RAE CARRUTH

Rae Carruth was arrested in 1999 in western Tennessee, where police found him hiding in the trunk of a friend's car a day after he failed to surrender on a murder charge in the shooting death of his girlfriend. It brought an end to a harrowing period in which the star wide receiver had vanished after being charged with orchestrating the murder of his pregnant girlfriend Cherica Adams. What could drive an active NFL star player to murder? Most people felt as though it was his attempt at a violent abortion, a way for him to cancel out the pregnancy so he would not be on the hook for his unborn child, but there was likely more to the story than that. For $5,000, he got a man to kill Cherica Adams and her unborn child, but life had other plans. A young boy named Chancellor survived the shooting and has grown up to be a young man with lingering effects of that terrible crime. He survived the shooting and was delivered via an emergency cesarean section, 10 weeks premature. Chancellor has brain damage and cerebral palsy stemming from injuries sustained in the shooting.

But who was Rae Carruth anyway? Going into college, he was a scholarship wide receiver at Colorado, but he was not generally considered to be a top tier NFL prospect. He was not very big, and most of his physical tools graded out as average. But not his speed. Carruth could run like the wind. He could get into a speed that few people have ever been able to reach in a football uniform. He was said to have run a sub 4.2 second 40 yard dash, and anything under 4.5 is considered elite speed. 4.2 is the type of time that has only been seen a handful of times with guys like Deion Sanders and Bo Jackson. That speed carried Carruth to the first round of the NFL draft and took him into a place where he was a potential big money player. One of the reasons said to be behind Carruth's murder of Adams was Carruth's concern with money, and his sudden status as a top level receiver may have contributed to his paranoia about how other people might have been after his money. But the murder was clearly more personal than just being over money based on how Carruth went about carrying it out.

This was not just a situation where he paid someone and then went about his business, Carruth took an active role in the murder and then skipped town when he was bailed out of jail. Carruth was on hand, the police said, and used his car to block Ms. Adams's car and facilitate the shooting. He skipped bail after his arrest and was eventually found hiding in a car trunk in a Best Western parking lot in Tennessee. These were the actions of a guilty man. However, he was acquitted of first-degree murder, which could have brought a life sentence or the death penalty and sentenced instead to a lesser charge of conspiracy. But what would drive a man to murder, especially one with such a bright future? When the news came out, Carruth's mother publicly stated disbelief with the situation: "Rae told me he didn't kill her, and that he doesn't want to sit in jail,'' Mrs. Carruth said during a news conference in Sacramento, where she lived. ''People can't condemn him right now. He's confused, he's never been in any trouble, and I think he deserves a little time to clear his head."

It just did not seem possible that an NFL star would do such a thing. And obviously no mother wants to believe her own child is capable of such a thing. Carruth was not a gang banger, he was a gifted athlete, excellent student who made the academic All Big 12 team despite being a double major in English and education and he was known to generally spend most of his spare time with numerous girlfriends that he often juggled at the same time. In college, he impregnated a woman and was forced to pay $3,500 a month in child support while he was supposedly dating other women at the same time. Carruth might have just seen Cherica Adams as someone else after a monthly allowance on his immense athletic gifts and did something horrible to stop it from happening. Carruth was somewhat of an enigma to a lot of people, and his personality may have also played a role in his decision making process because he did not seem to have a deep connection to his teammates and was generally a private person.

After joining Carolina as the No. 27 pick--he received a four-year, $3.7 million contract--he had a brilliant first season, leading NFL rookies with 44 catches and 545 receiving yards, but remaining somewhat of a puzzlement. He wore five jersey numbers in three seasons. When he was arrested, none of his teammates claimed to know him very well, though all described him as friendly. After his successful rookie year, his career took a step back, he got injured and that injury coincided with a change in his attitude toward Adams's pregnancy, according to her mother, Saundra. After initially asking Cherica to consider an abortion, Saundra said, Carruth became "excited about the baby, seemingly." For several months, she said, Carruth attended prenatal-care visits with Cherica, but he stopped going after he was hurt. "He seemed to be more pressured after his injury," Saundra said, "more pressured about money and how much the baby was going to cost him." While it is not justifiable by any means, Carruth's concern about money seems to explain his internal reasoning for the terrible series of events he set into motion.

Could concerns over money and his future career prospects be the sole reason for the murder of Cherica Adams and the permanent damage to Chancellor? Sadly, it appears that this is really the case. Carruth's crime has not been explained in any other way and it is an explanation that makes perfect sense even if it is abhorrent. Carruth, like many other murderers, saw a problem and thought "killing them would be easier than solving the problem or dealing with it" and actually went through with it. Being the first is usually a good thing, but being the first active NFL player to ever be charged with murder is certainly not the NFL first Carruth and his mother envisioned when he was a football-obsessed 7 year old. Sadly, Cherica and Chancellor's lives were forever impacted by Carruth's inability to face his problems in a constructive way.