Rae Theotis Carruth (born Rae Lamar Wiggins; January 20, 1974) is a former

American football American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team with ...

wide receiver, and convicted murderer. After playing

college football College football (french: Football universitaire) refers to gridiron football played by teams of student athletes. It was through college football play that American football rules first gained popularity in the United States. Unlike most ...

Colorado Colorado (, other variants) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It encompasses most of the Southern Rocky Mountains, as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of t ...

, Carruth was drafted in the first round of the

1997 NFL Draft The 1997 NFL Draft was the procedure by which National Football League teams selected amateur college football players. It is officially known as the NFL Annual Player Selection Meeting. The draft was held April 19–20, 1997, at the Paramount T ...

by the

Carolina Panthers The Carolina Panthers are a professional American football team based in Charlotte, North Carolina. The Panthers compete in the National Football League (NFL), as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) South division. T ...

of the

National Football League The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the ...

(NFL) and spent three seasons with the team. In 2001, he was found guilty of conspiring to murder his then-girlfriend Cherica Adams, who was pregnant with his child. Including pre-trial confinement, he served 18 years of an 18-to-24-year sentence in the North Carolina state

prison A prison, also known as a jail, gaol (dated, standard English, Australian, and historically in Canada), penitentiary (American English and Canadian English), detention center (or detention centre outside the US), correction center, correc ...

system and was released from the Sampson Correctional Institution in

Clinton, North Carolina Clinton is a city in, and the county seat of, Sampson County, North Carolina, United States. The population of Clinton is 8,639 according to the 2010 Census. Clinton is named for Richard Clinton, a Brigadier General of the North Carolina mili ...

, on October 22, 2018.

Early life

Born and raised in

Sacramento, California ) , image_map = Sacramento County California Incorporated and Unincorporated areas Sacramento Highlighted.svg , mapsize = 250x200px , map_caption = Location within Sacramento C ...

, Carruth attended Valley High School. He was accepted on a football scholarship to the

University of Colorado Boulder The University of Colorado Boulder (CU Boulder, CU, or Colorado) is a public research university in Boulder, Colorado. Founded in 1876, five months before Colorado became a state, it is the flagship university of the University of Colorado syst ...

, in Boulder, Colorado.

College career

He played four seasons for the Buffaloes and was named a first-team All-American in

1996 File:1996 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: A Centennial Olympic Park bombing, bomb explodes at Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta, set off by a radical Anti-abortion violence, anti-abortionist; The center fuel tank explodes on TWA Flight 8 ...

. His

quarterback The quarterback (commonly abbreviated "QB"), colloquially known as the "signal caller", is a position in gridiron football. Quarterbacks are members of the offensive platoon and mostly line up directly behind the offensive line. In modern Ame ...

s at CU were future pros

Koy Detmer Koy Dennis Detmer (born July 5, 1973) is a former American football quarterback. He was drafted by the Philadelphia Eagles in the seventh round of the 1997 NFL Draft. He played college football at Colorado. He is the younger brother of former NF ...

and

Kordell Stewart Kordell Stewart (born October 16, 1972) is a former American football quarterback who played in the National Football League (NFL) for 11 seasons, primarily with the Pittsburgh Steelers. Nicknamed "Slash", he played college football at Colorad ...

. Carruth earned his degree with a double major in

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

. Carruth caught 135 passes for 2,540 yards and 11 touchdowns in his four seasons, with an average of 18.8 yards per catch.

Professional career

Carruth was a first-round draft pick in the

, taken by the

with the 27th overall selection. He signed a four-year, $3.7 million deal that included a $1.3 million signing bonus. Carruth had a respectable rookie season in

1997 File:1997 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The movie set of ''Titanic'', the highest-grossing movie in history at the time; ''Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone'', is published; Comet Hale-Bopp passes by Earth and becomes one of t ...

and started 14 games. Wearing uniform number 89, he caught 44 passes for 545 yards and four touchdown passes, tied for first among rookie receivers. He was named to the all-rookie team at wide receiver. He broke his right foot in the opening game of

1998 1998 was designated as the ''International Year of the Ocean''. Events January * January 6 – The '' Lunar Prospector'' spacecraft is launched into orbit around the Moon, and later finds evidence for frozen water, in soil in permanently ...

, and did not catch another pass that season due to the injury. He ended the year with four catches for 59 yards (all on opening day). He played in the first six games of the

1999 File:1999 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The funeral procession of King Hussein of Jordan in Amman; the 1999 İzmit earthquake kills over 17,000 people in Turkey; the Columbine High School massacre, one of the first major school shootin ...

season, with 14 catches for 200 yards.

Personal life

During Carruth's sophomore year at Colorado, his girlfriend, Michelle Wright, gave birth to their son Rae Jr. Wright sued him for child support, and Wright later testified that Carruth agreed to pay $2,700 in child support, half of what he was ordered to pay by a judge, and she had accepted on condition that he be a better father.

Crimes

On November 16, 1999, near Carruth's home in

Charlotte, North Carolina Charlotte ( ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of North Carolina. Located in the Piedmont region, it is the county seat of Mecklenburg County. The population was 874,579 at the 2020 census, making Charlotte the 16th-most populo ...

