in 2010?
Many people only remember vaguely what a cold blooded and heartless crime it was.
To refresh your memory Carruth was a successful NFL wide receiver for the Carolina Panthers in the late 90’s. His eight month pregnant girlfriend at the time Cherica Adams was brutally shot four times in a drive by shooting.
Doctors were able to deliver the baby Chancellor Lee Adams who is now 11 and suffers from a mental disability specifically because of the trauma of the shooting. Miss Adams survived for a month, before passing away.
Before she died she was able to identified Carruth as the mastermind behind the attack, but Carruth who was convicted is now saying he was wrongly put in jail.
This is a guy who proclaims to be innocent but was hiding in a trunk when the police finally caught up with him.
Here are the details:
Cherica Adams, was shot four times in a drive-by. According to Adams, who survived for a month after the shooting, Carruth pulled his vehicle in front of her vehicle near his home in Charlotte, N.C., blocking her path. Another vehicle pulled up beside her and the passenger fired shots in to her car. Both Carruth and the other vehicle fled from the scene.
He was convicted of conspiracy to commit murder, shooting in to an occupied vehicle and using an instrument to destroy an unborn child and was sentenced to 18 to 24 years in prison in 2001.
Carruth and his attorneys argue that the statements Adams made to paramedics, nurses and police, saying that Carruth was responsible for shooting her, should not have been used in the 2001 trial because Adams couldn’t be cross-examined. A three-judge panel heard the arguments this week but a ruling won’t come down for a couple of months. Carruth, now 36, is scheduled to be released in 2018.
I always thought Carruth got off light. I remember watching the entire trial, it was clear to me that he was involved and was the one who masterminded the plot.
His intent was to make sure that his girlfriend and his child were dead by the end of that night in my opinion. He should be serving life in prison, but he is likely to be released before he is 50, which is a crime itself.
Hopefully the judges listening to his appeal agree.