October 16, 2018 • 41 mins
Jury foreman Clark Pennell recounts for us the tense deliberations before delivering a verdict against Rae Carruth. Chancellor Lee's doctors diagnose him with Cerebral Palsy as a result of his traumatic birth. His speech is halting and his movement labored, yet Chancellor Lee surpasses doctors’ expectations for his progress and development in physical therapy, and at home.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
A listener. Note this story contains adult language and some
graphic descriptions of violence. Previously on Kruth, somebody said something
about the Caruth trial starts tomorrow, and I said a
few words because I realized that's when I had gotten
deferred to firing five bullets point blank range into Shriek
(00:24):
Adam's body, all the elements of premeditation or there. She
was the strongest witness for herself to her own murder.
Great probably saying in his head that that was a
bad plan. Also, no, actually he's saying he didn't do this,
Mr Kenny, and that you're a liar. They we're gonna
use Van Brett Watkins. And I'm just sitting here thinking,
but that ain't gonna work out so good for you.
I would rip you like a rag doll. Probably the
(00:46):
most unhappy guy in that courtroom was gentry. They were
afraid they were gonna lose the cakes. Down the hallway
from Courtroom thirty three oh one in Charlotte's Criminal Courts Building,
there's a meeting room tucked in the back, away from
(01:07):
the lawyers, the parents, and the media scrum engulfing everything
around the Ray k Ruth murder trial The one window
in the room looked out onto a parking garage. The
twelve men and women of the jury gathered around a
long gray table about to decide Kruth's fate in the
killing of Sharika Adams. You know, we had four things
(01:27):
that we had to discuss. They had been charged with
four different items. This is Clark Pennell, one of the
jury members. And I've read after the fact that people
out in the hall said we were yelling, then we
were doing this, and we were doing and I took
exception to that. We all had been stifled for three months.
(01:50):
We all wanted to talk at once. I wanted to
make my point, She wanted to make her point. He
wanted to make his point. It was like sitting around
with family, you know, Thanksgiving dinner, and everybody's talking at
one time. It was basically that for those three months,
jurors had passed the time there during breaks in the tribe,
by playing cards or working on a puzzle, or sometimes
(02:11):
just counting down until they had lunch at a nearby
restaurant called show Mars. The only way I knew it
was a circus because we could look out the women
see what was going on. Outside. We were kind of
confined to the jury room. And then at lunch, you know,
we gave show Mars a lot of business and occasionally
some of us would bring our lunches and we'd go
(02:31):
hide out in the park and they eat, because if
you didn't, people were come up, and people did try.
And I guess it was people that had come to
the trial and they'd see us headed the show Mars
or women. Well a wait, wait, and you know, we
just turn our heads and keep going, which is what
(02:52):
we were instructed to do. And after going that far,
I don't think any of us wanted to get kicked
off the jury for doing something stupid. There was no
TV in that room and no newspapers were allowed either.
The jurors had their own private bathroom. When they threw
away notes, they tore them up first before giving them
to the court officer and their Penel sat among a lawyer,
(03:14):
a banker, a homemaker, a fraud investigator, and the others
who made up Cruth's jury, scribbling a stream of thoughts
into court provided notebooks. The judge told us before the
trial started. He said there were gonna be a lot
of stuff said done, a lot of actions said, you're
gonna need to remember everything that happens, so I'll recommend
(03:34):
that you take as good of notes as you can.
So I went through the first eighty pages, and then
I flipped it over and started coming back on the
next eighty pages, and then I went to book to
started on page one. In a way, after three months,
(03:55):
that jury room had come to feel like a prison
of its own, and on January to thousand one, the
jurors themselves were handed the key lawyers for Ray, Ruth,
and the State of North Carolina completed their closing arguments.
For Pennel and the other men and women of the jury,
only one thing stood in their way of going home.
They simply had to answer the question should Rake Ruth
(04:18):
live or die? From the Charlotte Observer and McClatchy Studios,
this is Kruth, I'm Scott Fowler, and this is Chapter six,
The Verdict and the Miracle. In its closing argument, the
(04:46):
prosecution argued Kruth was the mastermind responsible for Sharik's killing.
The defense claimed her shooting was retribution for a large
scale rug deal gone wrong. If Ray had just paid
us the money, none of this would have happened, as
(05:06):
the drama shifted to that back room. Judge Charles Lamb
first instructed the jury to pick a foreman. Most observers
presumed it would be Herb Brown, a lawyer for thirty
seven years himself and one who had even tried cases
against the lead prosecutor, Gentry Cardell, but Brown wanted no
part of the job. I never did get into any
(05:28):
contest with anyone else to try to be the foreman,
and I prefer not to because I think it would
appear had I been a foreman, being an attorney with
as much experience that as I had, then that the
people may get the idea, well, why did you have
that one lawyer there when his other eleven drawers and
(05:50):
may have been more puppet like, And I did not
want that to happen. The attorney recruised himself immediately, at
which we all thought was probably a good idea, because
he said, if I'm a jury foreman, whatever verdict we
come out with is going to be torn to bits.
And he said, I just don't think that it would
(06:11):
be in fair interest to me or to the jurors
for me to be the jury foreman. Pennell was fifty
two years old. And worked at a Charlotte charity called
Crisis Assistance Ministry. It actually served on a jury in
a murder case before, though not as the foreman, but
this time Pennell was elected foreman in a secret ballot.
(06:32):
After I was elected, we uh said, well, we don't
need to vote on anything right now. We need to
just kind of get our thoughts about us. So we
all started going through our notebooks and then I said, okay,
give me some some input. What are your thoughts next?
The jury needed to reach unanimous agreement on each of
(06:53):
the four charges. Cruth faced first degree murder, conspiracy to
commit murder, use in an instrument with intent to destroy
an unborn child, and discharging a firearm into occupied property.
Everyone was very composed in our deliberations and there was
no unkind words said to anyone or this is brown
(07:18):
again the problem as well. Ray Carruth wasn't the actual
sugar man who shot and kill the victim. Sharika Adams
was her name. In North Carolina criminal cases, prosecutors can
recommend the charges to be brought against the defendant, and
the defense can even weigh in, but the exact crimes
(07:39):
Ray k Ruth was charged with were determined by Judge Lamb,
who died in two Both sets of lawyers told me
they agreed with Lamb's charges. Judge Lamb told us what
he intended to charge on and that was first degree murder.
Are not guilty. And the reason is and Judge Lamb
was following the law and correctly doing this is Gentry Cardell,
(08:02):
the lead prosecutor in the case. All the evidence was
that this murder was done premeditation, deliberation, and specific intent
to kill. There's no reason, no justification for submitting anything
but first degree murder by way of premeditation. So it
was first degree are not guilty. As to the murder charge.
(08:26):
The jury was given a verdict sheet to fill out
for each charge, writing down guilty or not guilty on
each of the four pieces of paper. Well we uh
we took votes on the various charges. Some members of
the jury had their minds mostly made up, including an
insurance underwriter in his late fifties whose name was Jerry Karst.
(08:47):
We had only one choice for the murder charge, which
was murder in the first degree. At one point I
asked a question, is there anybody in here who doesn't
think Carruth is up to this and up to his eyeballs,
and everybody said, yes, they agreed that he was in
(09:09):
the jury room. They weren't buying defense attorney David Rudolph's
theory that Sharika had been killed over a drug deal.
