0:00

A listener. Note this story contains

0:03

adult language and some graphic descriptions

0:05

of violence. So

0:14

this is the letter I received from Ray Caruth.

0:17

This is the first time I've heard from him in almost twenty

0:20

years. This was in February, and

0:22

it just showed up at the office, more or less out

0:24

of the blue. He

0:26

writes, In every

0:28

great piece of literature, there's always a protagonist

0:31

and an antagonist, and unfortunately,

0:34

in this very real life saga, the

0:36

latter applies to me, my one.

0:38

Thank you need to leave. Even

0:42

where are you at? Pastime? Come on, listen

0:45

to me. You're on a wireless plan. I

0:47

don't know where you are. To tell me where you are, man.

0:50

The letter continues, with everyone so

0:52

heavily entrenched in the past and

0:54

the tragedy that led us to this chapter, there's

0:57

nothing I could ever say or do to

0:59

write my wrongs or to no longer

1:01

be quote the bad guy.

1:04

Okay, where are you shot at? Ma'am? I

1:06

don't know. I was riving, you were

1:08

driving and someone shot you? Yeah?

1:10

Did you see the person that shot you? Okay,

1:14

ma'm I'm a connected tomatic. Continue to talk

1:16

to the Caruth also said in the letter,

1:19

there are times in life, when no matter how

1:21

well intentioned the person may be, some

1:24

things just can't ever be fixed or

1:26

made right. Player

1:33

He concludes

1:39

by writing, this will be the very last

1:41

time I make any comments concerning

1:43

the situation for my character.

1:46

This is regrettably where the story ends.

1:49

It's time to move on, and

1:54

that was it. As many times

1:56

as I reached out to him, we haven't had an on

1:58

the record interview since the late and chinies.

2:00

And as far as Ray Carruth himself, I

2:03

think a lot of people kind of forgot about him.

2:05

That's just how these things go. I'll

2:07

tell you what though. I've been at the Charlotte Observer

2:10

since nineteen four. That was a

2:12

year before North Carolina even had an NFL

2:14

team. I had covered a lot

2:16

of things before that night in nineteen and

2:19

a whole lot of them since, but

2:21

I have never covered any other story like

2:23

this. I'm Scott

2:25

Fowler, a reporter for the Observer, and

2:27

for much of my career I've covered a miracle

2:30

that began just after midnight on November

2:32

sixteenth, nineteen nine, when

2:34

twenty four year old Sharika Adams was

2:36

shot four times. It

2:41

was a crime that shocked the sports world

2:43

and in the years since that night, Panther's

2:46

wide receiver, Ray Carruth, her on again

2:48

off again boyfriend, has become one

2:50

of the most infamous villains and sports

2:53

history. Sharick

2:55

Adams and his own son dead. But

2:57

like any story, the reality is far

2:59

more complicated.

3:03

Some maintained Ruth has always been innocent,

3:05

an NFL player chasing starting whose

3:07

career was cut short by a wrongful imprisonment

3:10

that has gone on for nearly twenty years. I

3:12

know others

3:14

believe he should already have been put to death.

3:16

You know, I was like, the son of a bitch, was what

3:19

I wanted. For the past year, I've conducted

3:21

dozens of exclusive interviews, reviewed

3:23

thousands of pages of documents, and

3:25

uncovered startling new revelations

3:28

made public for the first time here about

3:30

the most notorious crime in Charlotte

3:32

history. I've

3:35

talked to the families. She's telling me

3:37

I'm gonna be a grandma. The

3:40

lawyers. I don't know if he was innocent in the sense

3:42

that he never did anything wrong, but

3:44

he hadn't hired these people to kill

3:46

Sharrika Adam. The police officers

3:49

or warrant questions was do you think Ray was involved,

3:51

and she just made a question mark the friends.

3:53

They portrayed all the women in his life

3:56

as if he was some big player and

3:58

the killer excreaming. She was

4:00

drowned and blood and we have

4:02

to find out where you are. What

4:04

I found was a murder mystery, a love

4:07

story, the legacy

4:09

of Karuth. This

4:12

is chapter one, Ray and Sharika,

4:24

Ladies and gentlemen, Sunny and Share.

4:29

I was a really big fan of

4:32

Sunny and Share. So when

4:35

I was thinking of a name for Sharika,

4:38

I wanted it to be unique because I knew

4:40

she would just be a very unique,

4:43

really vibrant type of person. This

4:45

is Sandra Adams, Sharika's mother.

