0:00

A listener. Note this story contains

0:03

adult language and some graphic descriptions

0:05

of violence. Previously

0:12

on Caruth the

0:15

girl and make her board a baby.

0:18

I said, I don't need a girl. I

0:22

was like, why why you wanted the gun? And he was

0:24

like, because she was pregnant.

0:26

And at that point that's where she decided

0:29

she was going to go ahead and stay and

0:31

go on with him? How many times? And where you

0:34

file this gun.

0:41

That's just not how a murder for hire

0:43

takes place. He hadn't hired

0:46

these people to kill Sharika Adams.

0:53

The ambulance carrying Sharika Adams

0:55

raced through South Charlotte and arrived at

0:57

Carolina's Medical Center around one

0:59

a m. On November six, having

1:04

suffered four gunshot wounds. The expectant

1:06

mother had been bleeding out in the front seat of

1:08

her car, depriving her unborn

1:10

son of blood and oxygen and we're

1:14

okay. Her

1:20

call had led emergency responders to

1:22

her door, but time was running out

1:25

for both of them. An exact drift

1:32

caught in Police and medics had found

1:34

her BMW full of bullet holes

1:36

outside of home in Wessex Square, owned

1:38

by Ferrell Blaylock. The next

1:41

thing I know, the car pulled across the front yard

1:43

and stopped and hornsteale blowing,

1:46

the flashes flashing. Blaylock died in

1:49

but here he is the night of the shooting. Talking

1:51

with local news channel w b t V, she

1:54

said she when she first out in the door, she said,

1:56

I've been shot and I'm pregnant, and she

1:58

identified the parson was in a like expedition.

2:02

When Sharika arrived at Carolina's Medical

2:04

Center, a trauma team was ready.

2:08

Her mother, Sandra Adams, lived fairly

2:10

close by in the house where she and Sharika

2:12

managed to see each other almost every day,

2:15

except that day because she She's

2:18

like, Mom, I've got to go and get

2:20

ridy. I gotta get my outfit just right.

2:23

We're going on a real date. Little did

2:25

Sandra no when her phone rang early that Tuesday

2:27

morning, and the saga shifted to emergency

2:30

rooms, waiting rooms, and

2:32

interrogation rooms. Just how

2:34

few days they had left from

2:36

the Charlotte Observer and McClatchy Studios.

2:39

This is Caruth. I'm Scott Fowler,

2:42

and this is chapter three, Life

2:44

and Death. A

2:57

little after one am on November six, Sandra

3:01

was eating a sandwich. Normally

3:03

should have been asleep at that hour, but on that

3:05

night, her mind was racing about

3:08

her single daughter being thirty weeks pregnant,

3:10

about the date Sharika was on with Rayka Ruth,

3:13

the father of her child, and about

3:15

their attempt to reconcile. Sharke

3:18

and I had this little private thing that

3:20

we would eat fried and bologna,

3:23

and she was up any so she

3:25

never wanted anybody to know she

3:27

was secretly eating fried bologna.

3:29

So that night I could

3:32

not sleep. I just could

3:34

not sleep, and I had gone down to the

3:36

kitchen to make me a fried bologna

3:38

sandwich. There in the kitchen, Sandra

3:41

thought about her daughter and traditions

3:43

the women in their family handed down

3:45

through the generations. About three

3:48

pops of butter popped

3:50

out and burned my hand while

3:52

I was doing the onions and bologna.

