Murder in the End Zone: The Shocking Case of Ray Carruth

Judy
00:00:00

Foreign hey, fangirls, I'm your host, Judy. And today we're diving into a story that changed the NFL forever.

It's about an NFL player who had everything, money, fame, a promising career, and threw it all away in one of the most calculated murders I've ever researched. This case is from 1999, but. But here's why we're talking about it now. It fundamentally changed how the NFL handles player conduct.

And the aftermath of this story, it's still unfolding today in ways that will break your heart and also give you hope. This is the story of the Panthers wide receiver Ray Carruth and Cherica Adams.

Before we get into that tragic night in Charlotte, we need to talk about who these people were. Let's go back to Sacramento, California, where our story begins. The year is 1974, and a baby boy is born, Ray Lamar Wiggins.

He later takes his mother's name, Carruth. Okay, and this is where we need to talk about Ray's childhood, because it sets up everything that comes later. Southern Sacramento in the 1980s.

And I mean the rough part, we're talking the kind of neighborhood where burning cars wasn't just vandalism, it was entertainment. That's where Ray spent most of his time, in his mom's house, right in the middle of all of this. And here's what's wild.

When he wasn't there, he was at his older sister's place. Now, her neighborhood, slightly better, but still rough enough that every window had bars on it. I mean, how's that for foreshadowing?

Because those bars, they're basically a preview of where Ray would spend his adult years. But here's the thing. In this whole situation, Ray's the only boy in the family.

No dad in the picture, just a mom who is doing everything she can to make sure her son has a shot at something better. She's watching him like a hawk, pushing him to be better, to get out of there. But sometimes, sometimes the neighborhood wins anyway.

And football, it wasn't just something he played. He was incredible at it. Picture a high school kid maintaining a 3.7 GPA while becoming a star athlete.

We're talking about someone who seemed to have everything figured out, with colleges literally lining up to recruit him. This is important because what happens later? This isn't a story about someone who didn't know any better or didn't have other options.

He makes it to the University of Colorado on a full scholarship, and in college, he's just phenomenal. But this is where we start seeing the first red flags.

In 1994, while still in college, Carruth has his first child with Michelle wright, who was 18 and still in high school back in Sacramento. And his behavior here becomes this pattern. We'll see over and over. He basically wants nothing to do with the baby, falls behind on child support.

What makes this even more shocking is that in 1997, the Carolina Panthers make him their first round draft pick, 27th overall. They sign him to a four year contract worth 3.7 million. We're talking about life changing money here. His rookie season is actually really promising.

He's catching passes, scoring touchdowns, living what looks like the perfect NFL dream. But off the field, that's where things get complicated.

While he's dealing with all this child support drama, Carruth becomes a known figure in Charlotte's social scene, dating multiple women at once. He'd meet them at charity events, clubs, even at church. His former teammates would later say he could be incredibly charming when he wanted to be.

And the violence. While he wasn't physically violent with these other women, multiple women later came forward to talk about his controlling behavior.

There was this pattern. He'd get really intense really quickly, then start trying to control every aspect of their lives.

One woman who later asked for anonymity said he would show up at her workplace unannounced, just to check on her. But then Cherica Adams enters the picture and she was different from his typical relationships.

You need to understand who Cherica was, because it's crucial to this story. She was this incredibly independent 24 year old real estate agent, beautiful. She'd done some modeling work, but she was also really ambitious.

She had her own money, her own career, her own life. She wasn't impressed by the fact that Carruth was an NFL player.

They meet at this pool party in 1998, and friends say Sharika wasn't even that interested at first. But Carruth pursues her and they start this casual relationship. It's not exclusive.

Cherika's friends say she was dating other people too, which apparently drove Carruth crazy. And here's what's so hypocritical. While he's getting jealous about Sharika dating others, he's still seeing at least two other women.

One of them, Amber Turner, would later testify at his trial about how he pressured her to get an abortion when she got pregnant. Let me tell you about Carruth's life in Charlotte because this gets really interesting. He wasn't your typical NFL player, living large.

His teammates actually described him as pretty quiet, kind of a loner. But here's the thing. He had this whole other life when it came to women. Let's start with Michelle Wright, who had his first child.

Even after signing that multimillion dollar NFL contract, Carruth was constantly behind on child support. Think about this. Someone making 38,000 per week during the season, fighting over paying 3,000amonth for his child.

Everything changes when Sharika gets pregnant in early 1999. Carruth's first reaction. He offers her money for an abortion, but Cherica refuses. She's financially stable, has a support system and wants this baby.

And this is where we see Carruth go through this bizarre transformation. At first he's angry. Then he seems to accept it. He starts showing up at her doctor's appointments, buying baby things.