4:48

For simplicity's sake, will use their

4:50

first name. She was almost about to

4:52

be named after the vacuum cleaner Eureka,

4:55

and I thought, now, I don't want her to

4:57

be associated with dirt and in

5:00

and stuff, so I said, I'm gonna name her

5:02

Share. She was a v a

5:05

m P vamp. You know, she held

5:07

her own and so I

5:09

said, well, I put the two together, the

5:11

Share part and not Eureka,

5:14

but the Eco part. And so that's how she

5:16

got the name Shaika from Sunny

5:18

and chair. For

5:24

much of the past two decades, those who didn't

5:26

know Sharika personally have known her

5:29

only as a victim, the dying

5:31

mother of an unborn son, and the

5:33

moaning but determined voice from

5:39

Money Forward. Is Your First Baby

5:42

Today? That original twelve minute

5:45

recording lives on an old cassette tape

5:48

inside a dned box stashed

5:50

deep in the basement of a Charlotte

5:52

courthouse. As far as

5:54

I know, it's the only recording of Sharika's

5:56

voice that's ever been made public, and

5:59

it doesn't come close to encompassing a

6:01

woman who, for twenty four years

6:03

dazzled almost everyone she met. It's

6:05

like when someone enters the room and you know that

6:07

they're there. She would

6:09

command the room with her presence. Sonia

6:12

Melton met Sharika when they were both freshmen

6:14

at Winston Salem State University

6:17

back in the fall of She

6:20

just knew instinctively

6:23

what she wanted and what she

6:26

was worth and and to speak to

6:28

the impact that she had on my life.

6:30

I remember we were sitting in a Wendy's we

6:33

It was a group of us had had gone out to eat,

6:35

and she was sitting to my right and she looked

6:38

at me and she was like, Wow,

6:41

you are so beautiful, And

6:45

it just hit me in such a way

6:48

because she really was a beautiful

6:50

inside in our person and

6:53

so when she said that to me, I

6:55

believed it. She

6:58

knew everybody was gonna know who she

7:00

is. She knew that

7:03

people were going to know her name. Sharika

7:07

grew up surrounded by family members and friends

7:09

who loved her. She had an unremarkable

7:12

childhood, but her appearance always stood

7:14

out. She was petite with big

7:16

brown eyes. She often wore dresses

7:18

to high school, and her interest in fashion

7:20

made her un natural for modeling as a teenager.

7:23

She had the looks that rival Halle

7:25

Berry, Beyonce, all

7:28

the beautiful women out there. Sharika

7:31

was really pretty, but she

7:33

wasn't aware of how pretty she was.

7:36

This is Valerie Brooks, who became fast

7:38

friends with Sharika in the nineteen nineties,

7:40

despite a nearly twenty year age difference

7:42

between the two. They met while working

7:45

in Charlotte's real estate scene, and

7:47

what Brooks remembers goes far beyond

7:49

the superficial descriptions of Sharika

7:52

that filled news coverage at the time. Now,

7:54

I met Sharika about six

7:57

months after I moved here. On

7:59

one of my autings, I was with my husband.

8:01

She was representing a builder at that time,

8:04

and I walked into the model home and she

8:06

was sitting there and she's like a breath of

8:09

fresh air. And we had great conversation

8:11

and she said, I will show you the city

8:13

of Charlotte, and I said, okay,

8:15

well that's great, and

8:18

we connected right then and there determination

8:20

is a theme that comes through in every conversation

8:23

I've ever had about Sharika. It was

8:25

there from the moment she was born in nineteen

8:28

and King's Mountain, North Carolina, some

8:30

thirty miles west of Charlotte. I

8:32

had Sharika over the summer

8:34

before my senior year in high school.

8:37

Sharika's father was Jeff Mooney,

8:39

and we actually met because

8:42

he was a bus driver and I was a bus driver

8:45

back in the day the students, the students

8:47

could drive the buses years. Sharika

8:50

very nearly arrived in the back of her grandfather's

8:53

light blue Chevy and Paula because

8:55

my dad was farming. We farmed

8:58

and Dad had taking

9:00

the tractor out to dig up

9:02

the field for planting. We

9:05

told Dad it was time

9:07

to get me to the hospital. Well,

9:10

he was not gonna leave his tractor in the

9:12

field, and meanwhile I'm

9:14

at home. I'm like, I really

9:18

gotta go. So he

9:21

got out the good car and manytime, I'm like,

9:23

we need to really be getting on our way, and

9:26

Dad stops at all the red lights

9:28

and I'm telling him, I'm in the back seat,

9:31

the baby is coming, and

9:33

um, I'm scared because I'm like,

9:36

we're in a good car. I cannot

9:38

have this baby in the good car and mess

9:40

up his car. So I

9:42

was holding Sharika in so

9:45

much so that when we got to the hospital,

9:48

they didn't even have time to call the doctor.