3:55

And another little secret thing

3:57

we did we would always My mom had told

3:59

us where you put vanilla flavoring

4:01

on it and then take the burnout and won't leave

4:03

a scar. So I had gone

4:05

to the cabinet to get the vanilla flavor

4:08

and I was just laughing, and I was thinking,

4:10

oh, Cheika will be saying, what are you getting ready

4:12

to do? Make a pie? So

4:14

it was a little inside joke and I finished

4:17

making it. Then the phone rang

4:20

um when I answered, it was the hospital

4:22

on the line, and my

4:25

mind immediately went to I

4:27

had fallen and broken my ankle

4:31

and my instruments, hadn't finished paying

4:33

all of the bill, and

4:36

they had been calling me and harassing

4:38

me. So I'm thinking, I

4:40

cannot believe they are calling

4:42

after midnight about

4:45

this money, and

4:47

so I was very irritated

4:50

when they told me it was the hospital and

4:53

they were like, do you have a daughter to Sharik

4:55

Adams. I was like, yes, I do, and

4:58

they were like, well, you're daughter

5:00

is at the hospital. She's

5:03

been shot. And I was like, oh

5:05

no. I was like, don't play with me. You

5:07

know she's at

5:09

she was on the date, she was at the

5:11

movie. She's not in the hospital. And

5:14

they were like, we're

5:16

getting ready to take her in to

5:20

do a siscerian section to deliver her

5:22

baby. And I just remember

5:24

dropping to my knees and just wailing,

5:28

just God, just please don't

5:30

let my baby die. The

5:34

four bullets had torn into Sharika's

5:36

body from her left hand side, which

5:38

had been closest to the car door and

5:40

to the shooter, Van Brett Watkins. The

5:44

first bullet entered her hip, the

5:47

second her side, just below

5:49

her rib cage. The third bullet

5:52

entered her upper back and then exited

5:54

higher on her right side, near her shoulder

5:56

blade, perhaps indicating she had

5:58

begun leaning away from the gunfire. The

6:01

final bullet grazed the top of Sharika's

6:04

left shoulder and then embedded in

6:06

the left side of her neck. Now,

6:08

what are your body? You shot on? The

6:14

four bullets had ripped through her pancreas,

6:16

stomach, liver, lungs and

6:18

other organs. Thank you actually

6:21

hit by the bullet,

6:21

and it's

6:26

remarkable she was alive at all, and

6:28

police marvel to this day at her

6:30

strength that night. Her nime on one

6:32

call is painful to listen to, and

6:36

she was articulate. She gave so

6:38

much information. There's a

6:40

couple of points we just want to grab the dispatchers

6:42

saying, come on, I'm getting it, weren't you. This

6:44

is Darryl Price of the Charlotte Mecklenburg

6:46

Police Force. He's been there thirty seven

6:48

years now and has searched for hundreds

6:51

of murder suspects. He was a detective

6:53

assigned to investigate the shooting. After

6:56

listening to it, you're sitting there thinking it's gonna be one

6:58

of the bravest women. She just been

7:00

shot four times and she's

7:02

able to look at a sign

7:04

to see where she's pulling into doll

7:07

and I'm won one and give such good information

7:13

in front who

7:22

at the hospital. Surgeons immediately

7:24

went to work. She had lost a lot

7:26

of blood even though she could talk a

7:29

little bit. This is Dosha Hickey,

7:31

a neo natologist and the Panthers

7:33

fan who had once met Karuth during the team's

7:35

football one on one event. She took

7:37

care of Chancellor Lee during much of his stay

7:39

in the hospital and quickly became the

7:42

family's favorite doctor. She had a significant

7:44

injury and a lot of the injury was to

7:46

the abdomen, very near to where he was. It's

7:49

it's just what It is miraculous that he survived

7:52

because Shrika was in very bad check when

7:54

she came in. And he is

7:56

Chancellor Lee born at

7:58

one two am on November six,

8:02

about seventy five minutes after Sharika

8:05

had been shot. He was ten weeks

8:07

premature and weighed only three

8:09

pounds eleven ounces. He

8:11

was rushed into the neonatal I see you and

8:14

respiratory distress. But

8:16

he was alive and so was Sharika.

8:19

Yet doctors feared the worst. In

8:22

the minutes after Sharika was shot, blood

8:24

had poured from her wounds and Chancellor

8:27

had begun to suffocate Insider. Her

8:29

blood pressure was down. She was hypotensive.

8:32

And you can compensate

8:34

for a while. The placenta compensates,

8:36

but when it gets to a certain point, the

8:39

placenta does not get enough blood flow. When

8:41

that happens, the baby doesn't get oxygen

8:44

to all the organs, but especially the one you

8:46

worry about the most is the brain. Unfortunately,

8:49

the brain is not an organ that can regenerate.

