CHARLOTTE, N.C. — When Former Carolina Panther Rae Carruth walks out of prison on Monday, he has no plans to return to North Carolina, according to his attorney.
The wide receiver has spent 18 years behind bars for conspiring the murder of his then-pregnant girlfriend, Cherica Adams. His son, Chancellor Lee Adams, survived the attack after an emergency cesarean delivery. Carruth hopes to establish a relationship with the boy he hasn’t seen in 17 years.
NBC Charlotte set out to see where the other key players in the infamous case are now.
Carruth was the first active NFL player ever charged with first-degree murder. He was arrested Thanksgiving Day, 1999 and sent to Central Prison in Raleigh, where he slept on a top bunk with a Bible -- one of the few things he was able to take.
Known drug dealer Michael Kennedy was the man who claimed Carruth paid him to buy the gun used in the killing. He was driving the car that night.
Kennedy was the first defendant in Mecklenburg County history to take the stand without a plea deal.
Kennedy’s gamble to testify without a plea deal paid off. He got just 10 years in prison and was released in 2011. Court documents show he still lives in Mecklenburg County.
Van Brett Watkins, now 58, was the admitted triggerman in the plan.
WCNC talked to him from behind bars at the Craven Correctional Institution years ago. Reports say he has become a practicing Muslim.
"Remember this man here who people called crazy and everything else today the truth, showed remorse and deeply cares," Watkins said in the aforementioned interview.
Watkins will be in jail until at least 2046 when he will be 85.
Saundra Adams, Cherica Adams' mother, has been raising her daughter’s son since his birth.
"A lot of times people will say why me, why me, why did this happen," Saundra Adams' said. "I feel so blessed to have Lee...Chancellor in my life.”
Chancellor was born with cerebral palsy after his mother was shot. When his father walks out of prison, Chancellor will be just five years younger than his mother was when she was killed.