I've seen his most recent staircase set on Netflix, and
my impression of David was that he came up with
an alternate set of possibilities that were never backed up
(09:32):
by anything in the testimony that I ever heard. He said,
it couldn't possibly have been a drug deal gone bad.
None of the testimony even hinted at that. But Penalty
remembers that for two days the jurors disagreed on what
to do with that interpretation. We decided that we would
take a preliminary vote, and we were not unanimous on
(09:54):
any of the four items, and so we talked about
it a little bit more, and I think I said,
now that we've foked some more, should we vote again?
And somebody said, no, I don't think we should vote again,
because from what I've heard, we're not at the point
where anybody's going to change their mind. Pennell says that
(10:21):
gradually the jury agreed on the three lesser charges. As
we got more into the trial, and as we got
into deliberations, we kept going back to that shot. We
just couldn't wrap our hands around why would she say
some of the things she said at this moment if
(10:42):
they weren't treated and okay? And I was kind of
thinking to myself, how you couldn't help? But believer seemed
(11:07):
almost impossible to me. So I think in the overall picture,
that was probably nine of who I voted the way
I voted, But the murder charge caused problems the four
conspirators in Sharika's killing. Karuth had been the first to
go on trial, but not the first to resolve his case.
(11:28):
Van Bratt Watkins, who actually shot Sharika, had already pleaded
guilty to second degree murder. Kruth had declined the same
plea deal, and now this first degree murder charge came
with a potential death sentence that set jewels like her
Brown and Jerry carst At odds. I didn't think Ray
k Ruth was guilty of first degree murder. If the
(11:51):
trigger man were guilty of second degree murder, why would
we convict someone else so first degree murder who was
not the trigger man. I mean, that's how that case
played out. I think he should have been convicted of
first degree murder. And everything that we saw in court
(12:11):
back that up. Everybody's story was the same. Sharika's call
and her later statements in the hospital I don't think
would be sufficient two convince me that Kruth was the perpetrator,
(12:35):
but everything else along with it, I mean, David Rudolph
didn't come up with any good alternative explanation for the
facts that we had. I would have voted for the
death penalty in this case. He certainly did everything that
is required for that type of a conviction. After two
(12:58):
days of deliberations, Pennell told Judge Lamb the jury was
at an impasse, but at the tail end of a
three month long trial, the judge was having none of it.
Lamb sent them back to the jury room to keep working.
So we went back and we sat down, and we
had another couple of hours, a very good deliberation. So
we broke for the night. But before we broke, I said,
(13:22):
now tomorrow's Friday. We do not have to make a
decision just because it's Friday. I said, you know, the
whole world is sitting out there waiting on us to
make a decision. But if we don't feel comfortable tomorrow
morning when we come in about voting, we're not going to.
I said, listen, I'll go home, get as good a
night's rest as you can. Think about all the things
(13:44):
that have happened the last two or three days, but
most especially what's happened in these last two or three hours,
and let's come back tomorrow morning and we'll continue our discussion.
By the fourth day, the only remaining question was whether
it's to convict Caruth of first degree murder. Every Body
really seemed to be more refreshed and had a little
bit of of of a bounce under stealth, and we
(14:06):
deliberated probably up until lunchtime, and then we came back
and I think that's when we voted, and uh, we
all called our spouses, were significant others that we wanted
to call, and said, turn on television. It's going to
happen within the next hour. The jury returned unanimous verdict
as follows that the defendant, Ray Lamar Kruth is guilty
(14:30):
of discharging a farm into occupied property, guilty of using
an instrument with intent to destroy an unborn child, guilty
of conspiracy to commit murder of Sharika Adams, but not
guilty of the first three murder. The verdict left everyone stunned.
(14:51):
Kruth had been effectively declared guilty of masterminding Sharika's killing,
but found not guilty of her actual killing. He wouldn't
get the death penalty, but he would spend years in prison.
Carst acknowledges the punishment was either the best of both
worlds or the worst. We were not permitted to consider
(15:14):
second degree murder. We said, okay, well, agree that he's
guilty of all the lesser charges, but will say we
cannot convict on first degree. That's what we came out.
Within the end, Caudel didn't like it a bit. He
was about to become a judge himself, so this was
(15:35):
his last case as a prosecutor. Looking back over his
sterling legal career, this is one verdict that clearly still
bothers him. The judge followed the law, but sure he didn't.
The court instructed them that if they found Roof was
acting in concert with Watkins and the Code defendants in
(15:55):
their common scheme to ambush and murder Sharik Adams, then
he would be guilty of first degree murder by way
of acting concert and or if you will. If they
found that Caruth aided, instigated, procured Watkins to murder Shariken
(16:17):
Adams or firre into her occupied vehicle, then he would
be as guilty of first degree murder as Watkins. And
they found him guilty of conspiracy to commit murder, aiding
in a betting if you will, acting in concert, they
found him guilty of firing into an occupied vehicle, felling
(16:38):
the murder. If you find those, then you have to
find first degree. You don't have to the jury don't
have to do anything. But you know, if they follow
the law, they follow their oath to apply the law
as given to him by the judge, then one would
follow the other. They did not follow the law. Pennell
completely rejects that framing. I think the state made a
(16:59):
huge error by not giving us the option of second
degree murder. We all knew that he was part of it,
but with him not pulling the trigger in good conscience,
we couldn't say first degree. If they had said second degree,
sure we would have done that. I know I would have.
(17:20):
What you gotta go with options you're given as we
were told numerous times, were not allowed to deviate from
the instructions that were given to us. Kruth's defenders were
equally upset. His mother told ABC that her son was
punished for a quote the sins of o J. People
down here feel that professional athletes have gotten away with
too much. Theodrey Kruth said they had to punish him
(17:42):
for something. They punished him for o J. Simpson, even
Rudolph agreed with Cardell in a narrow sense. How do
I feel about the verdict now looking back on it?
You know, at the time, I was disappointed. You know,
it was an inconsistent verdict. I thought, you know, we
had a very good chance of winning that case. Um,
so I was disappointed. Looking back on it now, I
(18:05):
think in some strange way, the jury sort of figured
it out and sort of compromised to a place that
you know, even Ray can accept. Okay, I get it.
I'm responsible for this situation, so I needed to pay
a price, and so you know, the jury probably got
(18:27):
it right with with what they came up with. And
you know, that was a death penalty case, so that
that was you know, looking back on it, that's a win,
you know, I mean Ray is walking out of prison
in October. You know, in in a lot of ways,
we sort of won that case. The day after his conviction,
Caruth spent his twenty seven birthday in jail. Two days
(18:49):
after that, Judge Lamb sentenced him to at least nineteen
years in prison. That hearing was the first time in
the entire trial the court heard from Sharika's mother, saw Andra,
I am forgiving Ray carufe. I can't hate Rad caruf
because he is part of my grandson. But in no way,
(19:10):
Judge lam do I think that he should get off
easy for what he's done. Cardell remembers another moment of
her grace. There was no winner in this case. I mean,
it was just a tragedy all around. And after the
verdict she asked us to join her in a room
outside of the courtroom. She and some other friends and
(19:32):
with altives I guess, formed a circle and she prayed,
Pray for us, pray for Raycruth, pray for van Brett Watkins.
It was an incredibly moving moment. I'll never forget. Yeah.