8:51

The liver can regenerate if there's part of

8:53

it still there, sometimes a kidney's camp, but the

8:55

brain, it's not an area that

8:57

regenerates. Uh So he

9:00

lost oxygen and that causes brain

9:02

damage. As doctor's race

9:05

to save two lives, Sandra raced

9:07

to the hospital. She barely remembers

9:09

getting there. Sandra knows

9:12

that at some point she made several phone calls,

9:14

including one to Sharika's father. When

9:17

she arrived, she was told she couldn't

9:19

see her daughter or grandson yet, you

9:21

know, they came out and told me that they

9:24

had to revive Chancellor and

9:27

uh, that he had severe

9:30

damage to his brain and

9:33

they had him in uh the neo

9:35

natal unit, and

9:38

Sharika they were

9:40

trying to stabilize her and they

9:42

had told me, you know, they

9:44

could not retrieve all the bullets

9:46

out of her, so they were going

9:49

to leave her open. And

9:52

because so many of her internal

9:54

organs were affected, they

9:57

didn't know what they might need to do. So

9:59

for the next of all hours, with her daughter

10:01

clinging to life on one floor and her

10:03

grandson fighting for breath on another, Sandra

10:06

was helpless in the waiting room. She

10:08

hugged other relatives as they showed up. She

10:11

worried, and she prayed. Suddenly

10:15

another thought occurred to her. I

10:17

immediately decided, oh

10:19

my god, I got a call ready, because I bet he didn't

10:22

know what's happened, you know, somehow

10:24

she got shot going home

10:27

or whatever. And I'm like, I got a call him.

10:29

So I had two numbers. I had a

10:31

cell phone number and a deeper

10:34

number for him, and so I

10:36

just continually just kept calling

10:38

both both no answer and I was

10:40

leaving messages. I mean, it was some

10:42

hours had passed and he still

10:44

hadn't called me back, and I was

10:47

just so concerned that he needed

10:49

to know what happened. Sandra still

10:51

vividly remembers the next part of that

10:53

night. In fact, her recollection

10:56

is one of the few we have to go on. Jeff

10:58

Mooney, Sharika's father, passed away

11:00

in two thousand five. Karuth declined

11:03

repeated invitations to be interviewed for

11:05

this project or to answer questions

11:07

about Sharika's shooting. Garuth

11:09

did allow his lead defense attorney, David

11:12

Rudolph, to speak on his behalf. I

11:14

didn't ask him about that in particular, and

11:16

I don't remember what he told me back

11:19

nineteen years ago about what he

11:21

was doing in the in the meantime, But

11:24

putting it together with what I now know, uh,

11:28

I think he was panicked, Uh,

11:31

you know, trying to figure out what should

11:33

I do? UH,

11:35

And I think, you know, after a

11:38

number of phone calls, UM, trying

11:40

to settle himself down. Uh,

11:42

he decided, you know, I need to go to the hospital.

11:45

But you know, and

11:48

partly, you know, if you feel sort

11:50

of morally responsible for having

11:53

set these wheels in motion if you will,

11:56

Um, you're gonna feel

11:59

guilty. You know, go into

12:01

the hospital and there's the mother and

12:03

the father. So it's

12:06

it's a really you know, it's one thing if he hadn't

12:08

you know, if this was really a hit where

12:11

you know, they drove by her apartment

12:13

and and killed her. Uh.

12:15

And then then he goes to the hospital. You

12:18

know, there's there's not that same

12:20

level of of guilt

12:23

and anxiety and panic. But

12:25

here he is. You know, he's had this

12:27

argument with Van Brett Watkins. You

12:30

know, he backed out of this deal. He's

12:32

in that way caused us all to go down.

12:36

He fled, and

12:38

now he's got to show up at the hospital. You

12:40

know, it's, um,

12:44

it's it's a it's a difficult moment. I think

12:47

Sandra Adams saw that same tension,

12:49

but in a different way. And so you

12:52

know you're hearing all this from the doctors

12:54

and and still no Ray is

12:56

here. Uh. And finally

13:00

Ray comes in with another

13:02

woman, and I never

13:05

forget the scene where they're sitting over there

13:07

and she's sitting in the chair and Race sitting

13:10

in between her legs

13:12

and she's massaging raised

13:14

shoulder. Because he's so tensed.

13:17

And I went over like a madwoman.

13:20

I knew just seeing

13:23

that scene that he knew what happened to my baby.