9:51

She just came out. She just came

9:54

and she had a spot

9:57

in the crown of her head where I had

9:59

been holding her end so much.

10:02

Hair would never grow on that one

10:04

little thumb spot right in

10:06

the middle of her hair, and it was mash

10:09

dead. Sharika was raised primarily

10:11

by three people. In her early years,

10:13

it was Sandra's parents, Jack and Virginia

10:15

Adams, and then it was Sandra herself

10:18

once Sharika moved to Charlotte before starting

10:20

the third grade. Growing

10:22

up, one of Sharika's closest friends was

10:25

Kim Lark. She had even lived with

10:27

Sandra and Sharika for a while when

10:29

the two girls were teenagers. Best friends

10:31

forever, and it's true we are best

10:33

friends and sisters were absolutely ever.

10:36

As we talked, Lark reached into

10:38

her purse and pulled out an old photo. It

10:40

was March Friday, March thirty one,

10:43

n nine and I wrote spring

10:45

break on the bottom of it. I don't know where we were

10:47

going. I don't think we were going anywhere. We just

10:49

shows the two of them at home, playing dress

10:52

up, with Sharika deciding what both of them should

10:54

wear, dreaming about a future of

10:56

limitless promise. She always

10:58

thought Charlotte was us small, a small

11:00

place, and um Sharika loved butterflies.

11:03

In my mind, I think that she thought the butterfly

11:05

as a way of I'm gonna get out of here

11:07

one day. I'm gonna go and do the things that I want to do,

11:10

and I think flying would help her do

11:12

that. At

11:19

least two people hit when gunfire breaks out in the

11:21

South Sacrato parking lot. As

11:23

Sharika grew up in North Carolina, a

11:26

young man on the other side of the country was making

11:28

a name for himself as well, Ray

11:30

Lamar Theotis Wiggins, with

11:32

the last name courtesy of his biological

11:35

father, but as he grew up in Sacramento,

11:38

raised by his mother, Theodrey and his stepfather,

11:40

Samuel Kruth, Ray soon took

11:42

the last name of Kruth instead. The

11:45

fourth Homa started in oak Park this year. The

11:47

cities Karuth grew up surrounded by crime

11:50

and the Oak Park section on the south

11:52

side of Sacramento. These arrests are part

11:54

of a larger effort to make the Oak Park

11:56

neighborhood save, a new urgency for city

11:58

leaders to do something about the ongoing violence

12:00

in Oak Park. But he never had problems with the

12:02

law. The Audrey Caruth his mother

12:05

was a dominant force in his life, who once described

12:07

herself as the quote piranha protecting

12:10

her young guppy, and maybe

12:12

that's still true today. The Audrey

12:14

declined to participate in this project,

12:17

but earlier this year, when I wrote about that

12:19

letter her son had sent me, I did receive

12:21

this voicemail from her. Mr

12:23

fought this, Theodre crup and I

12:26

just called to tell you, thank you. Pretty

12:28

story that you did. It was

12:30

so much more softer than us

12:33

seen in the town. I just want to say,

12:35

think I appreciate. Okay,

12:38

I might disagree with her assessment of the article,

12:40

but I can't argue with a mother's unconditional

12:43

love for her child. Towards

12:45

the end of high school, as his mom came

12:48

to me and says, tell me what to

12:50

do to get Ray to the next level.

12:53

This is Dave Hoskins, who's coached high

12:55

school football in the Sacramento area for

12:57

more than fifty years. He was Caruth's

12:59

head coach for three seasons at Valley

13:01

High. I only let his dad one

13:03

time. The dad walked out on the practice

13:06

field and he said, will you take care of

13:08

my son and make sure that

13:10

he gets him to college. I said

13:12

yeah, I said that's part of my job.

13:15

He said, thank you very much. She turned

13:17

around and disappeared on

13:19

the field. Karuth's performance spoke

13:21

for itself enough for Hoskins

13:23

to promote Keruth to the varsity as

13:26

a sophomore. I've never coached

13:28

a kid as fast as he is.

13:30

He was only a sophomore, and

13:33

so I brought him up to the varsity. And

13:35

this poor little kid was covering

13:37

red and rage

13:39

just blew by him so fast,

13:42

and the kid was shaking his head.

13:44

So we through the kid from the schools.

13:47

Eh, don't feel bad. There's

13:49

not many people who are going to stay with this kid.