Regardless of the verdict, Sandra was still left to cope
with the loss of her only child. Whether he got
(19:54):
nineteen years like he did, or if he would have
gotten closer to forty years like Van Brette. It's Rica
still did and is not bringing her back, So I'm
not wasting my emotion on what date he gets out.
(20:17):
Carruth has spent every day since in prison. The verdict survived,
every appeal, At least once a week for the past
fourteen years, Sandra and Chancellor have come here to the
busy Child and Family Development Center in South Charlotte. This
is the reality left behind once the verdicts were read
and the public moved on. Privately, there was still a
(20:40):
young man coping with severe physical and intellectual disabilities. He
has irreversible brain damage suffered the night he was born,
when his mother was shot by the killer his father hired,
and with him every step of the way has been
Sandra Adams, his beloved grandmother. They were the ones left
behind in the aftermath of the verdict, clinging to the
faith and to each other. Sandra has been Chancellor Lee's
(21:03):
primary caregiver from the beginning and know she will be
for as long as she lives. She's embraced her role
as gimon, partly, of course, because she sees so much
of her daughter and her grandson. But she was so
determined that she was not going to die out on
that street, that she was going to get help and
(21:25):
deliver her child. She was so focused on, you know,
just her baby. She showed so much determination, and so
did Chancellor because he could have had a weak spirit
and not really fault to live like he did, but
he was determined as well that he was going to live.
(21:50):
And I think he's been determined since that time that
he will live and be the best Chancellor that he
can be. Because Chancellor doesn't not I think he's disabled,
He is abled differently, so he does not conduct himself
like a helpless person. And so I see Sharika coming
(22:14):
through that fight and that determination. Of course, Sandra also
sees someone else in Chancellor Lee's smile. And I must
give credit to Raca Ruth because I think Ray has
some of those same qualities. You couldn't make it to
the NFL and just being mediocre, and so that strong
(22:34):
athletic ability that Chancellor has and he displays when he's
doing his therapy, and it's not even dys therapy, it's
the day to day task that we take so much
for granted. That he has to put so much effort
into doing Uh. I think it's just great that he
displays that drive and that tenacity. I've been lucky to
(22:59):
see that to now city in person. Over the years,
for the most part, Sandra has kept her grandson shielded
from the media. Partly that's due to his past, but
also because she doesn't want to overwhelm a teenager with
significant disabilities. Chancellor Lee knows a number of words, but
speaks very few complete sentences. He recently learned to count
(23:20):
to one hundred by tens. His speech can be hard
to understand unless you're around him a lot, but periodically,
and especially over the past few years, she's offered me
extended glimpses into Chancellor Lee's life. For instance, when he
does therapeutic horseback writing at Misty Meadows Farm just outside
(23:40):
of Charlotte, doubtful back and saying whoa, whoa good? What
are some of your favorite things to do horseback writing?
Do you have a favorite horse? Where you're Raider? I
think I saw you on Raider. What do you say
(24:01):
Lee when you want the horse to move? Walk on?
And what about when you want the horse to stop? Whoa? Yeah?
And here at Child and Family Development, where Chancellor Lee
sometimes simply walks the halls, although there's nothing simple about
(24:22):
walking for a young man with cerebral palsy. And we
have a face where we counted every steps one, two, three,
See what kind of number you can get to? But
you know now now we don't have to. Amy Sturkey
has been his chief physical therapist since he was spied.
He used to a knee walk everywhere in his home.
Do you still a new walk? Sometimes? Now? Now he
(24:46):
tries starting to walk some independently. Doctors had predicted Chancellor
Lee might never walk at all. Today he walks by himself,
with the aid of a walker or with a gentle
hand to hold. His steps are deliberate and often flat,
which also makes them somewhat noisy. Come on, when you
(25:09):
have several palsy, you tend to move in more simplified patterns.
And some of it actually moments early development. Early kids
when they walk, they walk kind of like this. And
he's still a young walker relatively speaking. So he tends
to walk this way with leg up and leg down.
But we walk by flexing our hip, extending our knee,
(25:31):
and bercy flexing our foot. So we don't walk with
hip flextion, kneflection toast like like that like like a
little baby walks, and it puts a lot more pressure
on your joints and it sets you up to people
are likely lose your basts. So we're working on a
hilltop gate pattern. And because that, you often can hear
early coming. Tell me that he would never walk, and
(25:58):
so we can take the stamping in the march and
it's wonderful, sounds to a miracle. I love to hear
him coming. After walking the hallway, Chancellor Lee often heads
through a side door for a trickier twist the stairs.
(26:22):
We started about working on doing two ft on every
stopt on every sip, but now he has to take
turns with his feet. Sturkey leads Chancellor lead to a
small trampoline and helps him balance while he bat's balloons
back to whomever tosses there. Okay, so he hits it
back okay. On this particular day in it was me
(26:45):
it was like allyball spike. Then it's onto what Sturkey
calls elbow extensions elbows off basically push ups on a
red and yellow gym mat near the wall. Just keep
going he'll do ten of these. The determination required for
(27:06):
those push ups is apparent all the way. Yeah, very good.
And there's another unmistakable sight. Chancellor Lee's arm muscles literally
bulge out from the sleeves of his purple polo shirt.
Do you like um going to therapy? Yeah? You like
(27:28):
the samy? Are you strong? Having worked as larger muscles,
Chancellor Lee sits with occupational therapist Abby Wash to hone
his smaller ones. Nice all right, for fifteen minutes, He'll
practice scooping food out of a bowl with a spoon.
(27:49):
I mean, look at these muscles and crazy big muscles,
but the brain is selling those muscles to overwork. So
he's really relying on a lot of these big muscles
to make these small movements happen in So that's why
he's doing that lean here we're working on when he
brings it to his mouth really using the shoulder rather
than you and I are just going to keep it
from the elbow down. He needs to use those big
(28:10):
muscles because that's where he has the majority of his control.
So that's why he's doing things like leaning this way.
That's why he's got that shoulder going. The whole body
has to get into scooping a p next wash helps
Chancellor Lely practice writing his name, which starts with opening
the plastic container of markers. Remember how you can hold
the base of it, remember that part. You got it
(28:31):
down there, and I'll help you hold it down and
then pop that slid open. Oh, don't give up, don't
give up, keep popping. You know, if you need me,
you know what to say, right, Okay. So if he's
got things containers at home, he needs to open dressing,
food stuff, that kind of thing, coordinating his hands to
get what he needs out of it. So what telling
(28:59):
her purple day today? Don't they look good? Sandra believes
Chancellor Ly got that fashion sense from his mother. She
loves to dress up. Everything had to be, you know,
just needing everything, and Chancellor has a lot of those qualities.
(29:20):
Chancellor is so particular about his clothing. And he'll tell
you he didn't feel like we're in a certain color,
and oh goodness, don't let him be eating and get
a little something on his clothes. She was the same way.
She would go and change. Now he just has to
get wiped off. G Mom doesn't have time for all
(29:41):
the day. For the next ten minutes, he'll work on
writing his name with a big purple marker that matches
his bright polo shirt. And this slantboard gives him a
little better control of his arm too, to start with
first name. Okay, okay, we don't just go for it,
and we've got a couple more papers on here. If
you need to do it a couple of times, you
can do it a couple of times. Okay, no big deal.
(30:04):
Can you stopping yourself when your arm got out of control? There?
That's so good. That is beautiful. Can you read that?
