Former NFL-Player Rae Carruth Drops Custody Fight for Son Whose Mother He Had Killed

“For all involved or invested in this ordeal, please calm down,” ex-Carolina Panthers wide receiver says while serving 17 years for conspiracy to commit murder

Rae Carruth
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Former Carolina Panthers wide receiver Rae Carruth has given up the fight for custody of his son from his murdered ex-girlfriend Chandra Adams.

Carruth is currently serving a 17-year sentence for conspiracy to commit murder after hiring two men to shoot and kill then-pregnant Adams in 2001.

“For all involved or invested in this ordeal, please calm down,” he wrote in a letter to the Charlotte Observer on Wednesday. “I will no longer be pursuing a relationship with Chancellor and Ms. Adams [Chandra’s mom, Saundra]. I promise to leave them be, which I now see is in everyone’s best interest.”

Carruth, 44, is up for release from a North Carolina prison in October and said last month that he wanted to pursue the “responsibility back” of raising his son. “I feel like he might not ever have his mother in his life but he could still have me and I could still make a difference and I don’t think that’s anyone’s responsibility when I’m still here,” he said.

Cherica Adams was eight months pregnant when she was shot in an ambush by hitman Van Brett Watkins, she died from her injuries a month later. Chancellor, now 18, was born via emergency caesarean section but suffered permanent brain damage and has cerebral palsy due to being without oxygen for 70 minutes.

In his latest letter to the Observer, Carruth also said he was optimistic in his pursuit of custody but still wants to “make amends with Chancellor and try to be the father that I should have been from day one.”

“I now understand that any notions of me one day being welcome to Sunday dinner is totally out of the question,” Carruth wrote in a second letter postmarked Feb. 21, according to ESPN. “And lastly, I didn’t foresee the media and general public being unanimous in its belief that I shouldn’t be allowed to ever have anything to do with Chancellor.”

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