13:52

And he goes Really, I said, really. Karuth

13:58

didn't smoke, drink, or use drugs.

14:01

That made him a shining star in his neighborhood,

14:03

matched only by his growing stardom on the football

14:06

field. Oak Park has devoured

14:08

in plain far too many promising

14:10

young lives, temptations of the streets

14:12

and drugs and no way to get out.

14:14

But there are success stories, and for a long time,

14:17

Ray Kruth was a success story at Oak Park.

14:19

Joe Davidson is in his thirtieth year

14:21

as a sports reporter for the Sacramento b

14:24

But I saw him play a couple of games. I thought,

14:26

Wow, you know there's Gonda may be an NFL guy. I mean, just

14:28

one of those wild performers. You

14:31

know. The coaches that played against them said,

14:33

this is as good guys we've ever seen around here.

14:35

Now, just can't handle his speed. In high

14:38

school, Caruth never excelled the same way

14:40

academically, but Hoskin says the

14:42

Audrey knew how to keep her son on track.

14:44

She worked at Costco. She

14:47

had Ray collecting carts

14:49

out in the heat. I remember her telling

14:51

him, if you don't take care of your grades,

14:54

this is what we're gonna do for the rest of your life. With

14:57

that incentive, Davidson remembers Kruth

14:59

taking every lost personally on the

15:01

field and off. Ray always

15:03

had a chip on his shoulder against the Sacramon

15:05

Walby. When he felt like he should have been the Sacramono

15:08

By Player of the Year as a senior year, we

15:10

gave it instead to James Kidd of

15:12

a rival program at Glow High School.

15:14

He was still an All Mental first team player

15:17

All City got two years in a row, but that

15:19

was kind of a driving force. He took

15:21

things personal and he was upset

15:23

about it. As

15:26

local accolades piled up, national

15:29

college recruiting trips followed. I

15:31

was a volunteer coach and a recruiting

15:34

weekend and Ray came up and he had

15:36

a suit in a briefcase. John

15:38

Embree, then an assistant coach at the University

15:40

of Colorado, remembers the first

15:42

time he met Caru and Uh.

15:45

I remember thinking that's odd, you know, because guys

15:47

when they come unto recruiting trips, you know they

15:49

want to have fun. They do all this stuff and

15:51

here to him, he said it was

15:53

a business trip. So he's

15:56

dressing accordingly. And then whenever

15:59

he had meetings with people on campus,

16:01

could be the academics, could be in the weight room.

16:03

He had a list of questions and he had checklists

16:06

and things he wanted to know about, and he wrote down

16:08

the answers. I mean he was very meticulous

16:10

about it, pulling papers out of that

16:12

briefcase. And yeah, he had a little

16:14

notepad and added all of me. It was it

16:17

really was impressive. It

16:19

made you want to get him even more. Ruth's

16:24

life had always revolved around football. A

16:27

preschool teacher had once assigned him to draw

16:29

what he wanted to be when he grew up. Kruth

16:31

sketched himself between two goal posts,

16:33

wearing a football helmet with his arms

16:36

raised in trying so touchdown.

16:39

But unlike many big time players, Caruth

16:42

wasn't particularly big. He was

16:44

listed at only five ft eleven and a d

16:46

nine pounds, but he was extremely

16:49

fast. So we've got the rules

16:51

that could fly, and you've got which helped convince

16:53

Colorado to offer him a full ride scholarship.

16:59

Let's it come in nine to

17:01

put him on the field during one of the most memorable

17:04

plays in college football history. He's got three

17:06

people down there. The miracle in Michigan

17:11

down incredible.

17:14

Kruth enjoyed his celebrity on campus,

17:16

but that's not unusual for an athlete. What's

17:18

more memorable to his coaches is the way

17:21

he was also capable of using it for good.

17:23

You know, there was a time we found out after

17:25

the fact. Uh, during one of the spring

17:27

games, this kid came up

17:29

to him. Here's Embrie again, and so they

17:31

had a little autograph session or something, and

17:34

and the kid says, you're my favorite player.

17:36

He goes something about how it was his

17:39

birthday and how excited was he got to meet

17:41

Ray, and Ray

17:43

found out the kid had a party the

17:46

next weekend, and

17:49

he showed up with a present for the kid. Caruth

17:52

became an All Conference wide receiver

17:54

at Colorado and even earned some

17:57

All America notice too. Back

17:59

then, he was still several years away from meeting

18:01

Sharika, but he once told an interviewer

18:03

while at Colorado something that made Ray

18:06

and Shaika seemed like a natural fit.