That is perfect? He's really Usually he just saves the
excitement for at the end when he gets it. Today,
he's so excited you're here, and he's just gonna do
that the whole time. You should know that Lee's attitude
(30:26):
during therapy is phenomenal every single week, no matter what's
going on. I mean, it's like you could be having
a bad day in here if you're lucky enough to
be working with Lee. Never Mind, the ongoing reality of
raising a special needs child is obviously more nuanced than that. Chancellor,
Lye will likely always require a caregiver. Don't get up,
don't give up, I asked Sandre about that. During one
(30:53):
of Chancellor Lee's therapy sessions, I remember like it was
just yesterday, sitting in the doctor's offices. Uh, the team
of medical staff was there telling me all the things
that he won't be able to do. He won't walk,
he won't talk, he's not gonna be able to feed himself.
You know, every part of his brain was effective. So
(31:16):
you know, we may be looking at someone that's bed bound,
and you know, under my breath, I was rejecting every
last word of it. And he is talking not as
clearly as you know. I believe he will, but I
understand him. His teachers understand him. When you're around him,
(31:38):
and I always say, he's in the smile ministry. You know,
he's already walking in his call and he he just
smiles and lights up the room and and puts people
at ease, and you know, and he's happy. He literally
wakes up in the morning smiling, and he goes to
bed he's still smiling. He has taught me more about
(32:01):
how to love unconditionally, the best lesson that I could
have ever learned in life. So you know, when I
think of the whole package of Chancellor Lee and now
how he's really coming into his own with his mora
little independence, and I'm just disgrateful. I'm just grateful. There's
no doubt she's right about the joy her grandson brings
(32:23):
to others. I know, I feel like when he gives
me a hug, which he's done before and after every
one of our interviews over the years. So he's just
got to give you this big hug, like I don't
know what to do it just that. And on this
day anyway, everything was going right for him and wash
his hardest test. She sits chancellorly in front of a
mirror and tells him to button his own collar by
(32:46):
his standards. He does it extremely fast, so fast, in fact,
she almost misses it because she's answering one of my questions.
I mean, it's taken us a good fifteen minutes to
do button. We do sometimes three buttons in a session,
and not one I'm complaint from this guy, not one
ounce of loss of focus anything. I mean just amazing, right,
(33:14):
that one was amazing, t that was yeah, and that
calls for a celebratory dance up to what else but
the Farrell Williams smash hit happy because because the four
(33:55):
men responsible for Chancellor Lee's disabilities. Only Caruth went to trial.
Michael Kennedy pleaded guilty to second degree murder and served
nearly eleven years in prison. He was released in twenty
eleven and declined to participate in this project, but his lawyer,
James Exhum, did speak with me. He feels like it's
(34:15):
a bad chapter in his life and wants to move
on from it. And I understand that, um, and I
think again, you know, Michael's not participation is that he
feels very bad about that. He knows he stepped out
of his normal character and not so much wants to
forget it because that's impossible, but again wants to have
(34:36):
that behind him and moved forward. Stanley Abraham served a
little less than two years after his own plea deal.
He got out in two thousand one. Yet somehow, the
conspirator Sandra felt the most connection to is the man
who shot her daughter, Van Brett Watkins. He'll be in
prison until at least twenty six if he lives that long.
(34:57):
I told Sandra that I had been to visit him.
Reese Lee in prisons. Is he doing okay? It seems
to be doing okay because I know he had some
health issues, and I was concerned, And he does have
some health issues, but they're not like critical here things.
They're more bothers, some like. But Caruth is the man
(35:22):
who will forever cast his shadow over this saga. With
every step Chancellor Lee takes, the teenager moves farther away
from his father's legacy and the awful circumstances of his birth.
Then again, maybe that's something mostly outsiders like me worry about.
(35:45):
As he scribbled his name in purple marker at that
therapy session that looks at Chancellor Lee grinned from ear
to ear as he usually does. This is gonna be
your warm up one to just do your mess that
we're gonna flip it over and then we're gonna do
another one. Once you get going, sometimes it gets easier.
I asked Sandra at that session, how much Chancellor Lee
knows about his father now that there's more. You know,
(36:08):
we have video, you know, I'll show him the video
and he sees his dad. And I have one of
Ray's football pictures. I have it in his album with
this birth certificate and everything, so he could see his parents.
Because I want him to know that you were formed
in love. To me, there are no illegitimate children. They're
(36:29):
illegitimate circumstances. And I always explained to him that your
dad just did a bad thing and he's paid for it. Now,
given the severity of his mental disability, I asked her
if Chancellor Lee understands where his father is right now, Well,
I don't think he really has a total concept of
(36:49):
what that means. He's watched some shows with people behind
bars in prison, and I'll tell him, you know that
this is where your daddy is. He's locked up like this,
and so I mean, I think he understands to a degree,
but you know, maybe not, and maybe that's a good thing.
(37:10):
So you don't really know how that works. Soon Caruth
will be a free man, and a new media storm
is already taking shape. Once again, the reality for Sandra
and her grandson will surely get harder before it gets easier.
So when they recently visited our offices, I had a
few more questions for Chancellor Lee about life inside his
(37:32):
smile ministry. Chance you want something, Yeah, I'm just gonna
put it on here. Okay, Okay, you not to do
anything on this side took Okay, So we can hear
you with the microphone, so that way when we talk
to you, our cameras can hear you. Isn't that coold? Yeah?
(37:53):
He's all right, that's much bad. Would you count for us?
Can you count? Que far? Okay? Right? Okay, okay. So
let's start by you telling me your name. I go
(38:21):
Lee Adams. Yeah. Now what do you call your grandmother?
CuAu mom? Yeah? And what do you call your mother? Fine?
Go moman angel? That's right. Do you like church? What
is your motto at church? I can't get kilo because
(38:50):
your bird girl, God God were I can do anything
because God is with me. That's great. I'm glad you
told me that. What do you like to watch on TV? Care?
Steve Mormy Steve, okay, Steve. Yeah. Do you like going places? Girl?
(39:18):
Very girl? Carol? Where have you been that you really like?
Calarbro Colorado? M h and who went to college in
Colorado's right? Do you know what Ray looks like? Who
do you look like? Girl? Mommy? He looks like mommy?
(39:43):
Ain't you but a lot of people think you look
like your dad? You look like yeah? Yeah, so you
look like Ray a little bit? Yeah? Yeah. Do you
know where your father is now where where? That's right?
(40:04):
Do you know that what's going to happen to him
pretty soon? Yeah? Get out? That's right. Would you like
to meet your father? What would you do if you
met your father? Um, you gonna say hey, yeah, Hi.
(40:28):
I'm Scott Fowler And this podcast is produced by Jeff
Signer and Rachel Wise and Davin Coburn at McClatchy Studios.
Find lots more about this case at Charlotte Observer dot com,
slash Caruth and for just thirty dollars, subscribe now to
a full year of The Observer's award winning sports coverage
at Charlotte Observer dot com, Slash sports Pass, leave us
(40:51):
a rating and a review on Apple Podcasts, and you
can reach me directly at s Fowler at Charlotte Observer
dot com. In chapter seven, The Long Road to forgiveness
and everything that comes after, my fault is that I
didn't do like a hit man should do, kill everybody
on the scene. I think I'm a grandma that would
do what she is supposed to do in the face
(41:14):
of tragedy. Well, have you been on vacation? Sorry, grag,
then go wig Colorado? Sorry? That always happens when I
talked about them. I'm just so thankful that I can
associate November sixteen with the day my grandchild was born,
(41:36):
our miracle boy,
A listener. Note this story contains adult language and some
graphic descriptions of violence. Previously on Kruth, somebody said something
about the Caruth trial starts tomorrow, and I said a
few words because I realized that's when I had gotten
deferred to firing five bullets point blank range into Shriek
(00:24):
Adam's body, all the elements of premeditation or there. She
was the strongest witness for herself to her own murder.
