CHARLOTTE, N.C. _ Former Carolina Panthers wide receiver Rae Carruth has written a new letter from prison _ and in this one he says he now realizes that he will never have an ongoing relationship with his son, Chancellor Lee Adams, who lives in Charlotte under the care of Chancellor's maternal grandmother, Saundra Adams.
"For all involved or invested in this ordeal, please calm down," Carruth wrote as part of a letter he addressed to me that I received Wednesday at The Charlotte Observer. "I will no longer be pursuing a relationship with Chancellor and Ms. Adams. I promise to leave them be, which I now see is in everyone's best interest."
Carruth also asked me, in a separately enclosed one-page note, to give Saundra Adams a copy of his four-page, 800-word letter. I read the letter to Adams over the phone Wednesday afternoon before sending it to her. She listened, then said she wouldn't comment at this time. Adams previously said she has forgiven Carruth for his role in her daughter's murder.
Carruth, 44, is scheduled to be released from prison in October after serving almost two decades for orchestrating a conspiracy to murder Cherica Adams by hiring a hitman to shoot and kill her on a dark road in Charlotte in 1999.
Adams was 24 years old and seven months pregnant with Carruth's child at the time. She was shot four times by Van Brett Watkins _ who is still in prison and will be for decades _ but managed to make a 911 call that both saved her baby and implicated Carruth in her murder. She gave birth to Chancellor shortly after the shooting. Adams died four weeks later due to complications from her injuries.
Chancellor is now 18 and has always struggled with cerebral palsy and brain damage because of the traumatic circumstances of his birth. Saundra Adams, whose daughter Cherica was her only biological child, has raised her grandson for his entire life. He calls her "G-Mom" and brightens every room he enters with his smile. Carruth has been in prison since his jury trial in Charlotte ended in 2001.
A family friend of Carruth _ who sent documentation to show that she holds Carruth's power of attorney _ told me that Carruth is "just trying to do the right thing here with the Adams family and not disrupt anyone's lives."
Tiffany Shears-Trice has known the extended Carruth family for decades, talks regularly to Carruth by phone and was confirmed to be a family spokesperson by another member of Carruth's family. Said Shears-Trice: "Rae can see Chancellor is a happy, healthy soul and he doesn't want to interfere with that. But he will still live up to his financial responsibilities for his son _ he definitely wants to do that and he will do that. He wants to help."
In 2003, Saundra Adams was awarded nearly $5.8 million in damages for the murder of her daughter in a wrongful death lawsuit. The monetary award was to be paid to her by Carruth and his three convicted co-conspirators. But Adams has barely received any money from the judgment because the four men have either been in prison or unemployed for much of the time since Cherica Adams' death.