18:08

No matter what I do, Karuth said, I've

18:11

decided I want to be famous. With

18:14

the first pick in the draft n

18:18

the Carolina Panthers, coming off

18:20

at twelve and fourth season and a deep run in

18:22

the playoffs, drafted Caruth in the

18:24

first round seven overall.

18:27

His potential also seemed limitless.

18:30

Fast man he was. He was a track guy.

18:32

I feel like he was a track guy playing football.

18:35

Mike Mentor was a safety who played against

18:37

kruthin college Asler's passed and

18:41

Mentor redit fucked in. Mike

18:44

Mentor and then was taken by

18:46

the Panthers in the second round of that same

18:48

nineteen draft. You know, both

18:50

of these small guys, we're like, we're both big

18:52

guys, and so all these similarities

18:54

kind of gravitated us too to

18:57

hang out, and so we spent a lot of time

18:59

together. In the first year, Caruth

19:02

was signed to a four year, three point

19:04

seven million dollar contract that included

19:06

a one point three million dollars signing

19:08

bonus, shocking them toward two and

19:10

he made the NFL's All Rookie team,

19:12

catching forty four passes for five hundred

19:15

and forty five yards and four touchdowns.

19:17

He says called into the amazone touchdown

19:20

Ray Carol. The Panthers made him a

19:22

starter Carol at the fort the

19:24

first round. They finished the season seven

19:26

and nine. But we're excited to pair Carruth

19:28

with Mousin Mohammed, another

19:32

young receiver everyone called Moose as

19:34

their primary pass catchers for years

19:36

to come. We

19:39

saw the talent and you're like, oh,

19:41

this guy is gonna be good. That's how you get

19:43

respect in the locker room. It's it's not about what

19:45

you say, it's about what you do. And and this

19:47

guy was producing. And so you have Moose

19:50

on on one side, and he was

19:52

the young emerging right receiver

19:55

and now you got to speak out on the other side.

19:57

I mean, that's the dream of the NFL offensive

20:00

coordinator, right is. I got these

20:02

two guys. So are you like we're building

20:04

something? That

20:09

rookie year was Kruth's best

20:11

in the NFL. A broken right

20:13

foot at the start of sidelined

20:15

and for the year. He returned for the first

20:17

five games of the nine season

20:20

before getting hurt again. He never

20:22

scored another touchdown in the league. First

20:24

of all, I think it's it messes with you personally,

20:26

you know, psychologically, how you deal with that because

20:29

you've been a men in college. We had a great

20:31

rookie year and you have a injury that

20:33

set you back. How do you deal with that

20:35

when you've never had to deal with anything like

20:37

that? Well? Was it

20:41

was a pretty complex guy.

20:43

You know. This is Steve Burwin.

20:46

He was Carolina's starting quarterback during

20:48

most of Kruth's time with the team. Steve

20:51

throws a car I

20:53

wanted to get his thoughts on Kruth because Burline

20:55

has been one of the few Panthers players in

20:59

or in all the years since who gave me more

21:01

than a no comment. Even when this saga

21:04

was hardest to talk about. He

21:06

really kept to himself most of the time.

21:08

He didn't have what I would consider

21:11

a real outgoing personality. He

21:14

wasn't a troublemaker, he wasn't a

21:16

a distraction, He wasn't a negative

21:19

influence, you know, on anybody. But he just

21:21

kind of did his own thing, you know. Covering

21:23

Kruth back then, I found him eloquent,

21:26

but very guarded. Caruth's

21:28

guarded nature made him conscious of appearances,

21:30

and I found of the story he wanted

21:33

told. That became clear in the

21:35

longest conversation I ever had with him while

21:37

he was still playing for a piece that

21:39

I wrote about how players choose their jersey

21:41

numbers. I told him that most NFL

21:44

players just learned to love whatever number they

21:46

are assigned as rookies, but Caruth

21:48

said he had given his jersey a lot of thought.