Great probably saying in his head that that was a
bad plan. Also, no, actually he's saying he didn't do this,
Mr Kenny, and that you're a liar. They we're gonna
use Van Brett Watkins. And I'm just sitting here thinking,
but that ain't gonna work out so good for you.
I would rip you like a rag doll. Probably the
(00:46):
most unhappy guy in that courtroom was gentry. They were
afraid they were gonna lose the cakes. Down the hallway
from Courtroom thirty three oh one in Charlotte's Criminal Courts Building,
there's a meeting room tucked in the back, away from
(01:07):
the lawyers, the parents, and the media scrum engulfing everything
around the Ray k Ruth murder trial The one window
in the room looked out onto a parking garage. The
twelve men and women of the jury gathered around a
long gray table about to decide Kruth's fate in the
killing of Sharika Adams. You know, we had four things
(01:27):
that we had to discuss. They had been charged with
four different items. This is Clark Pennell, one of the
jury members. And I've read after the fact that people
out in the hall said we were yelling, then we
were doing this, and we were doing and I took
exception to that. We all had been stifled for three months.
(01:50):
We all wanted to talk at once. I wanted to
make my point, She wanted to make her point. He
wanted to make his point. It was like sitting around
with family, you know, Thanksgiving dinner, and everybody's talking at
one time. It was basically that for those three months,
jurors had passed the time there during breaks in the tribe,
by playing cards or working on a puzzle, or sometimes
(02:11):
just counting down until they had lunch at a nearby
restaurant called show Mars. The only way I knew it
was a circus because we could look out the women
see what was going on. Outside. We were kind of
confined to the jury room. And then at lunch, you know,
we gave show Mars a lot of business and occasionally
some of us would bring our lunches and we'd go
(02:31):
hide out in the park and they eat, because if
you didn't, people were come up, and people did try.
And I guess it was people that had come to
the trial and they'd see us headed the show Mars
or women. Well a wait, wait, and you know, we
just turn our heads and keep going, which is what
(02:52):
we were instructed to do. And after going that far,
I don't think any of us wanted to get kicked
off the jury for doing something stupid. There was no
TV in that room and no newspapers were allowed either.
The jurors had their own private bathroom. When they threw
away notes, they tore them up first before giving them
to the court officer and their Penel sat among a lawyer,
(03:14):
a banker, a homemaker, a fraud investigator, and the others
who made up Cruth's jury, scribbling a stream of thoughts
into court provided notebooks. The judge told us before the
trial started. He said there were gonna be a lot
of stuff said done, a lot of actions said, you're
gonna need to remember everything that happens, so I'll recommend
(03:34):
that you take as good of notes as you can.
So I went through the first eighty pages, and then
I flipped it over and started coming back on the
next eighty pages, and then I went to book to
started on page one. In a way, after three months,
(03:55):
that jury room had come to feel like a prison
of its own, and on January to thousand one, the
jurors themselves were handed the key lawyers for Ray, Ruth,
and the State of North Carolina completed their closing arguments.
For Pennel and the other men and women of the jury,
only one thing stood in their way of going home.
They simply had to answer the question should Rake Ruth
(04:18):
live or die? From the Charlotte Observer and McClatchy Studios,
this is Kruth, I'm Scott Fowler, and this is Chapter six,
The Verdict and the Miracle. In its closing argument, the
(04:46):
prosecution argued Kruth was the mastermind responsible for Sharik's killing.
The defense claimed her shooting was retribution for a large
scale rug deal gone wrong. If Ray had just paid
us the money, none of this would have happened, as
(05:06):
the drama shifted to that back room. Judge Charles Lamb
first instructed the jury to pick a foreman. Most observers
presumed it would be Herb Brown, a lawyer for thirty
seven years himself and one who had even tried cases
against the lead prosecutor, Gentry Cardell, but Brown wanted no
part of the job. I never did get into any
(05:28):
contest with anyone else to try to be the foreman,
and I prefer not to because I think it would
appear had I been a foreman, being an attorney with
as much experience that as I had, then that the
people may get the idea, well, why did you have
that one lawyer there when his other eleven drawers and
(05:50):
may have been more puppet like, And I did not
want that to happen. The attorney recruised himself immediately, at
which we all thought was probably a good idea, because
he said, if I'm a jury foreman, whatever verdict we
come out with is going to be torn to bits.
And he said, I just don't think that it would
(06:11):
be in fair interest to me or to the jurors
for me to be the jury foreman. Pennell was fifty
two years old. And worked at a Charlotte charity called
Crisis Assistance Ministry. It actually served on a jury in
a murder case before, though not as the foreman, but
this time Pennell was elected foreman in a secret ballot.
(06:32):
After I was elected, we uh said, well, we don't
need to vote on anything right now. We need to
just kind of get our thoughts about us. So we
all started going through our notebooks and then I said, okay,
give me some some input. What are your thoughts next?
The jury needed to reach unanimous agreement on each of
(06:53):
the four charges. Cruth faced first degree murder, conspiracy to
commit murder, use in an instrument with intent to destroy
an unborn child, and discharging a firearm into occupied property.
Everyone was very composed in our deliberations and there was
no unkind words said to anyone or this is brown
(07:18):
again the problem as well. Ray Carruth wasn't the actual
sugar man who shot and kill the victim. Sharika Adams
was her name. In North Carolina criminal cases, prosecutors can
recommend the charges to be brought against the defendant, and
the defense can even weigh in, but the exact crimes
(07:39):
Ray k Ruth was charged with were determined by Judge Lamb,
who died in two Both sets of lawyers told me
they agreed with Lamb's charges. Judge Lamb told us what
he intended to charge on and that was first degree murder.
Are not guilty. And the reason is and Judge Lamb
was following the law and correctly doing this is Gentry Cardell,
(08:02):
the lead prosecutor in the case. All the evidence was
that this murder was done premeditation, deliberation, and specific intent
to kill. There's no reason, no justification for submitting anything
but first degree murder by way of premeditation. So it
was first degree are not guilty. As to the murder charge.
(08:26):
The jury was given a verdict sheet to fill out
for each charge, writing down guilty or not guilty on
each of the four pieces of paper. Well we uh
we took votes on the various charges. Some members of
the jury had their minds mostly made up, including an
insurance underwriter in his late fifties whose name was Jerry Karst.
(08:47):
We had only one choice for the murder charge, which
was murder in the first degree. At one point I
asked a question, is there anybody in here who doesn't
think Carruth is up to this and up to his eyeballs,
and everybody said, yes, they agreed that he was in
(09:09):
the jury room. They weren't buying defense attorney David Rudolph's
theory that Sharika had been killed over a drug deal.
I've seen his most recent staircase set on Netflix, and
my impression of David was that he came up with
an alternate set of possibilities that were never backed up
(09:32):
by anything in the testimony that I ever heard. He said,
it couldn't possibly have been a drug deal gone bad.
