DURHAM - Two days before Eve Carson was shot, a man now charged in her killing showed up at a Wake County court for a probation violation hearing that could have landed him in jail, officials said Thursday.

The hearing for Demario James Atwater never happened because of a paperwork mistake, said Robert Lee Guy, director of the state Division of Community Corrections.

Officials have begun two internal investigations, one in the state Department of Correction and another in the Wake County courts.

The other suspect in the shooting, Laurence Alvin Lovette, 17, also was on probation. Law officers arrested him before dawn Thursday in Durham and charged him with first-degree murder in the death of Carson, the UNC-CH student body president. She was gunned down near campus March 5.

They charged Lovette also with first-degree murder in the slaying Jan. 18 of a Duke University graduate student. The student, Abhijit Mahato, was found dead in his Durham apartment during what police described as a citywide robbery spree. Durham investigators would not say why Lovette was charged in a case that seemed to have been resolved weeks earlier with the arrests of four people.

Efforts to reach Lovette's relatives were unsuccessful Thursday. It was unclear whether he has an attorney.

Both suspects had significant legal trouble before Carson's death.

Lovette, who dropped out of Jordan High School last year, was convicted Jan. 16 in Durham County of breaking into a house and stealing credit cards. He was put on 24 months of probation and would have had to check in with his probation officer every three months or so, said Keith Acree, spokesman for the Department of Correction.

Atwater, 21, a 2002 Jordan High dropout, was on probation stemming from a 2005 conviction in Wake County for misdemeanor breaking and entering and felonious larceny. For the next three years Atwater was to check in with a probation officer, Acree said.

Acree would not divulge the names of the correction officers assigned to the two cases, nor would he say when the last check-ins were.

However, Lovette was arrested during his probation, and Atwater was convicted.

Atwater's crime was serious enough that he should have been back in court immediately, Correction Department officials said.

'There's no hiding this'

In June 2006, a Butner officer responded to a report of a burglary and, according to police reports, found Atwater with a .40-caliber semiautomatic handgun.

In June 2007, Atwater pleaded guilty to possession of a firearm by a felon for that incident and again was sentenced to probation.

Not until November did a Wake County-based probation officer draw up paperwork to have Atwater's probation revoked, according to Guy.

Colon Willoughby, Wake County district attorney, said Thursday that court computers do not show a probation violation for Atwater and he is trying to find out why.

Atwater was not served with a violation warrant until Feb. 20, when he came to a probation office, Guy said. He was arrested and freed after he posted a $10,000 bond.

Guy said his department's review indicates that Atwater and a probation officer went to a Wake County courtroom March 3, but the case had been assigned to the wrong courtroom. It had been sent to a district courtroom, but should have been in superior court, Willoughby said.

The hearing was reset for March 31.

Guy said his main concern was not what happened earlier this month, but why it took so long to arrest Atwater on the probation violation in the first place.

Guy characterized Atwater as "high risk" and said officers did not see him often enough.

"It should have been more than one time a month," Guy said. "I've got concerns for the entire period of supervision."

Guy said the initial automatic review of Atwater's supervision showed a "lack of doing things timely, lack of quality supervision, all of the above. That's why I'm ordering this internal investigation. ... There's no hiding this. We have not done quality supervision of Mr. Atwater."

The department also will investigate Lovette's supervision, he said.

Tips were a big help

Lovette's peaceful surrender at 4:16 a.m. Thursday at a south Durham home closed a search in which heavily armed officers descended on at least three houses. They began hours after Atwater's arrest early Wednesday morning.

Durham Police Chief Jose Lopez said tipsters played a big role in leading officers to the suspects, who had been shown in convenience store and bank machine surveillance photos.

Chapel Hill police have gone behind closed doors now to review evidence. Police say they can't answer questions about where, when and how Carson encountered the suspects.

In Durham, City Council members once again found themselves talking about crime.

"We've had ... a lot of bad crimes," Councilman Eugene Brown said.

"This one and the fact that both of these guys were on probation, that tells us something about how Durham should not operate. This system is not protecting the public."

(Contributing to this report were staff writers Stanley B. Chambers Jr., Jesse James DeConto, Matt Dees, Eric Ferreri, Samiha Khanna and Joseph Neff, and researcher Brooke Cain.)