21:50

He said he was convinced that unless one of his numerals

21:53

was a one, the uniform made him

21:55

look fat. By his third season,

21:57

he was on his fifth different number, finally

22:00

settling on eighty nine. It

22:03

didn't have a one in it, but he told me it had

22:05

something even better. No association

22:08

with any other well known panther. Caru

22:10

said he wanted to make the number eighty nine famous

22:13

all on his own. By

22:16

however, Caruth wasn't performing on

22:18

the field, and he wasn't impressing his teammates

22:21

anymore either. Mentor remembers

22:23

the time. Soon after, Carolina hired former

22:25

San Francisco head coached George Seafort,

22:28

who had won two Super Bowls with the forty

22:30

Niners. So Sefer comes in right

22:32

new coats, and he wanted

22:35

to make Ray a part returning because

22:37

he saw the explosive ability

22:39

of Array. Let's get the ball in his hand,

22:42

and and Ray wasn't about that right because

22:44

Ray didn't liked the physical part of the game. Okay,

22:47

you're asking me to have a whole lot of

22:49

faith and me catching his ball, and nobody's

22:51

gonna knocked me in my tin. And so he

22:54

was a thinker. It's too smart to say I

22:56

want to go back. Small

22:58

wide receivers like Caruth and notorious

23:00

for avoiding contact. But Caruth's

23:03

reluctance to get back on the field and help the

23:05

team, however, he could turn some

23:07

heads in the locker room. Man, see like

23:09

you're doing it. Like I'm not doing it, And so he put

23:11

him back there, toy man. He wouldn't even try to

23:13

catch the ball. Man it involved and follow

23:15

down. That was the first time I saw him

23:18

come out of the shale of hold of

23:20

If I won't do that, I'm not doing this. Even

23:22

as his playing time decreased, Caruth was

23:24

paid more than thirty seven thousand dollars

23:26

a game, but the money didn't go as far

23:29

as you might expect. He was lavish

23:31

with his relatives. He lost money in an

23:33

investment scheme. He had bought a two d

23:36

forty thousand dollar house in Charlotte, and he kept

23:38

two cars, a white Ford Expedition

23:40

and a red Mercedes Bins. Most

23:43

NFL contracts aren't guaranteed beyond the signing

23:45

bonus, so Caruth struggling on

23:47

the field cast doubt on his long

23:49

term financial security. And

23:52

there was something else in n As

23:55

a college student, Carruth had fathered

23:57

a son with his former high school girlfriend

23:59

in calif Conia, Michelle Wright. Here's

24:02

what she told A and E TV about the relationship

24:05

back in two thousand one. You know, we had

24:07

a lot of breakups. He show two

24:09

sides. It's like one minute he would let me on

24:11

Tuesday hate, now Wednesday right had

24:13

full custody of their son, Ray Jr.

24:15

Kruth had wanted the baby to have his name, but

24:18

he wasn't there for the birth. It took

24:20

a lawsuit to compel Kruth to pay three

24:22

thousand dollars a month in child support.

24:24

He was mad, He was very upset. He trying to fight

24:26

the suit. In my time covering Kruth,

24:29

I felt like much of his life was about sustaining

24:31

a kind of adolescence. He

24:33

was in his early twenties, after all, and

24:35

spent entire days playing in video

24:38

game tournaments with teammates. He

24:40

was handsome, polite, flirtatious,

24:43

and very rich for his age, and

24:45

a parade of women followed him around. And

24:48

see that's the thing about it. Like what I watched

24:50

shows that tell his

24:52

story. They portray all the women

24:54

in his life as if he was some big

24:57

player running through women and

24:59

what not. This is Monique Young, who's

25:02

been a friend of Caruth's for the past twenty

25:04

years. He just had that type of personality

25:07

that attracted cool people. It wasn't

25:09

a lot of female friends,

25:12

just female friends. You know, he had a lot of guy

25:14

friends too. Well. Um,

25:16

yeah, I think he just has a much broader perspective

25:19

on life. Um. This is David

25:21

Rudolph, who would later become the lead defense

25:23

lawyer for Ray Kruth. And if his

25:25

voice sounds familiar, it might be because

25:28

soon after representing Carruth, Rudolph

25:30

also defended the writer Michael Peterson

25:33

in a case that was recently made into the Netflix

25:35

series The Staircase. His

25:38

focus was pretty much on sports and football

25:41

and women back in the day.

25:43

Uh. Caruth declined repeated invitations

25:46

to speak with me on the record for this project,

25:48

but he did authorize Rudolph to speak

25:50

on his behalf. I think he's

25:52

learned a lot about himself. I

25:55

think he's gotten much more introspective, and

25:58

you know, I think just general, he has

26:01

a has a healthy perspective

26:03

on life.

