Woodall said Monday he plans to seek the death penalty for 22-year-old Demario Atwater in the killing of Eve Carson, the UNC-Chapel Hill student body president.

Superior Court Judge Thomas Lock approved Woodall's plan to prosecute Atwater on a capital murder charge after the district attorney claimed that three legal factors made the killing merit lethal injection. Woodall said Atwater killed Carson while robbing her, for financial gain and in an "especially heinous, atrocious or cruel" manner.

Woodall said that Atwater and Laurence Lovette were walking along East Rosemary Street about 3:30 a.m. March 5, looking for someone to rob when they spotted a light in Eve Carson's house down a short dead-end street, Woodall said.

"The blinds on the windows were raised that morning," he said. "They could see a person in that house."

Someone, probably Carson, opened an e-mail on her account at 3:35 a.m. Twenty minutes later, Lovette was caught on camera using Carson's ATM card, and an hour after that, Carson was dead.

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."

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 was brought from Central Prison for the hearing, wearing a blue short-sleeve dress shirt and gray pants. He did not say anything. His mother was in the courtroom with several younger children. She exchanged smiles with her son when she entered the courtroom and when he was escorted out.

Lovette, 17, is not eligible for the death penalty because of his age. He is also charged with first-degree murder in the death of Abhijit Mahato, a Duke University engineering student from Bengal, India, who was shot in a robbery in January.

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

Carson was shot four times with a handgun and once in the head with a shotgun, Woodall said. The weapons had been discarded -- there were attempts to destroy them -- but they have since been recovered by law enforcement, Woodall said.

Woodall said investigators think Atwater used the sawed-off shotgun.

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

Woodall said Atwater had told two stories -- one in which he and Lovette abducted Carson from her home and one in which 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.

No 'opinion poll'

Orange County has not sent anyone to death row for more than three decades; no offender from Orange County has been executed since 1948.

Woodall said neither public opinion in Orange County nor on the UNC-CH campus affected his decision. "You can't take an opinion poll," he said.

People interviewed along Franklin Street and on campus Monday evening had mixed feelings about Woodall's decision.

"If this was my mom or this was my sister, I'd be all for giving him the death penalty," said Madison Kimbro, 17, a rising senior at East Chapel Hill High School.

Jeanette Moore, a woman from Chapel Hill, said she doesn't support capital punishment, regardless of the crime.

"The crime was a heinous one," she said. "I certainly would support no hope for ever getting out [of prison]."

Tracy Scoggins, 19, plans to attend UNC-Charlotte next spring to study youth psychology.

"They deserve to get the death penalty, but they also deserve to spend some time thinking about what they've done," he said. "That's worse than death. Every day you've got to think about what you did to that girl."

Woodall declined to speculate about whether a local jury would 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."

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