But her friends say something feels off. Cherica starts telling her mom, Sondra about these weird conversations.

Carruth keeps bringing up his child support payments for his first kid, complaining about how much money he's losing. He starts asking really specific questions about her insurance, about her will.

Looking back, it's like he was gathering information in the months before the shooting. He does this complete 180. He starts being super nice, taking her on dates, acting like the perfect boyfriend.

But he's also asking her to do weird things, like always following his car in her car instead of riding together and fangirls. This detail becomes crucial later. And this is where things really start falling apart.

Because you've got Ray's football career, the one thing he was supposed to be good at, just crumbling. First, he's dealing with these injuries that keep him off the field. But then, even when he's healthy enough to play, he's riding the bench.

His performance is tanking. But here's the thing that's going to matter later. While he's losing his grip on football, he's finding new friends.

And I don't mean the kind of friends his mom back in Sacramento would have approved of. We're talking about guys who are into violence, who are comfortable with crime. Remember that close watch his mom kept on him in high school?

That's gone now. There's no one monitoring his choices, no one steering him away from these dangerous connections.

And these new friends, they're about to play a huge role in what happens next during this whole nice boyfriend phase. Phone records would later show he's meeting with one of these thugs, Van Bret Watkins.

He's literally planning her murder while buying baby clothes with her. In the months leading up to the shooting, Chericastarts keeping this diary.

When police found it later, it painted this really disturbing Picture of how Carruth was manipulating everything. In May 1999, when Cherika is about three months pregnant, Carruth starts this whole new routine.

He's suddenly super interested in her doctor's appointments. But here's the weird thing.

He always insists on meeting her there, never driving together at first, Sharika actually writes in her diary that she thinks it's sweet, like he's making an effort to be involved while respecting her independence. But her mom, Sondre, she's seeing red flags everywhere. There's this really chilling entry from August 1999.

Cherica writes about how Carruth keeps bringing up his life insurance policy, asking about hers, wanting to know who her beneficiaries are. And in September, he starts taking her on these weird late night drives. Always wants her to follow him in her car.

Always picks these dark, less traveled roads. He tells her it's romantic, like their own little thing. But he's actually rehearsing the murder.

Police later believed he was testing different routes, seeing which roads had the least traffic, the fewest witnesses. But here's something that makes it even worse. During this whole time, Cherica is planning their future.

Police found all these baby magazines in her house, nursery plans, even a little panther's jersey she'd bought for the baby. Now let's get to the night of November 16, 1999. Cherica and Carruth had just been to see the Bone Collector at Regal Cinema in South Charlotte.

Multiple people at the theater later remembered seeing them because they seemed off. One employee said they weren't talking to each other and they left separately, even though they'd arrived together.

It's about 12:30am and Cherica's following Carruth's car. He's in his white Expedition, she's in her black BMW. They're heading down Ria Road.

And this is important because Rhea Road at night is pretty dark, especially back in 99. She told her mom earlier that Carruth wanted to talk about the baby at his place. But here's what's chilling.

Phone records later showed that Carruth had been making calls to the shooter, Van Bret Watkins, all evening. He was coordinating everything. So they're driving down Rhea Road and suddenly Carruth stops his car, just stops in the middle of the road.

Cherica has to stop too, right? And that's when this black Nissan Maxima pulls up beside her.

Watkins is a passenger in the car and he shoots at her five times with his.38 and metal jacketed bullets. The bullets easily go through the glass of the BMW, striking her four times. The shooting Happens so fast.

But what makes this case so powerful is that Cherica, she manages to make this incredibly detailed 911 call. The 911 call comes in at exactly 12:31:54am the first words Cherica manages to say are, police, I've been shot. I've been shot.

She's somehow keeping it together enough to speak, even though she's been hit multiple times and she's eight months pregnant. The dispatcher asks her where she is. And y'all, this is what's so heartbreaking. Sharika is struggling just to figure out her location.

She knows she passed Calvary Church. She knows she's on Ray Road, but she's losing blood and getting disoriented. So what does she do? She starts honking her horn.

She's literally fighting for her life, and she has the presence of mind to try to help emergency services find her. But what Sharika says next, it blows the case wide open.

The medic asks her what happened, and she tells them, I was following my baby's daddy, Ray Carruth, the football player. Just like that. She names him. She describes his white expedition, even corrects herself about the color when she first says it's black.

And y'all, this call goes on for 12 minutes. 12 minutes while she's bleeding, while she's trying to stay conscious, while she's trying to keep herself and her unborn baby alive.

The medics are telling her to put pressure on her wounds. She's trying to give them better directions.

And then, and this is absolutely chilling, she tells them that the shooter's car has just driven past again. Think about that for a second. She's been shot multiple times.