26:07

The Panthers harnessed that charm,

26:09

making him a guest speaker at their annual football

26:11

one oh one camp in the late nineteen nineties,

26:14

an artifact of the decade that many NFL

26:16

teams held at the time. It was basically

26:19

man splaining football to women. Regardless

26:22

of how you might feel about that marketing tactic,

26:24

the events were popular. We have

26:27

had tickets from the very beginning season

26:29

ticket holders. First time they

26:31

went to the Super Bowl, I couldn't stand it and we

26:33

had to go. One woman who attended

26:36

Caruth's class was a local doctor

26:38

and Panthers fan named Dosha Hickey,

26:40

a name that will become important later

26:42

in this story. He was a nice,

26:44

pleasant young man who's caught up with the women

26:47

and seemed to be having a good time. Talked,

26:50

you know, to everyone, answered the questions,

26:52

joked around. In

27:00

June of Ray met

27:02

Sharika at a pool party in Charlotte that a

27:04

number of pro athletes attended,

27:06

and she was pretty smitten with

27:09

Ray. Carup when she met him here sounder

27:11

again. I think they must have had pretty good

27:13

conversation and wanted to continue

27:15

the conversation a little

27:17

more privately. So for

27:20

whatever reason, she decided she wanted

27:22

to go by her dad's house with him.

27:25

So he got to meet Ray

27:28

the first day that Shaika actually

27:30

met him. Yeah, and

27:33

uh, I think that was pretty unusual

27:35

because Dad's don't

27:37

like anybody. So for

27:40

everything Sharika had going for her, she

27:43

decided that higher education wasn't

27:45

the right fit. She

27:47

had dropped out of Winston Salem State. For

27:49

the next several years, she worked mostly in real

27:52

estate, often inside the model homes

27:54

and subdivisions, giving tours to

27:56

prospective buyers. She dreamed

27:58

of one day owning her own home and filling

28:00

it with a husband and several children. Sharika

28:03

was a nurturer. Here's Valerie

28:05

Brooks again. When I first moved here,

28:08

I became very ill and my family

28:10

lived in Atlanta. She literally

28:12

moved in my house for two weeks and

28:15

it was around Christmas time, put my Christmas

28:17

tree up, cooked dinner.

28:20

She literally kicked my husband out of the bed

28:22

and slept at that with me. She

28:25

said, I need to beat nearly in the middle of the night

28:27

in case something goes on Ray

28:29

and Sharika saw each other several times after

28:31

that pool party, but then fell out of touch.

28:34

It wasn't until Sharika relocated

28:36

for a time to Atlanta that Gruth

28:38

seemed to sharpen his interest in her. It

28:41

was like, when Sharika was in Charlotte,

28:44

Ray didn't really have time for her

28:46

because he was dating other people.

28:49

Then all of a sudden, once she came back to Charlotte

28:52

for a visit, he was interested again.

28:54

So when she got back to Atlanta, he

28:57

was pursuing her just all

28:59

the time, all the time. And I

29:01

do recall because Errika

29:03

had just a little page er when

29:06

she was here, and all of a sudden she had

29:08

a sale phone, and that in

29:12

was a big deal.

29:14

And it was like, well, you know, Ray wants

29:16

to be able to contact me when I'm out

29:18

of town. So I thought, wow,

29:21

that's that was awfully nice of him, you

29:23

know, to do that. In

29:26

the years since, Kruth has downplayed

29:28

their relationship. In a fiery

29:30

fifteen page letter he sent to Charlotte news

29:32

station w BTV this year, he

29:34

made that clear. According to him,

29:37

they hooked up multiple times, but we're

29:39

never in a relationship. This is from w

29:41

BtVS report. He writes, lust

29:43

was the tie that bound us, not like or

29:46

love, and neither one of us was ever guilty

29:48

of believing anything contrary to

29:50

this. In November, Caruth

29:53

reconnected with Sharika at a teammate's birthday

29:56

party held at a local strip club.

29:58

That's another part of this story that often hasn't

30:00

made the news coverage. Yes,

30:03

he ended up seeing her

30:06

at the club, and he was

30:08

very upset that she was dancing.

30:10

He was very upset that she was dancing.

