Former NFL player Rae Carruth sent a letter from prison saying he will no longer pursue a relationship with his son once he is released.
Carruth, who was a wide receiver for the Carolina Panthers, has been in prison for the last 17 years after he orchestrated the murder of his pregnant girlfriend, Cherica Adams.
A hitman shot Adams four times when she was 29 weeks pregnant with Carruth’s son, Chancellor Lee Adams.
Chancellor was born 10 weeks premature in an emergency cesarean section that left him with brain damage and cerebral palsy. Adams died four weeks after she was shot due to her injuries.
The 44-year-old former football player sent a letter to the Charlotte Observer saying he would no longer pursue custody of his 18-year-old son once he was released from prison in October.
Former NFL player Rae Carruth sent a letter from prison saying he will no longer pursue custody of his son, Chancellor Lee Adams. Carruth imprisoned for orchestrating the murder of his pregnant girlfriend in 1999
Cherica Adams was 29 weeks pregnant with Chancellor Lee Adams (right) when she was shot four times. He was delivered 10 weeks early. He suffers from brain damage and cerebral palsy because of his premature birth. Pictured is him with his grandmother, Saundra Adams
Cherica Adams survived a month after the shooting before she died of her injuries. She tipped off investigators that Carruth planned the shooting because she was able to call 911
Carruth wrote: ‘For all involved or invested in this ordeal, please calm down.
‘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 asked a reporter for the North Carolina newspaper to give Saundra Adams, Cherica’s mother and legal guardian of Chancellor, a copy of the four-page letter.
She said she had no comment at the time to the letter.
But she openly stated last month she would not relinquish custody to Carruth after he said in an interview that he would fight to get his son back.
‘I’ve forgiven Rae already, but to have any type of relationship with him, there does have to be some repentance,’ Adams said to the Charlotte Observer. ‘And I think this opens the door. But I can say definitively he’s not ever going to have custody of Chancellor.’
‘Chancellor will be raised either by me or, after I’m gone, by someone else who loves him and who knows him,’ she continued. ‘He will never be raised by a stranger – someone he doesn’t know and who tried to kill him.’
Pictured left is Cherica Adams in her 1993 yearbook and right is Rae Carruth during a 1998 training camp with the Carolina Panthers. He hired two men to shoot his pregnant girlfriend in 1999. He was sentenced 18 to 24 years in prison
Carruth will be released from prison in October. He initially said he would fight for custody of his son but he has since retracted that statement. Pictured is him in court in 2001
This interview came after Carruth said he ‘should be raising my son’ and he felt like he would ‘be there for him and to be a father and a dad to him going forward.’
On November 29, 1999, Cherica Adams was 29 weeks pregnant and driving behind Carruth when he suddenly stopped in the road.
A separate car containing Van Brett Watkins and Michael Kennedy pulled up near her where Watkins shot her from the backseat.
He was sentenced 40 years in prison while Kennedy got out of jail in 2011.
Adams was able to call 911 and was taken to the hospital where her son was delivered through an emergency c-section.
Carruth tried to flee after the murder of his pregnant girlfriend. But he was caught in Tennessee by authorities. Pictured is him during his murder trial in 2001
Chancellor’s (left) legal guardian is his grandmother, Saundra Adams (right). She said she would not relinquish custody to Carruth
In her 911 call, she told the operator: ‘I was following my baby’s daddy, Rae Carruth, the football player. He slowed down and a car pulled up beside me.
‘He just left. I think he did it. I don’t know what to think.’
This tipped prosecutors off to Carruth hiring the men to shoot his pregnant wife and then watched her ‘drown’ in her own blood from his rear view mirror.
One month later, Adams died in the hospital. Chancellor remained under observation of doctors before he was released to his grandmother, Saundra Adams.
Carruth tried to flee after the murder, but he was captured in Tennessee and sentenced to 18 to 24 years in prison.
The Carolina Panthers waived Carruth the day after his arrest citing the moral clause in his rookie contract.
Carruth will be released from prison in October and says he will not seek out a relationship with his 18-year-old son.