Rae Theotis Carruth (born Rae Lamar Wiggins; January 20, 1974) is an American former professional football player who was convicted of conspiracy to murder. He played as a wide receiver for the Carolina Panthers of the National Football League (NFL). He played college football for the Colorado Buffaloes, earning first-team All-American honors in 1996. He was selected by the Panthers in the first round of the 1997 NFL draft and spent three seasons with the team.
On November 16, 1999, near his home in Charlotte, North Carolina, Cherica Adams, a real estate agent he had been dating who was 8 months pregnant with his child, was shot four times using a .357 caliber Charter Arms revolver by Van Brett Watkins Sr., a nightclub manager and an associate of Carruth. Adams managed to call 911, and said that Carruth had stopped his vehicle in front of hers, and that another vehicle drove alongside hers and its passenger had shot her. Carruth then drove away from the scene.
Soon after her admission to the hospital, the doctors induce a coma. Doctors delivered the baby via emergency caesarean section. Carruth went to the police and posted $3 million bail, on condition that if either Adams or the infant died, he would turn himself in. Adams died on December 14, 1999. In 2001, Carruth was found guilty of conspiracy to commit murder, shooting into an occupied vehicle, and using an instrument to destroy an unborn child. He was found not guilty of first degree murder, sparing him from possible execution. He was sentenced to 18 years and 11 months to 24 years and 4 months in prison. Including pre-trial confinement, he served 18 years of an 18-to-24-year sentence in the North Carolina state prison system and was released from the Sampson Correctional Institution in Clinton, North Carolina, on October 22, 2018.
The baby, named Chancellor Lee Adams, survived but suffered permanent brain damage and cerebral palsy as a result of being without oxygen for 70 minutes before he was born. Chancellor Lee graduated from Vance High School in 2021 at age 21.
Carruth is now married under another name while living in the southwestern United States, and refuses to discuss the events that led to Cherica's death.
