HILLSBOROUGH -- Six days after Eve Marie Carson was found shot to death in a Chapel Hill neighborhood, Demario Atwater gave his girlfriend a descriptive account of the kidnapping, robbery and killing of the UNC-Chapel Hill student body president.
On Monday, the day that Atwater pleaded guilty in Orange County Superior Court to those crimes, District Attorney Jim Woodall said police were able to arrest the killer because of the intimate details he shared with Shanita Love.
In a quiet courtroom, during a plea arrangement that spared Atwater from the death penalty, Woodall offered up some of those particulars in a case that not only moved a community but exposed major weaknesses in the state's probation system.
"There aren't any words to describe how senseless and how tragic Eve Carson's death is," Woodall said.
In the immediate aftermath of Carson's murder on March 5, 2008, police kept many details to themselves. They did not reveal the kinds of guns that were used. They said little about the ATM withdrawals from Carson's accounts on the last day of her life.
Carson, whose benevolence and curiosity won high marks inside and outside the classroom, was working on a paper in the wee hours when she encountered her killers.
It is not clear to investigators whether Carson was inside the home on Friendly Lane that she shared with several other students or just outside. Atwater told Love, his girlfriend, that he and his co-defendant had walked through the unlocked door of what they thought was a sorority house and found her working on her computer.
"Her computer had been used well after three o'clock," Woodall said.
Laurence Alvin Lovette, 19, of Durham, also is accused of murder, kidnapping and robbery in the case. His case is pending, but Atwater could play a large role in the outcome.
In the hearing Monday, Woodall said Lovette's DNA had been found in Carson's Toyota Highlander.
A gruesome crime
Investigators say Atwater and his co-defendant kidnapped Carson and forced her into her Highlander. They drove through Orange and Durham counties and forced Carson to withdraw $1,400 from automated teller machines before they shot her numerous times with a .25-caliber handgun and the sawed-off shotgun, investigators say.
Woodall said the medical examiner's autopsy report showed that Carson was shot five times, with the first four shots from a small caliber handgun.
"The medical examiner believed she would have survived for some time after the first four shots," Woodall said, "and she would have been able to talk."
The fifth shot, from a sawed-off shotgun, was immediately fatal, according to Woodall. Atwater told Love that Carson was still alive after the first four shots. He also told his girlfriend that he fired the shotgun, Woodall added.
Both Atwater and Lovette were on probation at the time of the shooting, and each had scant oversight. It is unclear why the two were together in Chapel Hill that night. Lovette also is accused of murdering Abhijit Mahato, a Duke University graduate student found robbed and shot to death in his Durham apartment in January 2008.
As part of Atwater's plea agreement, overseen by Judge Allen Baddour, the state agreed not to seek the death penalty for the crimes. Last month, Atwater, who also had faced the death penalty in federal court on federal carjacking, kidnapping and weapons charges related to the murder, struck a similar plea arrangement with federal prosecutors.
Though he entered a plea in the federal case last month, Atwater will not be sentenced there until September. On Monday, Atwater received a life sentence without the possibility of parole for the state charges.
Carson's family, critics of the death penalty, supported the plea arrangements in federal and state court. Their daughter also opposed capital punishment.
Wade Smith, a Raleigh lawyer, read a statement from Carson's father Bob Carson, her mother Teresa Bethke and brother Andrew Carson, a recent graduate of Davidson College. The three sat quietly and stoically in the front row.
The family said though "today's outcome is neither adequate nor good" it "honors Eve's love of life and all people."
"We won't be talking to the court about how our lives are diminished without Eve," Smith said, reading the family's statement. "The effects of her death are both obvious and personal."
They chose not to confront Atwater, but said in their statement, "the selfishness of taking another's life is incomprehensible."
Atwater, dressed in a blue shirt and khaki pants, did not address the family. He spoke only briefly during the hearing, saying that while he did not dispute the facts of the case that had been laid out by Woodall, that what had been presented was incomplete.
Defense lawyers James Williams and Jonathan Broun described the murder as senseless and expressed their condolences to the Carson family.
Woodall struggled as he asked the judge for a sentence of life in prison without parole. His speech was halting as he talked about the loss for Carson's family and friends.
"It was personal, in the sense that I've lived in Chapel Hill for 30 years and she's a young lady, she's the age of my daughter," Woodall said later. "I've known many people who know Eve, who've been touched by Eve, so it's personal in that sense."
A judge struggles to speak
Woodall said he decided not to take the case to trial and seek the death penalty, in part, because Carson's family were critical of capital punishment.
"The state of the death penalty in North Carolina, with a de facto moratorium, can't provide closure at any level now, and we don't know that it ever will," the prosecutor said.
With that, Baddour asked Atwater to stand for his sentencing.
"To the family of Eve Carson, this is inexplicable; it is a tragedy," Baddour said, "Your grace and your compassion, through this process, it really speaks volumes about the people you are and the daughter you raised. I hope you will take some solace in today's events and recognize the number of lives your daughter touched."
Then Baddour, too, struggled with his words.
"You can take a life, but you can't take a spirit and you can't take a soul," Baddour told Atwater. "Her soul and her spirit will live through her family and friends and the countless others she touched."