None of the testimony even hinted at that. But Penalty
remembers that for two days the jurors disagreed on what
to do with that interpretation. We decided that we would
take a preliminary vote, and we were not unanimous on
(09:54):
any of the four items, and so we talked about
it a little bit more, and I think I said,
now that we've foked some more, should we vote again?
And somebody said, no, I don't think we should vote again,
because from what I've heard, we're not at the point
where anybody's going to change their mind. Pennell says that
(10:21):
gradually the jury agreed on the three lesser charges. As
we got more into the trial, and as we got
into deliberations, we kept going back to that shot. We
just couldn't wrap our hands around why would she say
some of the things she said at this moment if
(10:42):
they weren't treated and okay? And I was kind of
thinking to myself, how you couldn't help? But believer seemed
(11:07):
almost impossible to me. So I think in the overall picture,
that was probably nine of who I voted the way
I voted, But the murder charge caused problems the four
conspirators in Sharika's killing. Karuth had been the first to
go on trial, but not the first to resolve his case.
(11:28):
Van Bratt Watkins, who actually shot Sharika, had already pleaded
guilty to second degree murder. Kruth had declined the same
plea deal, and now this first degree murder charge came
with a potential death sentence that set jewels like her
Brown and Jerry carst At odds. I didn't think Ray
k Ruth was guilty of first degree murder. If the
(11:51):
trigger man were guilty of second degree murder, why would
we convict someone else so first degree murder who was
not the trigger man. I mean, that's how that case
played out. I think he should have been convicted of
first degree murder. And everything that we saw in court
(12:11):
back that up. Everybody's story was the same. Sharika's call
and her later statements in the hospital I don't think
would be sufficient two convince me that Kruth was the perpetrator,
(12:35):
but everything else along with it, I mean, David Rudolph
didn't come up with any good alternative explanation for the
facts that we had. I would have voted for the
death penalty in this case. He certainly did everything that
is required for that type of a conviction. After two
(12:58):
days of deliberations, Pennell told Judge Lamb the jury was
at an impasse, but at the tail end of a
three month long trial, the judge was having none of it.
Lamb sent them back to the jury room to keep working.
So we went back and we sat down, and we
had another couple of hours, a very good deliberation. So
we broke for the night. But before we broke, I said,
(13:22):
now tomorrow's Friday. We do not have to make a
decision just because it's Friday. I said, you know, the
whole world is sitting out there waiting on us to
make a decision. But if we don't feel comfortable tomorrow
morning when we come in about voting, we're not going to.
I said, listen, I'll go home, get as good a
night's rest as you can. Think about all the things
(13:44):
that have happened the last two or three days, but
most especially what's happened in these last two or three hours,
and let's come back tomorrow morning and we'll continue our discussion.
By the fourth day, the only remaining question was whether
it's to convict Caruth of first degree murder. Every Body
really seemed to be more refreshed and had a little
bit of of of a bounce under stealth, and we
(14:06):
deliberated probably up until lunchtime, and then we came back
and I think that's when we voted, and uh, we
all called our spouses, were significant others that we wanted
to call, and said, turn on television. It's going to
happen within the next hour. The jury returned unanimous verdict
as follows that the defendant, Ray Lamar Kruth is guilty
(14:30):
of discharging a farm into occupied property, guilty of using
an instrument with intent to destroy an unborn child, guilty
of conspiracy to commit murder of Sharika Adams, but not
guilty of the first three murder. The verdict left everyone stunned.
(14:51):
Kruth had been effectively declared guilty of masterminding Sharika's killing,
but found not guilty of her actual killing. He wouldn't
get the death penalty, but he would spend years in prison.
Carst acknowledges the punishment was either the best of both
worlds or the worst. We were not permitted to consider
(15:14):
second degree murder. We said, okay, well, agree that he's
guilty of all the lesser charges, but will say we
cannot convict on first degree. That's what we came out.
Within the end, Caudel didn't like it a bit. He
was about to become a judge himself, so this was
(15:35):
his last case as a prosecutor. Looking back over his
sterling legal career, this is one verdict that clearly still
bothers him. The judge followed the law, but sure he didn't.
The court instructed them that if they found Roof was
acting in concert with Watkins and the Code defendants in
(15:55):
their common scheme to ambush and murder Sharik Adams, then
he would be guilty of first degree murder by way
of acting concert and or if you will. If they
found that Caruth aided, instigated, procured Watkins to murder Shariken
(16:17):
Adams or firre into her occupied vehicle, then he would
be as guilty of first degree murder as Watkins. And
they found him guilty of conspiracy to commit murder, aiding
in a betting if you will, acting in concert, they
found him guilty of firing into an occupied vehicle, felling
(16:38):
the murder. If you find those, then you have to
find first degree. You don't have to the jury don't
have to do anything. But you know, if they follow
the law, they follow their oath to apply the law
as given to him by the judge, then one would
follow the other. They did not follow the law. Pennell
completely rejects that framing. I think the state made a
(16:59):
huge error by not giving us the option of second
degree murder. We all knew that he was part of it,
but with him not pulling the trigger in good conscience,
we couldn't say first degree. If they had said second degree,
sure we would have done that. I know I would have.
(17:20):
What you gotta go with options you're given as we
were told numerous times, were not allowed to deviate from
the instructions that were given to us. Kruth's defenders were
equally upset. His mother told ABC that her son was
punished for a quote the sins of o J. People
down here feel that professional athletes have gotten away with
too much. Theodrey Kruth said they had to punish him
(17:42):
for something. They punished him for o J. Simpson, even
Rudolph agreed with Cardell in a narrow sense. How do
I feel about the verdict now looking back on it?
You know, at the time, I was disappointed. You know,
it was an inconsistent verdict. I thought, you know, we
had a very good chance of winning that case. Um,
so I was disappointed. Looking back on it now, I
(18:05):
think in some strange way, the jury sort of figured
it out and sort of compromised to a place that
you know, even Ray can accept. Okay, I get it.
I'm responsible for this situation, so I needed to pay
a price, and so you know, the jury probably got
(18:27):
it right with with what they came up with. And
you know, that was a death penalty case, so that
that was you know, looking back on it, that's a win,
you know, I mean Ray is walking out of prison
in October. You know, in in a lot of ways,
we sort of won that case. The day after his conviction,
Caruth spent his twenty seven birthday in jail. Two days
(18:49):
after that, Judge Lamb sentenced him to at least nineteen
years in prison. That hearing was the first time in
the entire trial the court heard from Sharika's mother, saw Andra,
I am forgiving Ray carufe. I can't hate Rad caruf
because he is part of my grandson. But in no way,
(19:10):
Judge lam do I think that he should get off
easy for what he's done. Cardell remembers another moment of
her grace. There was no winner in this case. I mean,
it was just a tragedy all around. And after the
verdict she asked us to join her in a room
outside of the courtroom. She and some other friends and
(19:32):
with altives I guess, formed a circle and she prayed,
Pray for us, pray for Raycruth, pray for van Brett Watkins.
It was an incredibly moving moment. I'll never forget. Yeah.
Regardless of the verdict, Sandra was still left to cope
with the loss of her only child. Whether he got
(19:54):
nineteen years like he did, or if he would have
gotten closer to forty years like Van Brette. It's Rica
still did and is not bringing her back, So I'm
not wasting my emotion on what date he gets out.
