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Carruth trial: Day 29 Prosecutor quotes Adams, plays 911 tape
Updated: Tuesday January 16, 2001 12:21 AM
CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) -- Jurors in former football player Rae Carruth's murder trial must concentrate on the words of the woman whose death he's accused of masterminding, a prosecutor said in closing arguments Monday. But the defense, which concluded final arguments late Monday, cited testimony that it said raised reasonable doubt. Judge Charles Lamm was expected to instruct jurors Tuesday after the prosecution rebuttal. Carruth, 26, could get the death penalty if convicted of murdering Cherica Adams, who was eight months pregnant with his child when she was shot on Nov. 16, 1999. She died a month later but the boy, Carruth's second child, survived and lives with Adams' mother. Prosecutors contend Carruth, then a receiver for the Carolina Panthers, arranged the shooting to avoid having to pay child support. In a 911 call, the 24-year-old Adams said Carruth's car slowed down in front of hers before she was shot from another car. In notes she wrote from her hospital bed, Adams said Carruth stopped his car, blocking her vehicle, rather than slowed down. "She's the voice saying to you that Carruth did this, he's guilty," prosecutor Gentry Caudill told jurors as he played a recording of her call. "In the last few weeks, I contend we've seen an effort to make her go away, to disappear," Caudill said. The defense witnesses were merely diversions "to get your mind off of the evidence against that man right there, Rae Carruth," he said.
Defense attorney David Rudolf argued, however, that testimony in the trial provided the reasonable doubt jurors need to exonerate Carruth, especially the testimony of a jailer who said a co-defendant told her Carruth was not involved. "Let me say just loud and clear from my heart, Rae Carruth is innocent of the charges. He is innocent of the charges," Rudolf said. Rudolf said Adams was scared, in pain and suffering from massive internal bleeding when she made the 911 call. "That's the context in which we have to think about the reliability of, how much weight in a capital murder case, we're going to put on the 911 call," he said. The judge's instructions limit the jury to either a first-degree murder conviction or acquittal, with no option for reduced charges such as second-degree murder. Under North Carolina law, a defendant can be convicted of first-degree murder if there is premeditation or if the killing is committed during another felony. The defense claims Adams was shot by a drug dealer, Van Brett Watkins, who was angry at Carruth over a drug deal and then became enraged at Adams when she made an obscene gesture. Rudolf defended the credibility of Sgt. Shirley Riddle, the jailer who testified that Watkins told her that he shot Adams. "The shooting of Cherica Adams was in fact an act of senseless, mindless rage by Van Brett Watkins," Rudolf said. "It had nothing to do with Cherica Adams' pregnancy. It had nothing to do with Rae Carruth hiring anyone to do anything." He cited Watkins' erratic behavior on the witness stand, saying it was proof that he could become enraged enough to shoot someone.
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Rae Carruth Murder Trial Archive