She's losing blood, but she's still alert enough to notice the shooter's car coming back to the scene. And through all of this, she keeps updating the emergency responders about her condition.

At one point, she simply says, I'm bleeding, in this voice that just. And it'll break your heart when you hear it when help finally arrives. And remember, this is after 44 excruciating minutes.

Sharika has provided enough information to not only save her own life in that moment, but to ultimately solve her murder. Her incredible strength and presence of mind during that 911 call would become crucial evidence in convicting Ray Carruth.

The paramedics arrive at 12:48am they immediately realize this is critical. She has multiple gunshot wounds. She's eight months pregnant, and she's losing blood fast.

They make the decision to airlift her to Carolina's medical Center. And Carruth, he's gone. Remember his car? He drove away right after the shooting. But here's what's wild.

Surveillance cameras from a nearby business catch his white expedition circling back about 10 minutes later. He's literally driving past the crime scene. While emergency responders are working on Sharika.

During emergency surgery, doctors have to make an impossible choice. Sharika is losing so much blood, and the baby is in distress. They perform an emergency C section to save the baby. Chancellor Lee Adams.

Chancellor survives, but he's suffered severe brain damage from loss of oxygen. She fights for her life for another month. She's in and out of consciousness, but when she is awake, she's still helping the investigation.

She writes notes, confirms details, even helps police understand the sequence of events. Okay. And the way they finally catch Ray, it's wild. So nine days after the shooting, police show up at his door.

And because this is Ray we're talking about, he answers completely naked with some woman in his bedroom, like that's what he's doing. While Sharika is fighting for her life in the hospital, they arrest him. But his mom posts his bail. And this is where it gets crazy.

Ray decides to run. But here's the thing about running from your mom. When she's posted your bail, she is not about to lose that money. So what does she do?

She turns him in. And where do they find him? In the trunk of a car at this sketchy motel in Tennessee. Not exactly the 5 star treatment an NFL player is used to, right?

He's got some snacks, a cell phone, and about 4,000 in cash stuffed in there with him. But clearly he wasn't counting on his own mother choosing justice over protecting him.

The trial starts in October 2000, and this becomes one of the most watched trials in North Carolina history. What makes it even more complicated is that there are actually four separate trials because Carruth wasn't working alone.

You have Ray Carruth, Van Bret Watkins, the triggerman, Michael Kennedy, who drove the car, and Stanley Abraham, who was in the back seat during the shooting. Van Brett Watkins, this guy with a serious criminal record, takes a plea deal pretty early on.

He agrees to testify against Carruth, and his story is shocking. He tells the jury that Carruth paid him $6,000 to kill Cherica and the baby. Remember, Carruth is making millions at this point.

But what the jury never heard was Watkins's whole history of violence. He'd been involved in multiple shootings before this and was actually known as a hitman in certain circles.

In Charlotte, Michael Kennedy, the driver, was this Middleman who moved between Charlotte's criminal world and the pro athlete scene. He actually knew several Panthers players and would sometimes do odd jobs for them.

Totally legal stuff, usually like moving furniture or running errands. It was Kennedy who connected Carruth with Watkins.

What's really chilling is that phone records show Carruth and Watkins had multiple calls in the weeks before the murder. The prosecutors found that they met at least three times to plan everything out. But Watkins says this wasn't just about money.

He says Carruth was obsessed with the idea that this baby would ruin his career, his reputation, everything. Watkins gets sentenced to 40 years in prison. He died in prison in 2023 at the age of 63.

Kennedy gets sentenced to about 11 years and was released in 2011. Stanley Abraham served about two years. Now, Carruth's defense strategy, it's actually pretty bold.

He hires David Rudolph, this high profile defense attorney known for handling complex murder cases. Instead of just denying everything, they try to flip the whole narrative.

They argue this was all about a drug deal gone wrong, claiming that Cherica was actually buying drugs from Watkins and that Carruth had nothing to do with it. They bring in this whole timeline about how Carruth supposedly loaned Watkins money for a drug deal and that Cherica was somehow involved.

The prosecution tears this apart.

They bring in Sharika's medical records showing no drug use during pregnancy, her pristine financial records, and testimony from her co workers about her normal behavior. The defense also tries to discredit Watkins by bringing up his mental health history and his changing stories.

The prosecution builds their case layer by layer. They start with Cherica's 911 call, which is devastating to hear in court.

But then they bring in this unexpected witness, the manager of a Best Buy store. Two days before the shooting, Carruth had gone to Best Buy and bought a specific type of phone.

The prosecution proves he bought this phone for one reason only, to communicate with the hitmen. He only uses it for six days, only to call them, then gets rid of it right after the shooting.

They bring in a cell phone expert who maps out every single call between Carruth and the other suspects. They literally show the jury how all these calls happen right before and right after the shooting.

