Thrown For A Loss

CALLER: He was in the air in front of me, and he slowed down, and somebody pulled up besides me and did this.

MEDIC: And then where'd he go?

CALLER: He just left.

MEDIC: Okay. Alright, what's his name?

CALLER: Rae Carruth. He plays for the Panthers.

If it hadn't been before, one thing became clear as Rae Carruth's trial for the murder of Cherica Adams began last week in Charlotte: The former Carolina receiver is in the fight of his life.

The state's case is that Carruth, injured, fearing the end of his NFL paydays and loath to take on the expense of supporting a second out-of-wedlock child, planned the Nov. 16, 1999, fatal shooting of Adams, who was 6� months pregnant with their son. The prosecution also asserts that Carruth hired a career criminal, Van Brett Watkins, to carry out the murder.

The defense suggests that Adams was the victim of a drug deal gone bad. Carruth's lawyers contend that Watkins and another man, Michael Kennedy, had approached Carruth seeking $5,000 to finance a marijuana deal and that after Carruth turned them down, the two went looking for him to ask him to reconsider. Watkins, according to the defense, ended up shooting Adams in a rage.

The prosecution's star witness was expected to be the victim. Indeed, the voice of Adams, who delivered a boy, Chancellor, by cesarean section hours after the shooting but died of multiple gunshot wounds four weeks later, came through loud and clear. During the first day of testimony prosecutors played a 12-minute tape of the 911 call (including the excerpt above) she made immediately after the shooting. That call placed Carruth at the scene and supported the prosecution's claim that he had helped ambush Adams.

The prosecution then unveiled a surprise witness: Kennedy. As the driver of the car carrying the confessed triggerman, Watkins, Kennedy faces capital murder charges. Without benefit of a plea bargain and taking the stand over the objections of his lawyer, he testified that Carruth gave him $100 to buy the murder weapon; that Carruth set up the ambush by calling Kennedy to alert him that he and Adams were leaving Carruth's house in separate vehicles; and that Carruth, in his Ford Expedition, slowed to a stop in front of Adams's BMW, allowing Kennedy to pull alongside Adams. Kennedy said Watkins then fired "four, maybe five" shots into the car.