Judge Thomas Lock approved Woodall’s plan to prosecute Atwater for capital murder after the district attorney claimed three factors that could elevate his first-degree murder charge.

Woodall said Atwater killed Carson in the course of robbing her, for financial gain and in an “especially heinous, atrocious or cruel” manner.

After Monday’s hearing, Woodall said he had spoken to Carson’s parents about pursuing capital punishment.

“I always involve the family in these types of decisions,” Woodall said. “I believe they will support the state. Of course, they want closure in this case.”

A capital trial would be longer and more expensive than trying Atwater for life in prison. Woodall said the trial, if there is one, wouldn’t begin until next summer.

Neither of Atwater’s attorneys, James Williams or Jonathan Broun, addressed Woodall’s list of aggravating factors.

Atwater’s mother was present in the courtroom with several younger children. She exchanged smiles with her son when she entered the courtroom and when he was escorted out.

Woodall said Monday that Atwater and Lovette were on foot on Rosemary Street in Chapel Hill, looking to rob people when they walked down Carson’s dead-end street, Friendly Lane, and saw her through two windows.

“Eve Carson was working on her computer in front of those windows that night,” the prosecutor said.

Woodall said Atwater had told two different stories -- one where he and alleged accomplice Laurence Lovette abducted Carson from her home and one where they pretended their car was disabled and asked her for help.

“The state believes she was probably abducted perhaps just outside her home,” Woodall said.

Someone opened an e-mail on Carson’s account around 3:35 p.m., Woodall said. Twenty minutes later, authorities say, Lovette used her ATM card at the Bank of America on Willow Drive in Chapel Hill.

Last month, a grand jury indicted Atwater and Laurence Lovette with more charges of armed robbery, first-degree kidnapping, felonious larceny and possession of stolen goods, in addition to Carson's murder.

Carson was shot four times with a hand gun and once in the head with a shotgun, Woodall said. The weapons had been discarded, but have since been recovered by law enforcement, Woodall said.

Woodall said Atwater most likely had possession of the sawed off shotgun. There were attempts to break that weapon, but it was recovered, Woodall said.

“He had been seen with that weapon prior to this crime, and he has been seen with that weapon after the crime,” Woodall said.

Atwater attended the hearing, wearing blue short sleeve dress shirt and gray pants, but did not say anything.

Orange County has not sent anyone to death row since 1970; no offender from Orange County has been executed since 1948.

Woodall said public opinion in Orange County or on the UNC-Chapel Hill campus was not a factor in his decision. He declined to comment on whether a local jury would ever sentence Atwater to death.

“That’s not for me to say,” he said. “I think it’s the toughest decision a prosecutor has to make.” Lovette, 17, is not eligible for the death penalty because of his age.

Lovette is charged also with first-degree murder in the death of Abhijit Mahato, a Duke University engineering student from Bengal, India, shot in a robbery in January.

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