News & Observer | newsobserver.com | Police have new photos in Carson case

Published: Mar 10, 2008 11:42 AM
Modified: Mar 10, 2008 08:21 PM

Police have new photos in Carson case

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REMEMBERING EVE

Memorial donations may be directed to the Clarke County Foundation for Excellence in Public Education, P.O. Box 1708, Athens, GA 30603, or any other charity of your choice.

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CHAPEL HILL - Chapel Hill police chief Brian Curran said today that police have additional photos of the man seen in surveillance shots at an ATM trying to use shooting victim Eve Carson's ATM card.

The newly announced security shots show the man in an area convenience store.

At an evening press conference in Chapel Hill, Curran said that the person in the new photos was the only person in the convenience store at the time someone tried to use Carson's card.

"The photos depict a man going into an area convenience story," he said.

He would not say where the store was located or when the photos were taken.

Police over the weekend released two images taken by the ATM camera and said today they have received about 200 calls from people offering tips in the investigation of the shooting of Carson, the UNC-Chapel Hill student body president.

At a Chapel Hill public hearing tonight, Mayor Kevin Foy offered remarks about Carson on on behalf of the town council

"Eve's death represents for us a terrible, incomprehensible loss," Foy said. "She was a person who embodied what is beautiful in this world, and it was a joy to know her.

"Her having been taken from us rips from us our greatest hopes and our greatest dreams and our greatest aspirations for what the world might become someday."

Earlier, Chapel Hill police said they hope to enhance a surveillance photo that shows a second man with the person who tried to use an ATM card belonging to slain UNC-Chapel Hill student Eve Carson.

The photo shows a vague image of what police say is an unidentified man in the back seat of a vehicle driven by the man who tried to use the ATM.

Curran said police have reviewed several stop-action images from a security camera at the local ATM, but the pictures are not clear enough for the public to identify the figure.

"I've seen basically a silhouette of a guy in the back seat," Curran said. "If we could see this guy's face, we'd have that out there."

According to search warrants, police found Carson's cell phone about 1˝ miles from the scene of her death. Police got help from Sprint Nextel Corp. to find the phone near a shopping center located on the main road between Chapel Hill and Durham. Police also retrieved Carson's laptop and memory cards from her campus office, according to the warrants.

Earlier today, police spokesman Lt. Kevin Gunter said investigators "have been exploring ways to enhance the quality of this photo in an effort to learn more about this person." Investigators think the vehicle in the photos could have been Carson's 2005 Toyota Highlander. They have been talking with representatives of Toyota to confirm that the vehicle in the photos is a Highlander.

Police again urged anyone with information about the case to call Crime Stoppers at 942-7515 or to go to www.crimestoppers-chcunc.org.

The UNC-Chapel Hill Board of Trustees has offered a $25,000 reward for information leading to an arrest.

Police have described the driver only as a black male in his late teens or early 20s, wearing a hooded sweatshirt, gloves and a cap with a star on it. They have called the man "a person of interest" and have stopped short of calling him a suspect in her death.

They have not said where the ATM is located or when the images were taken.

District Attorney Jim Woodall, whose jurisdiction includes Orange County, emphasized that people can anonymously give tips to police.

"It would be obviously much better if a person is willing to come forward and give their name to the authorities," he said. But investigators "would rather have anonymous information than no information at all."

The body of Carson, 22, was found in the Hillcrest neighborhood northeast of campus about 5:15 a.m. Wednesday with gunshot wounds, including one to the head.

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