13:26

And I confronted him. I

13:29

let him know that I know you know what happened

13:31

to her, and you did

13:33

it. You did it. Sandra

13:36

walked away. After a few minutes,

13:39

she approached Karruth again. Not

13:41

once, you know, even before

13:44

I was a little more irate. He

13:46

never showed no emotion like how is Rika,

13:49

how is the baby? Or I do remember

13:51

Jeff coming over and he was able

13:54

to talk to him more calmly and

13:56

whatever. And I remember going back

13:58

up and I was like, what do you even care what happened

14:01

to it? Do you even want to see

14:03

your son? I mean, you haven't even said anything

14:05

about your son. Kruth said

14:07

he did want to see his son. So

14:09

Sandra led him to the Neo Natal. I see

14:11

you. We were walking down to the Neo Natal

14:14

unit, and I recall him

14:16

being on the phone with his agent. I

14:19

remembered that phone call. I'm like,

14:21

he's calling his agent and trying

14:24

to get a story together,

14:26

and I'm like, m hmmm. So

14:29

we got down to the Nike you and they

14:32

let us in and Chancellor

14:34

is hooked up to all these tubes

14:36

and then the incubator and everything,

14:40

and so the nurse was telling

14:43

us, you know, we couldn't take him out, but we could

14:45

stick our finger in to touch him

14:47

or whatever. So I do remember

14:49

asking him if he wanted to touch

14:52

him, and he said no, he

14:55

just wanted to get a picture of him.

14:57

And he said, because this

14:59

my be the last time I get

15:01

to see him. And that

15:04

just solidified it for me. I'm

15:06

like, you did it. Why else would you

15:08

say you wouldn't see him again if you didn't do

15:10

it. On Chancellor Lee's

15:12

birth certificate, his mother's full name

15:15

was listed, the space for father

15:17

was left blank. Caruth

15:19

would later take a DNA test to ensure

15:21

the baby was his, but for many

15:24

it was hardly necessary. From the very

15:26

beginning, Chancellor Lee looked remarkably

15:29

like his father, because I would say when they

15:31

were doing the DNA, but all of us just sat

15:33

there and went, he cannot deny that this is his

15:35

child. He had that same face, and he

15:37

looks just like Greig

15:39

Ruth even in the beginning.

15:51

By eight that morning, law enforcement was arriving

15:53

at the hospital down at the Charlotte

15:55

Mecklenburg Police Department. A sergeant

15:57

named Tom Athey ran the homicide un

16:00

it. He had quickly assembled a team.

16:02

We handled ma homicide. Suicide

16:04

serisus sauce about everything that's kind of high

16:06

profile. So we're very busy. So one

16:09

of the guys on my squad was called in. He

16:11

worked for me, so then it became my responsibility.

16:14

So I didn't really know anything about it. So I

16:16

got to work next morning and kind of come

16:18

in and see all the loose trucks

16:21

out back and well, maybe you

16:23

know, police officely gotten arrested, somebody shot

16:25

somebody, but gett any rate. I found

16:27

out about when I got there in the morning. Athe's retired

16:30

now living on the North Carolina coast,

16:32

but at the time he led the investigation,

16:35

which sometimes included as many as four

16:37

detectives. Atheis sent Price

16:39

to the hospital, saying he would join him shortly.

16:42

With luck, Price could speak with the victim.

16:45

She had been in surgery since early

16:47

that morning and she had just

16:49

come out by the time I got to the hospital. This

16:51

is Price again. A lot of family members

16:54

were there, um, so I got to meet

16:56

them and talk to them a little bit about what

16:58

they knew they didn't know. They

17:01

started talking about her relationship with

17:03

Ray, and at

17:05

that point I didn't have a lot of

17:07

clue who Ray was. I

17:09

didn't watch Panthers football,

17:12

so I wasn't a fanboy. Um.

17:14

The doctor's articulated they had delivered

17:16

the baby very prematurely. At

17:19

that point, their prognosis was that

17:21

Sharika would probably survive, but

17:24

the baby most likely would not. They

17:26

right, They really were concerned

17:28

because Chancellor had to be revived.

17:31

He had literally passed

17:33

away and he had to be revived,

17:36

so they were really concerned about

17:38

his stability. Normally, I

17:40

have a difficult time with the children

17:43

cases. I had a child

17:45

at the time she's now grown adult. My

17:48

child then was seven years old.

17:51

But in this case, I

17:53

just remember being more focused on hoping

17:56

she would come out of her anesthesius so that we

17:58

could try to talk to her that

18:01

day, because the information would have been more

18:03

fresh that day. About

18:07

seven hours after arriving at the hospital,

18:09

Sharika was wheeled out of surgery and into

18:11

a recovery room. Her family

18:13

soon joined her. For several

18:16

hours after that, Sharika was able

18:18

to communicate, but because she was

18:20

intibated, the tube inserted

18:22

down her throat made her unable to speak,

18:25

so instead she wrote. It

18:27

was one of the nurses that had made the suggestion

18:29

that she couldn't talk, but possibly

18:32

she could write here's price again, And

18:35

so she was given a pad and pen and

18:38

the nurse had asked a few questions first,

18:40

and she was able to write the answers down, so

18:42

at that point started asking

18:44

more questions about where she had been

18:46

and who she had been with, and what

18:48

had occurred to her that particular day.

