In London, Panthers game is a chance to heal for family victimized by Carruth murder
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Of the hundreds of Carolina Panthers fans who have made the trip to London to watch the team play overseas Sunday, there are two who never, ever thought they’d be here.
They are a grandmother and a grandson — Saundra and Chancellor Lee Adams — who 20 years ago were victimized by one of the most horrific crimes in Charlotte’s history.
The Adamses’ trip to London has been just about perfect. And they don’t even know yet about the front-row end zone seats awaiting them Sunday at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, when they will watch their beloved Panthers take on Tampa Bay.
“I don’t know who’s having more fun, Chancellor or I,” Saundra Adams said Friday night during a party for the 700-plus fans who came to London as part of the Roaring Riot fan group. “This is once-in-a-lifetime.”
Chancellor Lee nodded, bobbing his head to the music. He said his favorite part of the trip has been a visit to Windsor Castle.
Chancellor Lee is disabled, and doctors once believed he would never walk. But he made a 30-minute hike with his grandmother down the streets of central London to get to this party.
“And he is barely even sweating!” Saundra Adams said, beaming.
A year ago at this time, the Adamses’ mood was different.
Rae Carruth — the former Panther who was convicted of conspiring to murder his pregnant girlfriend Cherica Adams in 1999 because, prosecutors said, Carruth didn’t want to pay child support — was about to get out of a North Carolina prison. Carruth had served nearly 19 years for his crimes.
Chancellor Lee Adams, who is Cherica’s son as well as Saundra’s grandson, didn’t understand exactly what was going on.
He will turn 20 years old next month and is scheduled to graduate from his high school in May. He has cerebral palsy and permanent brain damage due to the four bullets that entered Cherica Adams’ body Nov. 16, 1999, when she was ambushed during a drive-by shooting in south Charlotte. She was nearly eight months pregnant with Chancellor Lee.
Those gunshot wounds deprived Chancellor Lee of blood and oxygen during the chaotic minutes after his mother was shot. He has been raised since birth by his grandmother, whom he calls “G-Mom.”
CARRUTH: Read the Observer’s entire award-winning series
On that night in 1999, Cherica Adams had just left a movie date with Carruth — her on-again, off-again boyfriend. They drove separate cars, at his request. After Carruth stopped his vehicle in front of Adams on Rea Road, causing her to stop, a third car pulled up beside her.
Adams was shot four times through the car door by Van Brett Watkins, a hired hitman who has long admitted his role in the murder. Watkins told me recently he wishes Carruth were dead. Watkins isn’t scheduled to be released from prison until at least 2046, when he will be in his late 80s.
Cherica Adams saved her unborn child Chancellor’s life that night with a 12-minute “911” call, guiding an ambulance to her car despite her grievous wounds. But she died from her injuries four weeks later, on Dec. 14, 1999, in a Charlotte hospital with Saundra and other family members at her bedside.
Chancellor Lee only knew last October that his grandmother was anxious. That made him anxious, too. When Carruth — a fleet wide receiver out of Colorado and the Panthers’ first-round draft pick in 1997 — was released from prison Oct. 22, 2018, the Adamses made sure to stay far away from the media circus.
‘We were inspired’
Just before Carruth went free a year ago, videographer Jeff Siner, myself and numerous other colleagues who worked on the project released a seven-part Charlotte Observer multimedia story about the Adams’ murder and its aftermath. Called “Carruth,” it included an online series, a 28-minute video documentary and a seven-part serialized podcast.
After Carruth’s prison release, I tracked him down in Pennsylvania, rang his doorbell and obtained the only interview he has given since getting out. We then added an eighth part to the podcast and online series in December.
It was the podcast that drew the most attention. “Carruth” was named Sports Illustrated’s podcast of the year in 2018, and Saundra and Chancellor Lee Adams were its unquestioned stars. Most listeners were hearing the powerful voice of Saundra Adams for the first time when she talked about grace, redemption, the miracle of her grandchild’s survival — and why she needed to forgive Carruth despite his role in the murder of her only biological child.
“I’ve had so many people approach me — I mean literally, tears in their eyes, saying that podcast touched their lives so much,” Adams said Friday.
One of the people who binged the five-hour podcast was Zack Luttrell. Several years ago, Luttrell had started the Roaring Riot fan club, where his official title is “ringleader.” That club isn’t officially affiliated with the Panthers. But it has become such an integral part of the team’s fan experience that owner David Tepper stopped by the Riot party in London on Friday night, predicting a Carolina victory, leading a couple of cheers and even dancing a little.