Then comes Michael Kennedy's girlfriend, who testifies that Kennedy told her everything about the plan beforehand. She even says that Carruth had this whole setup worked out, how he would get Sharika to follow him, where everyone would be positioned.

The defense tries everything to discredit her, bringing up her criminal record, suggesting she's lying to protect Kennedy. But she doesn't break. And then the prosecution brings in the bank records showing that Carruth withdrew exactly $6,000.

The Mount Watkins said he was promised for the hit just days before the shooting. The defense tries to claim it was for Christmas shopping in November. But the most powerful testimony comes from Sandra Adams, Cherica's mother.

She tells the jury about these notes Cherika wrote in the hospital before she died. The defense tries to keep these notes out, arguing their hearsay, but the judge allows them because they're considered dying declarations.

The notes detailed everything. How Carruth had been acting strange, making her follow him places, asking about her life insurance.

The prosecution then brings in Carruth's ex girlfriend from college, who testifies about how Carruth reacted when she got pregnant, how he also pressured her to get an abortion, how he said a baby would ruin his career. When Watkins takes the stand, his testimony is explosive.

He looks right at Carruth in the courtroom and says, you paid me to kill Cherica Adams and the baby. The defense tries to paint Watkins as this unstable criminal who's lying to get a better deal.

But then the prosecution pulls out letters Carruth wrote from jail to various people. In one of them, he basically admits he was involved, but tries to blame everything on Watkins.

There's this dramatic moment when the prosecution brings in the actual clothes Cherica was wearing that night. There's this audible gasp in the courtroom.

They show how the shots were fired, the angles, the positions, everything matching exactly what Cherica had described in her 911 call. Carruth sits there completely emotionless throughout most of the trial.

The only time he shows any reaction is when they play a video of Chancellor showing his disabilities from the shooting. And even then, witnesses say he just looked annoyed. The trial goes on for three months.

The defense tries everything, suggesting other suspects claiming it was a drug deal gone wrong, even trying to blame Sharika for being in that situation. But the prosecution just keeps building their case piece by piece. This case is different from other NFL violence cases we often discuss.

You know, how we talk about CTE in cases where NFL players commit violent acts, like with Aaron Hernandez. But what Carruth did was methodically planned.

Over weeks, he coordinated with multiple people, said, set up the exact timing, planned an escape route. This wasn't about brain injury causing him to snap. This was cold, calculated murder for hire. This case becomes this huge wake up call for the NFL.

Before this, they had some basic conduct policies, but nothing really comprehensive. After Carruth, they completely overhaul their personal conduct policy.

They start doing way more intensive background checks on players they create this whole new system for monitoring off field behavior called the Player Engagement program. They start paying attention to things like domestic violence reports, child support payments, any kind of legal issues.

Every team now has a director of player engagement who's specifically trained to spot potential issues. They look for things like sudden changes in behavior, financial problems, relationship issues.

If a player starts missing child support payments or has domestic disputes that triggers an immediate intervention. They also monitor social media activity, relationships with known criminals, and even gambling patterns.

It might seem invasive, but after cases like Carruth, the NFL argued they needed to be more proactive. They created this confidential counseling program where players can get help without it being reported to their teams.

And they have this whole financial management program that's mandatory for rookies. The NFL definitely takes these issues more seriously.

Now, what's really significant is how the Carruth case influenced the NFL's approach to domestic violence. Specifically, before this case, domestic violence was treated almost like a PR problem, something to be managed after it happened.

But after Carruth, the NFL started viewing it as a preventable crime. They created this network of domestic violence experts who work directly with teams.

These experts do everything from educational programs to crisis intervention. Every team now has direct connections with local domestic violence organizations.

They have protocols for when a player is accused of domestic violence. Immediate suspension with pay while they investigate mandatory counseling and regular check ins with league officials.

The number of reported incidents actually went up at first, but experts say that's partly because victims felt more supported in coming forward. The real change is in how these cases are handled. Think about the Ray rice case in 2014.

The NFL's response to that was shaped by policies that came out of the Carruth case. What's really interesting is how this has influenced other sports leagues.

The NBA and MLB have actually modeled some of their domestic violence policies on what the NFL put in place after Carruth. But there's still this ongoing debate about whether the league is doing enough or if they're just better at managing the PR around these incidents.

Ray Carruth was released from prison in 2018 after serving 19 years. But fangirls, this story isn't really about Rae Carruth. It's about Cherica Adams, whose life was cut tragically short.

It's about Chancellor Lee Adams, who defied every medical expectation and graduated high school despite his challenges. And it's about Sandra Adams, who turned this tragedy into a mission of love and forgiveness. That is all for this story.

Stay safe, stay passionate, and don't let anyone dim your love of the game.