18:51

Through the entire ordeal, Sharika had

18:53

lost six liters of blood, one

18:55

and a half times what her body would have normally

18:57

held, and of course she had

19:00

just delivered a baby, and she'd

19:02

asked for the pay it and pencil.

19:05

With everything Sharika had endured, Price

19:07

wondered how lucid she could be. But

19:10

there was no question in Saundra's mind.

19:12

I knew she knew what she was talking about,

19:14

because Serrika hated to have chap

19:17

lips, she absolutely hated,

19:19

and they had these tubes and stuff, and she

19:22

was writing on the paper chapstick,

19:25

and I said, she knows exactly

19:27

what she's talking about, and she was able

19:29

to give us enough to where we were able to take

19:31

that lead and work with it. One

19:34

of the questions I know was do you think Ray was

19:36

involved? And she just made a question mark

19:38

after that. I've seen copies

19:40

of those notes, Sharika wrote. The

19:43

handwriting is obviously labored, but

19:45

in one spot she clearly wrote quote,

19:48

he was driving in front of me and stopped

19:50

in the road, and a car pulled up beside

19:52

me, and he blocked the front and never

19:55

came back. Still,

19:58

the new mother had no idea who had actually

20:00

shot her, and soon, under doctor's

20:02

orders, she was given more medication and

20:05

went back to sleep. At a particular point,

20:08

she kind of wound down, and we were told that

20:10

we needed to let her rest, and

20:12

obviously, based on the fact that I told we thought

20:15

she was gonna survive, you know, there's gonna be

20:17

another day. So we kind of left

20:19

it at that and moved on. As

20:23

Price spoke with Sharika eighth,

20:25

he focused on the hospital waiting room.

20:28

Caruth was still there, and the sergeant wasted

20:30

no time. He told me that first contact

20:32

is invaluable to police, in part

20:35

because lawyers aren't typically involved. Yet,

20:37

if I remember, there was another girl with him, but I'm

20:39

not sure of that. But

20:41

the only thing that really I z roe in on

20:44

was he had a had a cell phone

20:46

with him, so I was asking to have take a look his

20:48

father, and uh, I started

20:50

going through some of the contacts members and uh,

20:53

you know, kind of writing that stuff down. Police

20:55

had one crucial thing on their side that

20:57

already heard the tape from Sharika's nine

21:00

in one call. Karuth couldn't have known

21:02

what she told the dispatchers, much

21:04

less that Athey had already heard it. Tell

21:07

off about the guy's line, and you can just tell from talking

21:09

to people, you know, I mean, you

21:11

got to remember what we knew at the time was

21:14

what Sharika said on the novel one call. I

21:16

mean, I'm not the smartest kind of the world, non playton

21:20

fairly ignorant of things. Weren't the need to so,

21:22

I mean, I kind of knew what the deal was, but he didn't

21:24

know that. I knew that the waiting room

21:26

wasn't the place for a confrontation. Though Athei's

21:29

team could soon go to work on the cell phone records,

21:32

they hope to schedule a later conversation with

21:34

Caruth down at the police station, but

21:36

before he left the waiting room that morning. Athey

21:39

wanted one more thing from the NFL player,

21:42

his car. We got him

21:44

to consent for us to search

21:47

his vehicle. He was pretty forthcoming about

21:49

that because there's really no physical

21:52

evidence tying him to anything in

21:54

that car, and we we figured out why

21:56

after we kind of got into this thing. Any

21:59

further interviews with Caruth, however, we're

22:01

quickly put on hold. Before the day

22:03

was out. Caruth had hired George Lauren,

22:05

a well known Charlotte defense attorney who had

22:08

represented multiple pro athletes involved

22:10

in scrapes with the law. Lauren

22:12

had no intention of letting Kruth taught

22:14

to police. George declined

22:16

to let us interview his client. But we go

22:18

back and see what comes of the vehicle

22:20

search, which was really nothing. And

22:24

the next thing that we would have done would

22:26

be start looking at these phone records and identifying

22:28

people he's been talking to at the police

22:30

station. Those records painted oblique picture

22:33

thanks largely to what was at the time cutting

22:36

edge technology. You know, we started looking

22:38

into phone records because

22:40

she had made a comment that she was on the

22:42

phone with Ray Here's price again. So

22:44

we're able to pull her records and then we subpoena

22:47

Ray's records as well, and we

22:49

were able to piece together pretty quickly that

22:52

he's talking to her from the time they left

22:55

the movie theater and then he

22:57

gets off the phone to take another phone

22:59

call with this Kennedy guy.