30:13

And well,

30:18

I was you know, this

30:20

was in the nineties and we're comes from a

30:22

Christian perspective, and I'm like, this is just

30:24

not what you want to see your daughter

30:27

do. And it was so stigmatized

30:30

and and associated

30:32

with prostitution. And

30:35

she was like, Mom, you know, it's not like on the

30:37

other side of town where the guys are all up

30:39

grabbing you and whatever. She was like,

30:41

let me tell you my plan now. The plan

30:43

is I can make this much money and

30:46

this much time, and I can put down on my

30:48

condom. And I knew who

30:50

who she was in her character,

30:53

and in all honesty,

30:56

if I must say, when she started

30:59

depositing all this money, I

31:01

was like, do they need uh mom

31:05

for the dancers. Do they have like

31:07

a mom for them that can kind

31:09

of be there to oversee you and

31:11

give you a little positive energy before

31:13

you go. I could be I'm I'm good

31:16

encourage her and she

31:18

she's like, Mom, no, you can't

31:20

come down there. So we

31:23

used to laugh about that. Even

31:25

at a strip club. However, familiar themes

31:28

emerged. I would like to

31:30

add that some of the girls were

31:32

dancing to get drug money

31:35

or to hook up with guys

31:37

and whatever. And this one particular

31:39

girl had a son and

31:42

she was not able to give

31:44

as much attention to her son as

31:47

she could have. Sharika

31:50

brought the girl and her son

31:52

into her home to live so she

31:54

could keep an eye on the sun, so

31:57

I could keep an eye on the sun. So I

31:59

they sickly kept this little boy. And

32:03

this girl ended up turning her

32:05

life around because

32:07

Sharika just kept

32:09

feeding her positive things about

32:11

her and she encouraged the girl.

32:14

And I still keep in contact with

32:16

her. She's been completely

32:18

clear of drugs for probably

32:21

ten years now, and

32:23

her son has grown and you

32:25

know, she still tells

32:27

me of the inspiration

32:30

that Sharika was to her. So

32:33

it wasn't all bad. Ray

32:37

and Sharika saw each other more and more after that

32:40

night, and by April of nine, she

32:43

was pregnant. I later

32:45

learned that soon after he had arrived in Charlotte

32:47

in Kruth had

32:49

gotten another woman named Amber Turner

32:52

pregnant. At his insistence,

32:54

Turner had aborted that pregnancy,

32:57

the fact that would loom large soon enough.

32:59

But we're at the time wasn't exactly shocking

33:02

in a pro sports locker room.

33:04

But Sharika would do no such thing, in

33:06

part because she too had once made the wrenching

33:09

decision to have an abortion. I

33:11

believe she did. No,

33:13

that that's not that's not she didn't speak

33:16

of them together, that

33:18

that's why she was so adamant. But I

33:20

I know that's

33:22

why she was very adamant for

33:25

wanting to keep this baby and wanting to have

33:28

a family, to

33:31

be settled. She wanted to marry

33:33

someone and have a child.

33:38

Sharika wanted that with Kruth. Perhaps

33:41

she believed she saw things in him no one else

33:43

did, or maybe just that she could change

33:45

him. And in May of n Sharika

33:48

took her mother out to breakfast. She wanted

33:51

to celebrate. She was like, mom,

33:53

I've got the best gift

33:55

ever for you for Mother's

33:57

Day. She loved the

34:00

original Pancake House over

34:02

at South Park, so

34:04

we went there for breakfast. And I

34:06

still have the card she gave me.

34:09

And she's telling me that

34:12

I'm gonna be a grandma,

34:15

and I'm like, I know your kid, and she was

34:17

like, no mom she had. She

34:19

had taken about ten pregnancy

34:21

tests, and she and

34:23

Ray had gone to the doctor

34:26

together to take another one to make

34:28

sure that it was

34:30

so that she was pregnant. Just

34:32

six months later, five shots

34:35

rang out in a dark Charlotte night. Only

34:37

one of those missed, and Sharika

34:40

reached for the cell phone Caruth had given

34:42

her and identified him, in part by

34:44

the number eighty nine he had sought to make

34:46

famous. Sam, are

34:54

your boyfriend the one you said that? What's

34:57

their name? Okay,

35:01

what's the name. But

35:10

Caruth didn't actually fire those shots.

35:14

And the man who did, I stood up for mine.

35:16

I said I did it because he made me

35:18

do it is angrier than ever? What

35:21

did you feel about rate, Caruth? Now?

35:26

I'm Scott Fowler and this podcast

35:28

is produced by Jeff Signer and Rachel

35:30

Wise and Davin Coburn at McClatchy Studios.

35:33

Find lots more about this case at Charlotte Observer

35:35

dot com slash Carruth, and

35:38

for just thirty dollars, subscribe

35:40

now to a full year of the Observer's award

35:42

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35:44

Observer dot com slash sports

35:46

Pass. Leave us a rating and a

35:48

review on Apple podcasts, and you

35:50

can reach me directly at s Fowler

35:53

at Charlotte Observer dot com.

35:55

In chapter two, a journey into

35:58

the mind of a hit man, how

36:00

much we take to merible girl

36:02

and make our board a baby I

36:04

said, I don't need a little girl. I killed it so

36:07

much, And a stunning

36:09

new account of break Ruth's actions on

36:12

the night Sharika was shocked. That's just not

36:14

how a murder for hire takes place

36:17

and what he says, uh,

36:19

and this is sort of new information, I guess

36:22

is