Sep 07, 2018 · Rudolf served as Carruth’s primary defense attorney during his murder trial and said he got permission to share additional details about the shooting from Carruth after a …
Feb 18, 2019 · Carruth’s lawyer David Rudolf argued that Carruth was in a drug deal gone bad. His legal team claimed that Carruth had refused to fund a drug deal with Watkins, so he suddenly shot Adams in a sudden rage after she “flipped him off.” Carruth did not testify during the trial.
September 5, 2018, 2:30 PM. Rae Carruth sits at the defense table during his 2001 murder trial. (AP) Many years after the fact, with Rae Carruth close to being released from prison, Carruth’s ...
Oct 22, 2018 · CHARLOTTE, N.C. — After nearly two decades in prison, Rae Carruth is about to be a free man. As for his immediate future, he's planning to get into a …
Rae Carruth | |
---|---|
Conviction(s) | January 22, 2001 |
Criminal charge | Conspiracy to commit first degree murder, shooting into an occupied vehicle, using an instrument to destroy an unborn child |
Penalty | 18 years, 11 months |
Football career |
Rae Carruth's attorney shares new details about death of Cherica Adams. CHARLOTTE, N.C. — The attorney for former Carolina Panther Rae Carruth said his client was at the scene when his pregnant girlfriend was shot four times and killed in 1999. Attorney David Rudolf said Carruth is adamant he did not set up the murder of Cherica Adams.
Rudolf told Channel 9 that Carruth said he was in the car in front of Adams on Rea Road the night she was killed, and that when he saw another vehicle pull up, he got scared because he thought someone was after him because he had backed out of a drug deal with Bret Watkins and Michael Kennedy.
In 1999, Panthers wide receiver Rae Carruth was acccused in the shooting death of his pregnant girlfriend.
That's something Carruth never admitted until he met with his attorney in July. "Rae was very worried that, in fact, that car that was pulling out was, in fact, not pulling out to pass Cherica," Rudolf said. "That car was pulling out, in fact, to do something to him.".
Rudolf said Carruth took off and didn't see Watkins fire five shots into Adams' window. “I mean, he didn't know,” Rudolf said. “He took off. That's the bottom line here.”. Carruth never testified at his trial so prosecutors didn’t get the chance to grill him on his version of the events.
Rae Carruth grew up in Sacramento, California, and played football for the University of Colorado. He was picked by the Carolina Panthers as a wide receiver in the 1997 National Football League draft, and signed a four-year contract for a total of almost three and three-quarter million dollars.
Carruth was released on a $3 million bond on December 6. Eight days later Cherica Adams died of multiple organ system failure resulting from the gunshot wounds, and the charge of first-degree murder was added to others faced by Carruth and the other three codefendants.
Jury selection began on October 23, 2000, and lasted almost a month, resulting in a panel of seven men and five women. As a part of its opening statement on November 20, the prosecution played the tape of Cherica Adams' emergency call.
After 11 weeks and 70 witnesses, closing arguments were heard on January 15, 2001. The prosecution played the 911 tape again, and emphasized the record of the long series of phone calls between Carruth and Van Brett Watkins during the weeks before the shooting.
Ex-NFL player Rae Carruth was released from prison Monday morning after spending nearly two decades behind bars on charges stemming from the murder of his pregnant girlfriend. Carruth, a former wide receiver for the Carolina Panthers, was sentenced to 18 to 24 years in 2001 after a jury found him guilty of conspiring to murder Cherica Adams.
Watkins, who pleaded guilty to second-degree murder, was sentenced to a minimum of 40 years in prison.
Adams, 24, was following Carruth in a separate vehicle after a movie when Watkins and Kennedy pulled up beside her. Prosecutors said Carruth used his vehicle to block Adams ' car while Watkins opened fire on her.