23:01

Then he gets back on the phone with her. And

23:04

this was very new at the time, the

23:06

cell phone triangulation, that

23:09

you could take cell phone records,

23:11

figure out which towers were being used

23:13

and triangulate a location within a

23:16

few yards, and

23:18

we could put Ray's cell phone

23:21

where she was shot. So then we started going

23:23

back and talking to the person he called

23:26

in between the two Sharika calls,

23:28

and that eventually leads us to the

23:31

shooter and another person

23:33

who was in the car. Four

23:38

days went by and back at the hospital

23:40

there was finally caused for optimism.

23:43

Chancellor Lee's prognosis was gradually

23:46

improving. He had a seizure

23:49

because of the hypoxia the lack of oxygen

23:51

he had had in utero. Yeah, none,

23:54

for sure. It wasn't one of the subtle ones. It was

23:56

a real said, this is Dosha Hiki

23:58

again. She saw a Chancellor Lee for

24:01

the first time when he was a few hours old.

24:03

He ended up having that seizure,

24:05

got some medication, and that's the

24:07

only time he did. Everybody

24:10

was always going to be worried about him because

24:12

of what went on. But he

24:15

took a bottle. He did things like a baby was

24:17

supposed to do before he went home.

24:19

Because of the lack of oxygen. Hickey

24:21

worried that Chancellor Lee might have developed

24:23

cerebral palsy, a disorder

24:25

often characterized by abnormal reflexes,

24:28

stiffness in the limbs, tremors

24:31

and delays, and motor skills and speech development.

24:33

But that diagnosis is hard to make for infants.

24:36

You were worried when he had decision. You

24:39

can't tell for sure until it's time

24:41

to start making your milestones. When

24:44

you walk, when you start talking

24:46

off, when you start rolling, you know, actually

24:49

if you roll over early, that's a bad sign

24:51

because it means you're stiff. He was

24:53

able to take a bottle, but that's a very basic

24:56

reflex. As Chancellor Lead

24:58

defied doctor's expectation, however,

25:00

his mother's condition worsened, doctors

25:03

proposed what was then an experimental treatment

25:06

option for Sharika called ECMO.

25:09

They would put her in a medically induced

25:11

coma and use machines to bypass

25:13

the function of her heart and lungs.

25:15

Sharika was fighting

25:17

so hard to live. She

25:20

already had a punctured lung and all

25:23

her organs were just messed up, but she

25:25

was trying so hard to live. It was

25:27

just overbearing pressure

25:30

on the lungs and on her heart. And

25:32

at the time the doctor did come out and

25:34

tell us that they wanted to try

25:37

this new procedure and it

25:39

had never been done on an adult

25:42

and had only been performed with

25:44

children. But they thought that

25:46

they could use this echmo and

25:49

help her to live. Almost

25:52

immediately, Sharika, the five

25:54

ft four woman who modeled as a teenager,

25:56

began retaining fluids and transforming

25:59

before her mother's eyes. By

26:01

that next morning, she

26:07

did not even look like Sharika,

26:11

And so when I went in to see

26:13

her, I thought I was in the wrong room. After

26:15

one day, of

26:17

course, I have plenty funny stories. When

26:21

up she was born, she

26:23

had this little round face. She

26:25

had a head full of hair, so they had

26:27

put her hair down on the sides and did

26:29

a mohawk up in the top. And

26:32

I was like, they gonna gave me the wrong child.

26:36

So they assured

26:38

me this, this is the one you had.

26:42

And so that first

26:44

day seeing her again after

26:47

the coma was induced, she

26:50

was that round face the baby. She just

26:52

didn't have the mohawk, and

26:54

it was such a surreal moment

26:56

for me. For

27:04

nearly a month, Price visited

27:06

Sharika and her family almost every day

27:08

to keep them updated on the investigation.

27:11

By then, a row of framed family

27:13

photos lined the window sill over hospital

27:16

room, and bunches of get well Soon

27:18

balloons decorated the corners of the ceiling.

