Carson autopsy report to be released

HILLSBOROUGH -- A prosecutor has agreed to the release of the autopsy report on UNC-Chapel Hill student Eve Carson at the end of the month.

District Attorney Jim Woodall said the autopsy report will be available June 30.

In response, The News & Observer today withdrew a motion asking a Superior Court judge to unseal the report.

"We see no reason to take up the court's time and energy to deal with an issue that apparently will become moot in a few days," the paper's attorney, Hugh Stevens, wrote in a letter to Judge Allen Baddour. "Therefore, we respectfully ask that the intervention motions be withdrawn from today's calendar, without prejudice to their being renewed in the event of a further motion to seal evidence or records in either case." Baddour had been scheduled this afternoon to consider the motion to unseal the report.

Baddour sealed the report last month for 60 days, pending his review to determine whether releasing it would compromise the ongoing police investigation. At the time, Woodall asked to keep the report confidential until all interviews of possible witnesses were complete.

Judges have sealed almost every public record related to the slaying of the UNC-CH student body president. Last month, Baddour upheld the sealing of search warrants as well as an unknown document after the Durham Herald-Sun moved to unseal them.

The autopsy report is expected to say how many times Carson was shot. It might also describe the weapon or weapons used.

Chapel Hill police responded to a report of gunfire and found Carson's body in a wooded neighborhood near campus about 5 a.m. March 5.

Police have said she was shot multiple times, including once in the right temple. Within days of the shooting, police released security-camera photographs of two suspects charged in the case, Demario Atwater and Laurence Alvin Lovette.