, Cherica Adams, a real estate agent he had been casually dating, was shot four times using a .357 caliber

Charter Arms Charter Arms Co. is an American manufacturer of revolvers. Since its founding in 1964, Charter Arms has produced revolvers chambered in the following calibers: .22 Long Rifle, .22 Winchester Magnum, .32 Long, .32 H&R Magnum, .327 Federal Magn ...

revolver by Van Brett Watkins Sr., a

nightclub A nightclub (music club, discothèque, disco club, or simply club) is an entertainment venue during nighttime comprising a dance floor, lightshow, and a stage for live music or a disc jockey (DJ) who plays recorded music. Nightclubs gener ...

manager and an associate of Carruth. Adams managed to call 911, and said that Carruth had stopped his vehicle in front of hers, and that another vehicle drove alongside and its passenger had shot her. Carruth then drove away from the scene.''Investigative Reports'' episode, A&E Adams was eight months pregnant with Carruth's child at the time. Soon after her admission to the hospital, she fell into a coma. Doctors delivered the baby via emergency

caesarean section Caesarean section, also known as C-section or caesarean delivery, is the surgical procedure by which one or more babies are delivered through an incision in the mother's abdomen, often performed because vaginal delivery would put the baby or mo ...

. Carruth went to the police and posted $3 million bail, on condition that if either Adams or the infant died, he would turn himself in. Adams died on December 14, 1999. The baby, named Chancellor Lee Adams, survived, but suffered permanent

brain damage Neurotrauma, brain damage or brain injury (BI) is the destruction or degeneration of brain cells. Brain injuries occur due to a wide range of internal and external factors. In general, brain damage refers to significant, undiscriminating t ...

and

cerebral palsy Cerebral palsy (CP) is a group of movement disorders that appear in early childhood. Signs and symptoms vary among people and over time, but include poor coordination, stiff muscles, weak muscles, and tremors. There may be problems with sensa ...

as a result of being without oxygen for 70 minutes before he was born. Chancellor Lee graduated from

Vance High School Julius L. Chambers High School, is a high school located in Charlotte, North Carolina, United States. It is part of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg School System, and opened in 1997. The sports teams are known as the Cougars. Besides providing th ...

in 2021 at age 21. Carruth quickly fled after Adams' death, but was captured on December 15 in

West Tennessee West Tennessee is one of the three Grand Divisions (Tennessee), Grand Divisions of the U.S. state of Tennessee that roughly comprises the western quarter of the state. The region includes 21 counties between the Tennessee River, Tennessee and Miss ...

, found hiding in the trunk of a car outside a motel in Parkers Crossroads. The trunk also contained $3,900 cash, bottles of his urine, extra clothes, candy bars, and a cell phone. The Panthers waived him on December 16, citing a

morals clause A morality clause (also known as a morals clause, bad boy clause or bad girl clause) is a provision within instruments of a contract which curtail, or restrain, or proscribe certain behavior of individuals or party(s) to the contract. A moral clau ...

in his contract, and the NFL suspended him indefinitely on December 17. At trial, prosecutors contended that Carruth hired Watkins and others to murder Adams because of her refusal to abort their unborn child. Carruth's lawyer David Rudolf claimed that Carruth had been caught up in a drug deal gone bad. They claimed that on the night of the shooting, after Carruth had refused to fund the drug deal, Watkins shot Adams in a sudden rage when she "flipped him off" after he had attempted to ask her about Carruth's whereabouts. Carruth was found guilty of

conspiracy A conspiracy, also known as a plot, is a secret plan or agreement between persons (called conspirers or conspirators) for an unlawful or harmful purpose, such as murder or treason, especially with political motivation, while keeping their agree ...

to commit

murder Murder is the unlawful killing of another human without justification (jurisprudence), justification or valid excuse (legal), excuse, especially the unlawful killing of another human with malice aforethought. ("The killing of another person wit ...

, shooting into an occupied vehicle, and using an instrument to destroy an unborn child. He was found not guilty of first-degree murder, and was spared the

death penalty Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to conclude that t ...

. He was sentenced to 18 to 24 years in prison. Van Brett Watkins Sr., was sentenced to prison for a minimum of 40 years, 8 months and a maximum 50 years, 8 months for the murder of Cherica Adams. Carruth sent a letter in 2018 apologizing to Saundra Adams, the mother of Cherica Adams, via

WBTV WBTV (channel 3) is a television station in Charlotte, North Carolina, United States, affiliated with CBS and owned by Gray Television. The station's studios are located off Morehead Street, just west of Uptown Charlotte, and its transmitter is ...

, for accusing her of lying about him in interviews for years. Carruth was released on October 22, 2018, after serving 18 years.

References

External links

Rae Carruth murder case compendiumNorth Carolina Department of Correction Public Access Information System - Rae Carruth
* *TruTV serie
Mugshots: Rae Carruth - NFL Hitman
episode published by

FilmRise FilmRise is a New York City–based film and television studio and streaming network, which has become one of the largest independent providers of content to ad-supported streaming (AVOD) platforms, in addition to providing the largest free direc ...

Crime in Sports #001 - Did Tracy Morgan Shoot a Pregnant Woman? - The Saga of Rae Carruth
{{DEFAULTSORT:Carruth, Rae 1974 births Living people 21st-century American criminals African-American players of American football American football wide receivers American male criminals American people convicted of murder American sportspeople convicted of crimes Carolina Panthers players Colorado Buffaloes football players Crime in North Carolina Criminals from California People convicted of murder by North Carolina Players of American football from Sacramento, California Prisoners and detainees of North Carolina 21st-century African-American sportspeople 20th-century African-American sportspeople Sportspeople convicted of murder