27:21

They had to elevate her bed so that

27:23

it would help the drainage of the fluids. Have

27:26

one picture of me in the room with her, with

27:28

her bed probably close to six

27:30

feet off the ground. Here's Price

27:32

again. I would have to venture guess

27:34

that every day one of the family members

27:36

there, so I got to know them super well, you

27:40

know. And during this time I wasn't just going in

27:42

hospital every day. We were doing this and

27:44

doing that. And that's including

27:46

the sergeant. You know, as soon as we bring

27:48

information back to him, he would make sense

27:50

of it, developed new tasks, you

27:52

know, trying to piece together what had occurred

27:56

at the police station. Caruth's expedition

27:59

had come up in t for DNA or other

28:01

evidence tying into the crime, but

28:03

Athey had another use for it. We're not gonna

28:05

go out there knock on his door and

28:07

get him to talk to us. So

28:10

we called him on the phone and say, hey,

28:12

Ray, we got your car. We're kind of done with it. I

28:15

said, look, if you come down here and get this car, the

28:17

media is everywhere. You know, you have to deal with all

28:19

these jackass media people. Just

28:22

no offense. I'm just trying to to get

28:24

him on our side. You know, they're gonna

28:26

be up in your face. Blah blah blah. I say, here,

28:28

what we do this. We'll come out there and get you.

28:31

We'll bring you down here. We'll get you into

28:33

the parking deck so you can sign a paperwork

28:35

to pick up your car. So he's all about

28:37

that, and we're buddies at that time, Athey

28:40

and another officer drove out and picked up Caruth

28:43

at his home. Driving back to the station,

28:45

Athey sat in the front seat on the passenger

28:47

side and Kruth sat in the back. Always

28:51

conscious of appearances, Kruth

28:53

made an observation, I've got my left

28:55

hand on the arm rest

28:58

looking over my shoulder, kind of just making a small

29:00

talk with him and I. At that time, I used

29:02

to wear the Rolex watch and

29:05

he looks at the watch. You said, hey, is that a fake Rolex?

29:09

H I actually bought this. You

29:11

know what I mean? Well, you've

29:14

just been involved. I'm trying to murder your girlfriend, and you

29:16

you want to bust on me for wearing a fake Rolex.

29:18

But anyway, at the station, the sergeant stalled.

29:21

Athey said the suv wasn't quite ready

29:23

to be picked up, and sent to Ruth

29:25

to an interview room to wait. There,

29:28

he convinced the football player to look at a list

29:30

of his own phone records and explain

29:33

one number Ruth had called over and over

29:35

in the prior a few months. I said, you know,

29:37

well, the quickly we can get your store, we can get you out of

29:39

this thing and move on. He said, we don't you know my lawyer telling

29:41

I supposed to see I understand. I said, you're not under

29:43

rest. You know you're if something happens,

29:45

you're gonna be the person something. The consequence is not your lawyer.

29:48

If you've got to go to prison, guess who ain't

29:50

going to prison? George Lauren I

29:53

said, I'll tell you what. Let's just do this. I

29:55

just want you to look at some of these phone numbers,

29:58

and this tell me who these people are. So he's

30:00

going through, he's naming him all right and left,

30:02

and he gets down to the one that turns out

30:04

to be Van Brett Watkins

30:07

and he just gets right over that, like as

30:10

quick as his finger could move. I

30:13

said, well, who's this person? And I can't

30:15

remember his response, but it clearly wasn't

30:17

the truth. So it's clear to me that

30:19

number was important.

30:21

That phone number led to the switchboard at

30:24

a budget motel near Charlotte's Airport,

30:26

the Villager Lodge, but not

30:28

to a specific room.

30:31

Police released Caruth's car and sent

30:33

him on his way and puzzled

30:35

over the mysterious motel guest. The

30:38

key break there came from

30:40

Michael Kennedy was that the designated

30:42

place this was to happen throughout past that

30:44

place and then turned

30:46

around and we came back. The driver

30:49

in the drive by shooting was the first

30:51

to cooperate with police. Here he

30:53

is talking with Charlotte Mecklenburg police

30:55

officer Tony Rice. He can't tell

30:57

you what he's gonna do. How he's going to make this happen.

