On the morning of Dec. 15, 1999, FBI agent Mark Post was deep into his morning routine _ oatmeal, coffee and making sure his three boys were up and getting ready for school.
There was nothing special on his work agenda _ just another Wednesday. Another bunch of paperwork. Another eight hours supervising the four agents who worked for him in the FBI's satellite office in Jackson, Tenn.
Post had the television on for background noise. He walked by it, suit coat in hand, just as Theodry Carruth, the mother of Carolina Panthers wide receiver Rae Carruth, was being interviewed about her son's disappearance. She said her son was scared, but not dangerous.
Carruth was on the run and police in North Carolina were looking for him. He knew he was supposed to have turned himself in as a condition of his bail, but he didn't.
Authorities planned to charge Carruth with first-degree murder in the death of Cherica Adams when they found him.
Post noted how emotional Theodry Carruth was, and wondered to himself where her son was headed.
Post didn't know it, but Carruth wasn't far away. He was crammed into the trunk of a friend's 1997 gray Toyota Camry, with $3,900 in cash, mostly in twenties, stashed in a woman's purse.
Inside the trunk, Carruth also had several energy bars, a cell phone and two empty 20-ounce sport drink bottles for when he needed to urinate. He was headed west on Interstate 40 toward California, by way of Jackson, Tenn.
And he was about to meet Mark Post.