Said Luttrell: “We were inspired (by the podcast). The Adamses story, the whole Rae Carruth story, was something we (previously) just shied away from as a part of the Panthers’ history that is obviously very dark. And we didn’t really want to relive that. But after hearing their story — and learning more about them and seeing and hearing their personalities — we were drawn to reach out to them.”
Luttrell created the “Roaring Riot Foundation” earlier this year, with the idea of giving worthy Panthers fans the sort of road-game experience that they couldn’t otherwise afford. He decided he wanted the Adamses to be the foundation’s first beneficiary. After Luttrell contacted me at the newspaper, I passed along Saundra Adams’ phone number.
An all-expenses-paid trip
When Luttrell first called Saundra Adams in early 2019, she was a bit confused.
“He told me he was with the Roaring Riot, and I didn’t know who they were at that time,” Adams recounted Friday in London. “He asked me: ‘Ms. Adams, would you like to go to an away game? We go to all the away games.’ ... He said you can go to any one you want, but we do have a game they’ll be playing in London. And I’m like London ... London, Texas?”
It was London, England, where the Panthers would be one of the last NFL teams to make the overseas trip to play a regular-season game in the NFL’s effort to expand the game’s popularity internationally. Adams told Luttrell that she and her grandson would love to go to Europe, where neither had ever been. Luttrell told her the Roaring Riot Foundation would provide them with a weeklong, all-expenses-paid trip.
This trip represents another step in the healing process for the family. Another big one occurred Oct. 28, 2018, when the Adamses were welcomed to Bank of America Stadium by the team and invited onto the Panthers’ field during pregame.
That gesture was “huge,” according to Saundra Adams. The Panthers had disassociated themselves from Carruth in 1999 after he was arrested in connection with Cherica Adams’ murder. Ever since, under Jerry Richardson’s ownership, they had mostly ignored the continuing story of Saundra and Chancellor Lee Adams. But last October, the Adamses met several Panthers’ players, as well as Tepper.
Since Carruth’s release a year ago, the Adamses and the former Panther have not been in touch. Carruth has never admitted to hiring Watkins to kill Cherica Adams and their unborn son — he used a “drug deal gone bad” defense in court, and his attorney said Watkins shot Adams on his own.
Watkins, though, told me repeatedly in interviews that Carruth hired him specifically to kill Adams.
‘You have to let it go’
Over the many years I have covered this story, Carruth and Saundra Adams both have expressed some desire to let Carruth be at least slightly involved in his son’s life.
“My only desire is for true forgiveness and a genuine opportunity to be a part of my son’s life,” Carruth wrote to me in an email in late 2018.
“And out (of) respect for Ms. Adams and her feelings towards me, I have no plans of ever trying to force my way in. I’m going to be patient and give her the space she rightfully deserves. When the time is right, I believe that Ms. Adams will eventually extend an invitation for me to have contact with my son — and I will eagerly accept.”
Adams said Friday night that Carruth must make the first move.
“I said I wasn’t going to press the issue,” she told me. “If he were to call me, I am so open and receptive to talking to him and meeting with him. But I can’t even initiate it, because I don’t know how to contact him.”
Adams believes Carruth should initiate any attempt at a reconciliation.
I have offered to give Saundra Adams’ phone number to Carruth several times during our on-and-off contact. He has turned down that opportunity so far.
All of that brought us to Friday night, where the Adamses were literally and figuratively a long way from Charlotte and how they were feeling a year ago at this time.
“It’s a total 180,” Adams said. “We were somewhat a little anxious, because the release date was coming. And we didn’t know what to expect … And so this year, almost a year to the date, we’re here celebrating with the Panthers. In London! This is just phenomenal for us.”
The shooting of her daughter occurred nearly 20 years ago in Charlotte, but Saundra Adams said it is never far from her mind.
“It feels like it was last week,” Adams said. “I cannot believe that 20 years have gone by this quickly. There have been a lot of lessons learned, a lot of care and gratitude shown toward us … It’s making our daily journey easier to walk.”
Whether the Panthers win or lose Sunday, the Adamses (as well as their cousin, Viola Baker, who is traveling with the family to help care for Chancellor Lee) also have one more side excursion left. The three of them plan to make a day trip Monday to Paris before they return to Charlotte — a journey, Adams said, that will bring a fitting end to this overseas trip.
“The Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, the City of Love,” Adams said. “I think that sums us up so well. Because we’re all about love. And you can’t hold on to past hurt. And regret. And unforgiveness.
“You have to let it go. Only love promotes peace.”
This story was originally published October 13, 2019 at 6:00 AM.