(20:17):
Carruth has spent every day since in prison. The verdict survived,
every appeal, At least once a week for the past
fourteen years, Sandra and Chancellor have come here to the
busy Child and Family Development Center in South Charlotte. This
is the reality left behind once the verdicts were read
and the public moved on. Privately, there was still a
(20:40):
young man coping with severe physical and intellectual disabilities. He
has irreversible brain damage suffered the night he was born,
when his mother was shot by the killer his father hired,
and with him every step of the way has been
Sandra Adams, his beloved grandmother. They were the ones left
behind in the aftermath of the verdict, clinging to the
faith and to each other. Sandra has been Chancellor Lee's
(21:03):
primary caregiver from the beginning and know she will be
for as long as she lives. She's embraced her role
as gimon, partly, of course, because she sees so much
of her daughter and her grandson. But she was so
determined that she was not going to die out on
that street, that she was going to get help and
(21:25):
deliver her child. She was so focused on, you know,
just her baby. She showed so much determination, and so
did Chancellor because he could have had a weak spirit
and not really fault to live like he did, but
he was determined as well that he was going to live.
(21:50):
And I think he's been determined since that time that
he will live and be the best Chancellor that he
can be. Because Chancellor doesn't not I think he's disabled,
He is abled differently, so he does not conduct himself
like a helpless person. And so I see Sharika coming
(22:14):
through that fight and that determination. Of course, Sandra also
sees someone else in Chancellor Lee's smile. And I must
give credit to Raca Ruth because I think Ray has
some of those same qualities. You couldn't make it to
the NFL and just being mediocre, and so that strong
(22:34):
athletic ability that Chancellor has and he displays when he's
doing his therapy, and it's not even dys therapy, it's
the day to day task that we take so much
for granted. That he has to put so much effort
into doing Uh. I think it's just great that he
displays that drive and that tenacity. I've been lucky to
(22:59):
see that to now city in person. Over the years,
for the most part, Sandra has kept her grandson shielded
from the media. Partly that's due to his past, but
also because she doesn't want to overwhelm a teenager with
significant disabilities. Chancellor Lee knows a number of words, but
speaks very few complete sentences. He recently learned to count
(23:20):
to one hundred by tens. His speech can be hard
to understand unless you're around him a lot, but periodically,
and especially over the past few years, she's offered me
extended glimpses into Chancellor Lee's life. For instance, when he
does therapeutic horseback writing at Misty Meadows Farm just outside
(23:40):
of Charlotte, doubtful back and saying whoa, whoa good? What
are some of your favorite things to do horseback writing?
Do you have a favorite horse? Where you're Raider? I
think I saw you on Raider. What do you say
(24:01):
Lee when you want the horse to move? Walk on?
And what about when you want the horse to stop? Whoa? Yeah?
And here at Child and Family Development, where Chancellor Lee
sometimes simply walks the halls, although there's nothing simple about
(24:22):
walking for a young man with cerebral palsy. And we
have a face where we counted every steps one, two, three,
See what kind of number you can get to? But
you know now now we don't have to. Amy Sturkey
has been his chief physical therapist since he was spied.
He used to a knee walk everywhere in his home.
Do you still a new walk? Sometimes? Now? Now he
(24:46):
tries starting to walk some independently. Doctors had predicted Chancellor
Lee might never walk at all. Today he walks by himself,
with the aid of a walker or with a gentle
hand to hold. His steps are deliberate and often flat,
which also makes them somewhat noisy. Come on, when you
(25:09):
have several palsy, you tend to move in more simplified patterns.
And some of it actually moments early development. Early kids
when they walk, they walk kind of like this. And
he's still a young walker relatively speaking. So he tends
to walk this way with leg up and leg down.
But we walk by flexing our hip, extending our knee,
(25:31):
and bercy flexing our foot. So we don't walk with
hip flextion, kneflection toast like like that like like a
little baby walks, and it puts a lot more pressure
on your joints and it sets you up to people
are likely lose your basts. So we're working on a
hilltop gate pattern. And because that, you often can hear
early coming. Tell me that he would never walk, and
(25:58):
so we can take the stamping in the march and
it's wonderful, sounds to a miracle. I love to hear
him coming. After walking the hallway, Chancellor Lee often heads
through a side door for a trickier twist the stairs.
(26:22):
We started about working on doing two ft on every
stopt on every sip, but now he has to take
turns with his feet. Sturkey leads Chancellor lead to a
small trampoline and helps him balance while he bat's balloons
back to whomever tosses there. Okay, so he hits it
back okay. On this particular day in it was me
(26:45):
it was like allyball spike. Then it's onto what Sturkey
calls elbow extensions elbows off basically push ups on a
red and yellow gym mat near the wall. Just keep
going he'll do ten of these. The determination required for
(27:06):
those push ups is apparent all the way. Yeah, very good.
And there's another unmistakable sight. Chancellor Lee's arm muscles literally
bulge out from the sleeves of his purple polo shirt.
Do you like um going to therapy? Yeah? You like
(27:28):
the samy? Are you strong? Having worked as larger muscles,
Chancellor Lee sits with occupational therapist Abby Wash to hone
his smaller ones. Nice all right, for fifteen minutes, He'll
practice scooping food out of a bowl with a spoon.
(27:49):
I mean, look at these muscles and crazy big muscles,
but the brain is selling those muscles to overwork. So
he's really relying on a lot of these big muscles
to make these small movements happen in So that's why
he's doing that lean here we're working on when he
brings it to his mouth really using the shoulder rather
than you and I are just going to keep it
from the elbow down. He needs to use those big
(28:10):
muscles because that's where he has the majority of his control.
So that's why he's doing things like leaning this way.
That's why he's got that shoulder going. The whole body
has to get into scooping a p next wash helps
Chancellor Lely practice writing his name, which starts with opening
the plastic container of markers. Remember how you can hold
the base of it, remember that part. You got it
(28:31):
down there, and I'll help you hold it down and
then pop that slid open. Oh, don't give up, don't
give up, keep popping. You know, if you need me,
you know what to say, right, Okay. So if he's
got things containers at home, he needs to open dressing,
food stuff, that kind of thing, coordinating his hands to
get what he needs out of it. So what telling
(28:59):
her purple day today? Don't they look good? Sandra believes
Chancellor Ly got that fashion sense from his mother. She
loves to dress up. Everything had to be, you know,
just needing everything, and Chancellor has a lot of those qualities.
(29:20):
Chancellor is so particular about his clothing. And he'll tell
you he didn't feel like we're in a certain color,
and oh goodness, don't let him be eating and get
a little something on his clothes. She was the same way.
She would go and change. Now he just has to
get wiped off. G Mom doesn't have time for all
(29:41):
the day. For the next ten minutes, he'll work on
writing his name with a big purple marker that matches
his bright polo shirt. And this slantboard gives him a
little better control of his arm too, to start with
first name. Okay, okay, we don't just go for it,
and we've got a couple more papers on here. If
you need to do it a couple of times, you
can do it a couple of times. Okay, no big deal.
(30:04):
Can you stopping yourself when your arm got out of control? There?
That's so good. That is beautiful. Can you read that?