31:00

Yeah, he'sat on My man

31:02

arrived at you. He was talking about well, he said,

31:04

wright with you. He said, well, we need

31:06

the movies. He said, I'm gonna call

31:08

you and I want out to follow me down this role

31:10

right here, and he was like we Did'm already

31:12

know what to do. Kennedy didn't know

31:15

Watkins real name, but he gave

31:17

police a good description of the shooter.

31:20

Nine days after Sharika was shot, police

31:22

were patrolling the Villager Lodge. Law

31:25

enforcement was close to unraveling Caruth's

31:27

alleged plan, a plan

31:29

that soon was no longer a conspiracy to

31:32

avoid a child support payment. On

31:34

December fourteenth, it

31:37

became cold blooded murder. Sharika's

31:46

doctors tried experimental treatments and

31:48

conventional care, but by mid December

31:51

she had been unconscious for twenty seven

31:53

straight days and there were a few options

31:55

left. Chancellor

31:58

was still there in the hospital as well, and

32:00

Sharika's family asked if he could be brought

32:02

to her room. We knew she was going to die,

32:05

and the family asked if

32:07

he could come up to the adult

32:10

intensive care unit. This is

32:12

Hickey again, and the room

32:14

was full and there was people out in the hall

32:16

and we came in and Sandra

32:19

looks up at me and goes, there's Dr

32:21

Hickey with Chancellor, and

32:24

uh. We wrapped him up and we

32:26

laid him on her chest for a while. Sharrika

32:29

was never able to actually

32:31

see Chancellor while she was conscious.

32:34

As soon as she delivered Chancellor,

32:36

he had to immediately be taken

32:39

to the nick. You. There were

32:41

two occasions that we

32:44

took Chancellor to her. On

32:46

both the occasions,

32:49

I know she felt his presence

32:51

because when we laid Chancellor on

32:54

her breast, the monitors

32:57

immediately started going crazy

33:00

easy. That heart monitor

33:02

was just all up and down and

33:04

up and down, and that let

33:07

me know she knew he was

33:09

present. And I

33:11

just remember the one tier she

33:15

had, one tier to

33:17

come out the side of her eye. Soon

33:20

after the family decided to let

33:22

her go. By the

33:24

time we took

33:26

her off the life support, she was

33:28

two and eighty two pounds. I

33:32

didn't even have anything that she could wear.

33:36

So the last day that Sharika

33:39

was Shaika to us was

33:42

November six.

33:45

We definitely was

33:49

praying for a different outcome,

33:51

that both of them would live and

33:54

and get better. But I think I

33:56

had so much peace because

33:59

she was sting, she was not living,

34:02

so I didn't have to

34:04

think long on making that decision.

34:07

Uh, And I knew, and

34:10

I know she knew that her son

34:12

was in good hands, and so we

34:15

made really, I made the

34:17

decision to take her off of life

34:19

support. Sharika

34:22

Adams died at PM

34:24

on that December day, with her parents

34:26

and her family by her side. Her

34:28

son was four weeks old. A

34:31

few hours later, Chancellor Lee did

34:33

something unexpected. Chancellor

34:35

had not had what's called an attic spell

34:37

the whole damn time since he had been

34:39

in the unit where he stopped breathing

34:42

in your heart rate dropped. That night

34:44

he had an aptic spell, and

34:47

all of us sort of looked at each other and went, we're

34:49

not going to worry about this. It was. It

34:52

was, it was. It gave us all

34:54

that. I think

34:57

it was something having to do with her passing

35:00

a few hours after that, Caruth

35:03

was on the run. I'm

35:05

Scott Fowlard and this podcast is

35:07

produced by Jeff Signer and Rachel

35:09

Wise and Davin Coburn at McClatchy Studios.

35:12

Find lots more about this case at Charlotte Observer

35:15

dot com slash Caruth and

35:17

for just thirty dollars, subscribe

35:19

now to a full year of the Observer's award

35:21

winning sports coverage at Charlotte

35:23

Observer dot com slash sports

35:26

pass. In chapter

35:28

four, The Federal Manhunt for a

35:30

Fugitive, I saw a segment on

35:32

Good Morning America, Ray Kruth

35:35

flat the state. He could sense this

35:37

was gonna get turned on him, and him along something

35:40

that horrific. In that calculated you're

35:42

just thinking, I can't my team that could not have done

35:44

that. The adrenaline kicked in. I thought, oh

35:47

my god, he is here. He comes to the door

35:49

completely naked. He's got another girl in

35:51

there. I said, Ray, with the FBI

35:53

and I have Asians surrounded the fall