That is perfect? He's really Usually he just saves the
excitement for at the end when he gets it. Today,
he's so excited you're here, and he's just gonna do
that the whole time. You should know that Lee's attitude
(30:26):
during therapy is phenomenal every single week, no matter what's
going on. I mean, it's like you could be having
a bad day in here if you're lucky enough to
be working with Lee. Never Mind, the ongoing reality of
raising a special needs child is obviously more nuanced than that. Chancellor,
Lye will likely always require a caregiver. Don't get up,
don't give up, I asked Sandre about that. During one
(30:53):
of Chancellor Lee's therapy sessions, I remember like it was
just yesterday, sitting in the doctor's offices. Uh, the team
of medical staff was there telling me all the things
that he won't be able to do. He won't walk,
he won't talk, he's not gonna be able to feed himself.
You know, every part of his brain was effective. So
(31:16):
you know, we may be looking at someone that's bed bound,
and you know, under my breath, I was rejecting every
last word of it. And he is talking not as
clearly as you know. I believe he will, but I
understand him. His teachers understand him. When you're around him,
(31:38):
and I always say, he's in the smile ministry. You know,
he's already walking in his call and he he just
smiles and lights up the room and and puts people
at ease, and you know, and he's happy. He literally
wakes up in the morning smiling, and he goes to
bed he's still smiling. He has taught me more about
(32:01):
how to love unconditionally, the best lesson that I could
have ever learned in life. So you know, when I
think of the whole package of Chancellor Lee and now
how he's really coming into his own with his mora
little independence, and I'm just disgrateful. I'm just grateful. There's
no doubt she's right about the joy her grandson brings
(32:23):
to others. I know, I feel like when he gives
me a hug, which he's done before and after every
one of our interviews over the years. So he's just
got to give you this big hug, like I don't
know what to do it just that. And on this
day anyway, everything was going right for him and wash
his hardest test. She sits chancellorly in front of a
mirror and tells him to button his own collar by
(32:46):
his standards. He does it extremely fast, so fast, in fact,
she almost misses it because she's answering one of my questions.
I mean, it's taken us a good fifteen minutes to
do button. We do sometimes three buttons in a session,
and not one I'm complaint from this guy, not one
ounce of loss of focus anything. I mean just amazing, right,
(33:14):
that one was amazing, t that was yeah, and that
calls for a celebratory dance up to what else but
the Farrell Williams smash hit happy because because the four
(33:55):
men responsible for Chancellor Lee's disabilities. Only Caruth went to trial.
Michael Kennedy pleaded guilty to second degree murder and served
nearly eleven years in prison. He was released in twenty
eleven and declined to participate in this project, but his lawyer,
James Exhum, did speak with me. He feels like it's
(34:15):
a bad chapter in his life and wants to move
on from it. And I understand that, um, and I
think again, you know, Michael's not participation is that he
feels very bad about that. He knows he stepped out
of his normal character and not so much wants to
forget it because that's impossible, but again wants to have
(34:36):
that behind him and moved forward. Stanley Abraham served a
little less than two years after his own plea deal.
He got out in two thousand one. Yet somehow, the
conspirator Sandra felt the most connection to is the man
who shot her daughter, Van Brett Watkins. He'll be in
prison until at least twenty six if he lives that long.
(34:57):
I told Sandra that I had been to visit him.
Reese Lee in prisons. Is he doing okay? It seems
to be doing okay because I know he had some
health issues, and I was concerned, And he does have
some health issues, but they're not like critical here things.
They're more bothers, some like. But Caruth is the man
(35:22):
who will forever cast his shadow over this saga. With
every step Chancellor Lee takes, the teenager moves farther away
from his father's legacy and the awful circumstances of his birth.
Then again, maybe that's something mostly outsiders like me worry about.
(35:45):
As he scribbled his name in purple marker at that
therapy session that looks at Chancellor Lee grinned from ear
to ear as he usually does. This is gonna be
your warm up one to just do your mess that
we're gonna flip it over and then we're gonna do
another one. Once you get going, sometimes it gets easier.
I asked Sandra at that session, how much Chancellor Lee
knows about his father now that there's more. You know,
(36:08):
we have video, you know, I'll show him the video
and he sees his dad. And I have one of
Ray's football pictures. I have it in his album with
this birth certificate and everything, so he could see his parents.
Because I want him to know that you were formed
in love. To me, there are no illegitimate children. They're
(36:29):
illegitimate circumstances. And I always explained to him that your
dad just did a bad thing and he's paid for it. Now,
given the severity of his mental disability, I asked her
if Chancellor Lee understands where his father is right now, Well,
I don't think he really has a total concept of
(36:49):
what that means. He's watched some shows with people behind
bars in prison, and I'll tell him, you know that
this is where your daddy is. He's locked up like this,
and so I mean, I think he understands to a degree,
but you know, maybe not, and maybe that's a good thing.
(37:10):
So you don't really know how that works. Soon Caruth
will be a free man, and a new media storm
is already taking shape. Once again, the reality for Sandra
and her grandson will surely get harder before it gets easier.
So when they recently visited our offices, I had a
few more questions for Chancellor Lee about life inside his
(37:32):
smile ministry. Chance you want something, Yeah, I'm just gonna
put it on here. Okay, Okay, you not to do
anything on this side took Okay, So we can hear
you with the microphone, so that way when we talk
to you, our cameras can hear you. Isn't that coold? Yeah?
(37:53):
He's all right, that's much bad. Would you count for us?
Can you count? Que far? Okay? Right? Okay, okay. So
let's start by you telling me your name. I go
(38:21):
Lee Adams. Yeah. Now what do you call your grandmother?
CuAu mom? Yeah? And what do you call your mother? Fine?
Go moman angel? That's right. Do you like church? What
is your motto at church? I can't get kilo because
(38:50):
your bird girl, God God were I can do anything
because God is with me. That's great. I'm glad you
told me that. What do you like to watch on TV? Care?
Steve Mormy Steve, okay, Steve. Yeah. Do you like going places? Girl?
(39:18):
Very girl? Carol? Where have you been that you really like?
Calarbro Colorado? M h and who went to college in
Colorado's right? Do you know what Ray looks like? Who
do you look like? Girl? Mommy? He looks like mommy?
(39:43):
Ain't you but a lot of people think you look
like your dad? You look like yeah? Yeah, so you
look like Ray a little bit? Yeah? Yeah. Do you
know where your father is now where where? That's right?
(40:04):
Do you know that what's going to happen to him
pretty soon? Yeah? Get out? That's right. Would you like
to meet your father? What would you do if you
met your father? Um, you gonna say hey, yeah, Hi.
(40:28):
I'm Scott Fowler And this podcast is produced by Jeff
Signer and Rachel Wise and Davin Coburn at McClatchy Studios.
Find lots more about this case at Charlotte Observer dot com,
slash Caruth and for just thirty dollars, subscribe now to
a full year of The Observer's award winning sports coverage
at Charlotte Observer dot com, Slash sports Pass, leave us
(40:51):
a rating and a review on Apple Podcasts, and you
can reach me directly at s Fowler at Charlotte Observer
dot com. In chapter seven, The Long Road to forgiveness
and everything that comes after, my fault is that I
didn't do like a hit man should do, kill everybody
on the scene. I think I'm a grandma that would
do what she is supposed to do in the face
(41:14):
of tragedy. Well, have you been on vacation? Sorry, grag,
then go wig Colorado? Sorry? That always happens when I
talked about them. I'm just so thankful that I can
associate November sixteen with the day my grandchild was born,
(41:36):
our miracle boy,
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